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ALSO FEATURED 4 December 2011, EXPERIENTIAL MARKETING 29
Behind the scenes at the Think Festival
running the event was cobbled together from friends and
family members with a single point agenda of achieving
the impossible. This is a unique example of crowd sourcing
talent to create an event team. Most of everyone knew
of someone who had a unique skill they could use. What
worked in their favour was the learning from film sets. Films
in Mumbai often have a 12 hour turnaround and that had
prepped the team for all kinds of emergencies and needs.
The team was handling 60 plus speakers that ranged
from political heavyweights to reigning superstars, artists
to authors, moreover the sessions were time bound and
all this in a setup with Watchout screens, AV content, live
performances, a Twitter feed on screen and much more.
Somehow the event was touched by magic.
Query them on the challenges at the event and they all
say, there were one too many to discuss. However, Tiya
shared one. Amidst the entire hurry flurry backstage, a girl
tripped and held onto the scaffolding to get a grip. The left
wing of the stage began to collapse inwards on to actors
Imran Khan and Abhay Deol, and film directors Dibakar
Banerjee and Kiran Rao. Karan and Tiya literally pulled
the stage up and hung from it for dear life in order to save
it from falling. The Iron Hands crew came running in and in
no time they had seven people holding onto the side wing,
three bossing the carpenters and praying for the lunch
break to rectify the issue.
All this was done for the sheer love of executing what
seemed a challenge. Tiya’s only frustration was that
unlike a film, at an event everything is in full view, while
on camera you can move things out of the frame. But then
again the expertise they brought to the event was with the
Tarun Tejpal and Tiya Tejpal
understanding that the Tehelka team were the directors
and Iron Hands were the building blocks of the production.
The result was a blockbuster. Do event companies need
to feel threatened No, this was just done for the love of it.
But what I found incredible, was the crowd sourced model
and the learning of film that the team brought to the event.
Events are a multi disciplinary medium and the more we
cross-pollinate with other disciplines, the more we learn.
Photo Courtesy: Shailendra Pandey/Tehelka