From Pipe Dreams to Proshows
Written on November 6th, 2019 by {"login"=>"jcbitshyd", "email"=>"journal@hyderabad.bits-pilani.ac.in", "display_name"=>"Journal Club, BPHC", "first_name"=>"", "last_name"=>""}Proshows are one of the most exhilarating parts of any fest. Bright nights filled with adrenaline, dancing and laughter. But what kind of work goes behind these proshows? We sat down with the COSTAAN of DoPE (Department of Professional Events) of 2019-20, Nikhil Bhasin to find out.
Q1) How do you choose proshow artists? What research goes into choosing an artist?
Ans) Firstly, we filter out artists that have already performed here as we don’t want people to watch the same artist twice. Then we compare with what’s trending among the Hyderabad and the Bitsian crowd. At times, we also look for new and upcoming artists within Hyderabad like the Hyderabadi rapper, Street Violator who came for Arena 2019. Then we rate them on a scale of 1-10 based on a variety of parameters. We watch their previous performances and look up their reviews to estimate the sellability of the artist and decide on the branding strategy to sell tickets for the show.
Q2) What tools do you use to find these trending artists?
Ans) Let’s say we’re looking into Divine as a proshow performance. We either contact the places where they’ve performed recently or we check their online portals and analyse the responses there. We also check their Instagram pages, FB pages and their Youtube channels.
Q3) Does the BITS tag offer any help when you’re approaching some of the biggest names in the entertainment industry?
Ans) It doesn’t help much with getting the artists. But, it does help with sponsorships. For example, Sunburn Campus is sponsoring EDM Nite this time. They’ve done 6 IITs recently and now they’re coming to BITS. They’re providing artists and the Sunburn tag.
Along with this, smaller artists also contact us to get an opportunity to perform on a much larger stage. They contact us via the phone numbers put on posters and messaging the fest pages on FB. They might even agree to perform for free.
Q4) What kind of demands do you get from artists? Have you ever faced any unreasonable demands? How do you deal with such demands?
Ans) We get a “Hospitality Rider” from every artist which basically tells us what all they need for their stay in their green rooms at campus. That includes food, beverages, refreshments and hundreds of Red Bull's. Some of them ask for liquor, which we do not provide. The artist is informed that this is against college rules and we cannot have that within college premises. While liquor is a strict no, we do our best to entertain other requests the artists and artist managers may make.
The last unreasonable request I remember was a foreign EDM artist asking for two pairs of underwear, which we did lend him. Another time a local EDM artist asked for some girls to be present on stage while he’s playing certain songs. Such demands we do not entertain, since it can be a safety concern.
Q5) Why does DoPE have such a small team? Won’t it help to have a larger team and divide work?
Ans) No, because our work is highly confidential and we cannot afford to let the word get out about the proshow artists before the poster is released. So keeping that information limited to a smaller team helps in ensuring this. So we try to maintain a small yet highly efficient team by having 2 to 3 rounds of rigourous inductions. On the day of the fest, timely coordination among departments is critical, for a smooth show.
Q6) How do you ensure efficient communication between Departments during fests? We’ve heard chatter that relations between DoPE, LSD and some other Departments are somewhat strained. So how do you ensure that this is managed smoothly?
Ans) You’re right when you say that a lot of communication is needed and it’s pretty hectic work. This mainly boils down to the discussions we have with each other before the fest starts. Before the fest we just sit down and divide our work during the fest. We know our work very well and we don’t step into LSD’s production business. In turn, they don’t interfere with our hospitality management and artist communications. As far as staying in touch with the band is concerned, it’s equal responsibility for both DoPE and LSD. LSD stays in touch with the sound engineers and their managers for the bands and EDM artists and ensures that their tech rider is met while we handle the accommodations, flights and everything else.
Q7) Regarding publicity of the event, we’ve heard people say that DoPE does DePP’s work. What would you say about that?
Ans) We believe in promoting the entire fest rather than just the proshows. The proshows just add a bit of charm to the fest. The main objective for the fest, let’s say ATMOS is to showcase our students’ talent in the technical field in terms of the workshops and competitions that the students conduct. As far as doing DePP’s work is concerned, our work is not limited to calling the artists here and ensuring that the show runs fine. We also look into people investing their time and money to come here and watch the fruit of our work. Not just that, if we see any other Departments lacking in their work during the fest, our team stands ready to step in and get that job done.
Q8) We heard that you had been approaching the bands coming this ATMOS for some time. What caused the delay and how did you overcome it?
Ans) Yes we did have an issue with the dates. It’s difficult to give you all the details, but I’ll try to give you a gist of things. So there’s this guy that we contact to approach some artists cause he gets them at a cheaper rate. The others we approach ourselves. This time we used our “personal contact” to approach Anand Bhaskar. We were initially able to finalise the date as 20th for their performance. Now to lock a date with an artist, we need to pay half their fees as advance payment. We didn’t have those advances at that time so we only had a verbal agreement with Anand Bhaskar’s management. Then they got confirmation for a recording on the 20th which they couldn’t cancel. So we had to shift their performance to the 19th. And this time, I didn't want to risk another change in the date, so we pooled in our own money from the members and paid the advance to finalise the performance.
Q9) Coming to the Comedy Night, Azeem Banatwalla; one of the biggest names in comedy, Rahul Dua of Comicstaan fame, another very big name.What extra effort did it take to get them both on the same night?
Ans) The only extra effort it took us was planning everything out well in advance. We knew the quality of the artists was amazing. If we look at last ATMOS, we had Naveen Richards. That performance wasn’t well received cause half the crowd was inclined towards Hindi. A similar thing happened with Rahul Subramanian’s performance. So this time we’re trying to cater to both audiences by having Azeem and Rahul Dua. Rahul Dua will attract all the desi crowd, whoever speaks Hindi or Punjabi and Azeem is for the English crowd. We also have BITSMUN delegates coming over who will prefer English comedy.
Finally, we reach out to relevant sponsors (from our research). Higher sponsorships enable us to get more renowned artists.
Q10) Any memorable experiences you’ve had in your time at DoPE?
Ans) For DoPE, fests are just a collection of sleepless nights. Starting from early morning airport pickups, to setting up the stage for sound checks, to scheduling cabs, to ensuring the safety of the artists, to setting up the green rooms in Acad Block, and finally the performance.
We bond really well as a team and enjoy the action unfold from backstage.
Few moments such as a power cut during live performance, and a rain scare were challenging. In these moments, staying alert and finding the fastest solution possible helped us overcome it.
Interview By Shuddhabho Nandi and Shreya Guda