Lalitt Gattani, the CEO of Showcraft Productions Pvt Ltd, shared his perspective on event management and the future of this Industry. He started his discourse by sharing his perspective and pointing out that our mothers and women are the best event managers since they handle many duties at the same time.
“Event management is something that you imagine, that you dream and that you achieve. It’s probably the only industry where you start from nothing. You start from a thought which comes to your mind and then you put it on paper. Also, it is mostly in terms of design, in terms of simulation – 3D animation sequences or 3D sets etc. But, despite that, the primary design is shown as a 3D thought or a 2D thought”, said Gattani.
He also said, “Event management is not a 9 to 5 job. It is something which comes from your heart and not only from your heart, I would say, it comes from every organ – heart, lungs, kidney because you got to stress; you got to be so passionate about what you want to deliver.” Then he shared the philosophy of his company Showcraft, which is, “If you can imagine it, you can achieve it. If you can dream it, you can become it.”
Lalitt Gattani started his career as a graphic designer. Then, with a strong vision of not having a margin around, he established his cable network named Prime Cable Network Pvt Ltd. He then created India’s first sovereign channel on cable for English movies and ethical programming. He was also the creator of India’s first cable FM station and the Cable Tele Videos (India) Pvt Ltd.
In the year 2000, he founded Showcraft, and with a great talent in the art of anticipation and creative planning, he established his company as of today’s most progressive ‘Technology Inspired’ agency in India. With a hard-core and dedicated production team, Gattani produced and conducted over 1,200 shows all over the world from the Indian Prime Minister’s residence in New Delhi to Shaheed Birsa Munda Stadium in Ranchi and from the city Amphitheatre in Muscat to the Oakland Arena in California in the USA.
Showcraft is one of the privileged agencies, which has the appellation of doing several world-famous events like world’s largest biryani, which is still a Guinness world record, in the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak where 150 fly lights flew in a swarm and created a beautiful image on the sky in the shape of ‘Omkar’. They also did event management for the World Toilet Summit, which was conducted to discuss the world’s best sanitation solution for India. Under the supervision of Gattani, the Showcraft team has presented multifarious events, extending from selected viewers of 500 to a huge crowd of 15 lacs.
Gattani expressed his opinion about the multitasking role of an event manager and said, “I feel that event management is like a military operation. Not just a military operation, it is a surgical strike because every event you go out and do there is that accuracy which is required, there is that timeline to be maintained. So, discipline is very critical. All of you – the students and the people who are in the business are commandoes.” He described the 5C’s of event management being concept, coordination, control, culmination and closeout. He also defined the five characteristics of an event manager – composure under stress, attention to detail, lone warrior, hopeless optimist and x-factor.
Speaking about the challenges of the event management industry during the Covid-19 pandemic, he said, “Yes, for some time, the on-ground events will not happen. There’s going to be a hybrid model or a combination of online and offline events. In fact, we are currently in the process of a major activation where the focus will be online. In terms of money, obviously, when things go online, sums of money come down drastically, but I feel it’s a temporary phase. Events will come back and it is just a matter of time.”
Talking about what should be the focus, the content, and the idea of how to learn event management in a structured manner, he said, “I think the most important thing which one needs to learn is physical and mental strength. As an event manager, it’s very important for you to be physically and mentally strong. So, I would suggest t犀利士 hat there should be physiological and mental training, mental conditioning and physical conditioning as parts of the curriculum. The lifestyle of today’s youngsters is not very healthy and impressive but for events, you need to have a very good mind, body and soul. In the technical part, knowing the technology, understanding the technology and then getting to decode the technology and adapt as per your specific event requirements are important. The most critical part is that one should never stop dreaming.”
Explaining how to make events look large on a low budget, he smiled and said, “Now, in this digital integration, you can amplify your events and take it to the next level in terms of the physical aspects of events. Unfortunately, you need a budget to create things in that scale, but in terms of the thought you can.” He gave the reference of MTV’s CSR activity campaign named ‘Dunk the Junk’ to give an example on how to create low budget events innovatively.
The author, Rituparna Mukhopadhyay is associated with Adamas University Media School.
