Making the Show Go On: Pains of Organising in Bangladesh
With all the event requests you get on Facebook every day, it's easy to assume that organising events is easy. I mean, if everyone and anyone can organise, it must be easy, right? You'd be surprised at just how wrong that assumption is. Organising events has the normal hassles of gathering resources and planning but here in Bangladesh a few more unique issues add to that list.
There are different types of events but something that almost all of them have in common is the need for funds. And know that whatever you're organising, whether on a large scale or small, you will have a hard time gathering sponsors and funds. Abu Yousuf Md. Abdullah, convenor for Dhaka University Debating Society, recalls how hard it is to get sponsors. “Naturally whether someone wants to support us should depend on the merit and quality of our plan. But here it depends more on personal connections. You might have a groundbreaking project and not get support but also have a generic idea but get a lot of support”. Nur-E-Elahi Shonchoy, co-founder of MazeCity, one of Bangladesh's biggest Anime Communities who organised MazeCon 1 and 2, adds another angle to the sponsorship dilemma. “It's very difficult to explain to sponsors what anime or Japanese culture is about. These concepts are totally alien to them.” Of course, not getting sponsors means you'll have less funds, which will drastically decrease the quality of your event. “If you want to book a place like BICC, which costs nearly Tk 8 lakhs for 2 days, you do need a lot of sponsors. Otherwise the event is going to have space constraints”, Shonchoy laments.
But suppose sponsorships are something you deal with somehow. A big budget won't really solve all the problems. You will then have to deal with some of the realities of Bangladesh. For example, outdoor events require police permission and while the process of application is simple enough, the typical Bangladeshi system means it might take weeks or even months for your application to be processed.
But those problems are just for events organised by students, right? Wrong. Having its fair share of youth, LiveSquare is one of the country's biggest entertainment companies and is the mastermind behind concert franchises like RockNation and ABC. Afrida Mahbub, Director of LiveSquare, recalls the various problems. “Venues are a big problem. Sometimes they're big but the acoustics are really bad for a concert and if a venue has everything, it is almost sure to be far beyond our reach financially. And if you're organising a concert, the mainstream sounds systems are generally out-dated. So you have to go out of your way to get special arrangements. And then of course you have to bargain with artists too. If you're looking to get a big name artist, the negotiations can take a while”. Mahbub also points out how events like concerts have become a pretty large part of the economy of many countries but remain neglected from state level in Bangladesh. “We are missing out pretty badly,” she says. The fact that strikes and blockades can appear literally out of nowhere and throw your plans into chaos can't be overlooked either.
Like most things in Bangladesh, this sector also has plenty of problems. But the sector is growing so there's no reason to be disheartened. “Once you grit your teeth through it and just get on with it,” Mahbub says, “It becomes rewarding”.
Comments