Viraf Sarkari, one of the directors at Wizcraft, who helped organise the CWG’s opening and closing ceremonies, lived to tell the tale to Aditi Phadnis...
You run Wizcraft, an event management company. So, what exactly do you do: Put together a bunch of carpenters, florists and light technicians and, for this, get very rich people to part with large sums of their money? Event management doesn’t even sound like a real job…
Oh, it is, I promise you. Wizcraft is 24 years old and is seen as a pioneer in event management. Three people founded it: Andre Timmins, Sabbas Joseph and myself. We are now a 300-strong company with offices in Dubai, Colombo and most major cities in India. Our current turnover is around Rs 300 crore. We managed to make a profit of 10-12 per cent last year.
Event management is not just carpenters, sound and lights. We do brand management and brand activation.
Management... OK. But what’s brand activation?
We launch brands for a client, using promotions, digital media and events. We also handle special events, like the Commonwealth Games.
A far cry from Xanadu, which, I understand, was a nightclub where the three of you met…
Yes, we used to work in Xanadu, a nightclub in Mumbai where we met. We got interested in event management initially because we used to do events to promote Xanadu — theme parties, events, magicians, jugglers… We graduated from there to organising theme parties for corporate head honchos, and quit to form Wizcraft to dedicate ourselves solely to the event management business.
Now, we work with some of the largest corporations in the country – Microsoft, IBM, Audi, Ernst & Young – across sectors. For instance, we’ve been handling Ernst & Young’s awards for years. So, that’s our main business. And then we handle special events like the Commonwealth Games.
More From This Section
Were there times when you thought: ‘This is not going to happen… The Commonwealth Games won’t take place…’?
There was so much negativity! We had a tough time answering all the questions people were asking, especially in the media. At one point, the team began asking itself: Hoga ya nahin? (Will it happen or not?). I told them it is going to happen. Other problems (questions about corruption, for instance) are not our problems. And so much politics! And I’m least interested in politics — I mean, I’m Parsi!
We all knew that if we do a great show, it will be a mood-changer. But every day, someone raised some new issue which would put a break to everything rolling along and coming together smoothly. And then there were the rains: It was so dismaying because they wouldn’t stop. That caused a lot of delay. We couldn’t do rehearsals, production got held up.
Also, we were dealing with not one, not two, but so many great artistes — dealing with egos became a problem sometimes.
For instance...?
(With visible reluctance) Well, for the ‘Tree of Knowledge’ segment — classical dance, you know? We were trying to get one music composer for all the different dance forms. The ‘gurus’ wouldn’t agree. Finally, they got it done themselves.
We’ve gone through a lot of learning. But on one thing we were clear: It was for our country and we had to showcase the best.
The aerostat was the central part of the ceremonies. At one point, it seemed the plan to get an aerostat might be shot down. Did you have a Plan B?
The idea behind the aerostat was to have a production element which would be a technical ‘wow’. We wanted to do a vertical lift. Not just a mechanical lift, but with the things you saw — a ‘guru’, the ‘kundalini chakras’, etc. We wanted it to be decorative with a projection screen. So, we contacted Mark Fisher, one of the world’s best designers. He understood what we wanted. But this is a highly customised item — it isn’t a sofa you can buy from a furniture shop.
We put the suggestion before the Group of Ministers (GoM). They asked a hundred questions and, then, after they’d cleared it, we tried to find out who could execute it — because an idea is just an idea until it can be executed. There is this firm called Lindstrand which makes hot air balloons for various corporate clients including Richard Branson. Obviously, this was not an item which would go to L1 (the lowest bidder). We were hired to give advice. We gave it and the GoM cleared it. So, there is no question of an inquiry or the CBI or anything…
But that wasn’t the end of the aerostat story. We were then required to make a presentation to the security agencies. So, we went before a huge meeting in North Block where every security agency India has was represented – SPG, NSG, police, Army, Department of Nuclear Energy, atomic energy and space – all the security superpowers of India were there. They wanted to know what would happen if the balloon was attacked by bullets, rockets and projectiles? What would happen to the gas if the balloon burst? Was helium inflammable? Etc, etc.
The GoM then decided to go ahead. It was a lot of work in terms of convincing people. The balloon is now the Organising Committee’s property.
As the agency that put the whole thing together, were you happy with A R Rehman’s theme song? Not that it was much of a song. It was just four words uttered very loudly…
This is a subjective matter. I’m sure he thought it was his best work…
But it ended with ‘Jai Ho’, which has been used in another film. It wasn’t an original score...
We liked ‘Jai Ho’ because we thought it had an uplifting air to it.
Come to think of it, ‘We will rock you’ in the closing ceremony was originally by British rock band Queen, while most of the other songs were from Bollywood. None were original...
I am a professional Disc Jockey (DJ). The segment you’re talking about was to illustrate the ‘Music of Universal Love’. We were not doing the closing ceremony just for Indians. Foreign guests were present and the music had to strike a chord with them as well. We wanted Sufi, folk, Indipop and Western, and the lilt had to be Indian, but not so Indian that the foreign guests wouldn’t get it. So, I brought my professional DJ sense to the table. The team sat down and discussed it. The idea was to have a beat that would make people want to dance. At the same time, not too Bollywood-ish.
So, how much money did you make?
We were paid a fee. We were happy with that. We didn’t have a turnkey contract. The Organising Committee contracted the people.
It was in hundreds of crore, or tens…?
Oh tens of crores, definitely! We had 150 people working with us. They had to be housed, paid for travel and fed. But, at the end of the day, I think we did manage to change the mood.
We did it for India!