Impression of Patrons

I.S. Saluja

NEW YORK (TIP): “The biggest night of the year. A star-studded spectacle with the biggest Bollywood superstars! With extravagant productions and superbly choreographed performances, this magnificent evening honors the best talent in Indian Cinema. The evening will witness performances by Alia Bhatt, Katrina Kaif, Kriti Sanon, Salman Khan, Shahid Kapoor, Sushant Singh Rajput and more”, read an announcement on IIFA website.

 The Bollywood loving Indian Americans were thrilled. They had the intense desire to meet with their idols and also they had the means to buy the most expensive tickets and they lined up, expecting to meet with their favorite stars and have a swell time at the IIFA extravaganza. But then, it was not to be. At least, for many.

The Indian Panorama received a couple of letters describing IIFA as a hopeless and flop show, to be mild, and as a show meant to cheat patrons, at the worst. Media colleagues have also spoken about the event as the most ill organized and unwelcoming to spectators.

IIFA needs to know that its approval rating has surely gone down in this part of the world. A letter from a renowned and highly respected gentleman from medical profession says it all.

Dear Media Friends,

I am sure you have a very good insight on majority of what happened at and behind the IIFA show and that your coverage will narrate all that. From my perspective, I had a fair amount of doctor and other friends who flew in and bought expensive tickets 1500-5000 dollars and here is their feedback.

1. The promotional package forwarded to them had Shahrukh Khan, Priyanka Chopra as attending the show along with several Hollywood celebrities including Matt Damon, Julia Roberts etc. It is hard to resist the temptation of seeing SRK and Salmaan on the same stage. But, the show had none of that. This was a very cleverly done false and fraudulent marketing. Many of these people are exploring possibility of legal recourses in getting their money back, given the false claims and fraudulent marketing.

2. The VIP tickets 2500 and above had a pre -event cocktail listed as part of ticket price. But to their unpleasant surprise, they had to stand in line and buy an overpriced beer and chicken fingers etc…. So much for the VIP treatment

3. The green carpet concept was essentially a fraud in its own way, where there was lot of green but hardly any carpet.There was no VIP treatment in that green carpet.

4. The show only had one focus i.e. a TV show for the colors TV as was clear by the two hosts talking at length with a poorly written non entertaining script. Singers and Star line up was good, but even then Wizcraft managed to produce a boring show for the most part.

5. One of the moms wrote on my Facebook page that she felt sorry for those 200 kids and their dedicated parents who paid more than $300 to participate in dance with Salman Khan.

They spent 5 days and more than 15 hours a day in dance practice at MetLife stadium. All the kids sat in the brutal 100 degrees heat for the stars to come practice with them. Unfortunately, Salman never showed up for any of the practice until Thursday night at 8 pm.

On the day of the event the kids were asked to be there at 1pm because Salman wanted to practice with them. Once again Salman never showed up for practice. These poor kids were sitting at the stadium from 1pm and got to perform at 3 am. On Thursday, there was also an incident happened which injured seven or more kids. One of which got severely injured and ended up in the hospital.

Wizcraft had lot of issues in Tampa, but people took it as a first timer mistakes. However, this repeated and deliberate attempt of misleading people to get money and the mistreatment is not to be ignored and tolerated silently.

The public sentiment is clear by the fact that when I initially posted it on face book, the video post has had > 38,000 views and has been shared by around 80 people in 36 hours.

Knowing most of you, I am pretty sure and hope that your coverage will go beyond the spectacular stage decoration and glittery star pictures in portraying the feelings and frustration of people and kids.

Some folks are approaching the Indian Ambassador, FICCI and the office of attorney general for the fraud and mistreatment reporting.

If you have any other ideas, what should and can be done about this, please do let me know.

My cell # is 8568736633 for any questions.

Regards.

Sanjay

(Dr. Sanjay Gupta)

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