Sabbas Joseph making the opening address

Invitation to Partner Delhi Festival, Business of Sports & More: Day 1 of EEMAGINE ‘16

by  Shantanu Jain Business Events | May 1, 2016 | News

EEMA EEMAGINE 2016 Gitikka Ganju Dhar Sabbas Joseph Mandeep Singh

EEMAGINE, the annual convention of the Event and Entertainment Management Association (EEMA) got off to a celebratory start at The Grand New Delhi. The 3 day convention from May 1- May 3, 2016 aims to bring together global professionals and imagineers from the events, entertainment, sports, cinema, advertising and marketing industry under one roof to discuss trends and map the future of the industry as a whole. 

The first day of the EEMAGINE 2016 began with the anchor Gitikka Ganju Dhar welcoming the members of the events fraternity to the convention. Mandeep Singh, Gen Sec EEMA, formally welcomed all in attendance and thanked the members of EEMA for making EEMAGINE a success. He said, “It’s not the content and entertainment that makes EEMAGINE happen but it happens because of all of you. EEMAGINE is all about the networks you make, the gyan you soak, and bonds that you renew.”

EEMA President, Sabbas Joseph, got on to the stage next introducing and welcoming the Minister of Tourism, Government of Delhi, Kapil Mishra to the convention. He applauded the efforts of the Delhi Government that approved single window licensing procedures for events in the capital. 

Kapil Mishra delivered the opening address at the convention. The minster talked about how EEMA as a federation was paving the way for other industry federations to follow. Mishra also asked the members of the events fraternity to join the Delhi government in the upcoming Brand Delhi Campaign and also announced that an annual Delhi festival is slated to be launched in November ’16 this year. The festival will be organized on the lines of the Edinburgh Festival and Dubai Festival. 

Special address on the subject ‘Media, Entertainment, Sports – The New Frontiers’ was delivered by Anurag Batra, Chairman, BW Businessworld who spoke about how the sports industry was growing faster than the media industry. He cited that the reason for this growth is the new sporting leagues launched in the country. 

Post his address a panel discussion on the subject ‘The Business of Sports: It’s time to play HU TU TU’ was rolled out. This session moderated by Syed Sultan Ahmed, Managing Director, Edumedia emphasised how India was still was a cricket dominated country where other spots struggled to thrive in. 

Speaking on the subject Harish Krishnamachar, Sports Guru and Founder, Sportsoid said, “The television viewership of Hindi General Entertainment Channels was 30% where as that of Sports was merely 2.6%. All forms of sports are coming together as a result of convergence of mediums and technology which means that there is a huge room for growth.”

Adding to him, Dhiraj Malhotra, Tournament Director- ICC World Cup said, “Cricket has taken over 40 years to become this dominant and hence it’s unfair to have cricket like expectations from others sports at this stage. All other sports and their leagues have an ecosystem and we have to be patient for them to bloom.  He added that sport IP’s which are governed professionally will continue to become rock solid successes like the Pro Kabbadi League. 

Gautam Bhimani, Sports Anchor explained his stance on the subject by saying that the key for other sporting leagues to grow is that we need to SEX them up by adding more entertainment quotient and excitement.

Well known sports anchor Saba Karim spoke about how patience was so important for other sports to emerge as creating a mind space needs time. He said, “You need to have faith in the substance of the sport you are looking to promote. The success of IPL has thought us that sports are a spectacle driven industry. For other sports to grow it is important to show spectators what that they want to see.”

The day concluded with the annual general body meeting of EEMA members followed by the performance of singer Rekha Bhardwaj. 

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