Sunday, March 27, 2011

AOL Austin fundraiser event with Omkara

March 26th 2011 was a big day in the history of Art of living foundation’s Austin chapter, for one we hosted the biggest fund raiser event in the chapters history and second we did the event with our long time friends Omkara. A gathering of over 600 people who were totally entertained and enthralled by Omkara.

It started with a simple intention of Sridhar Adapalli (volunteer with Art of living Austin foundation) to host a fund raiser event for Art of Living Austin center with Omkara. Over the last couple of months, volunteers from the foundation made time in their busy schedule to show up at all the possible cultural and social gatherings to spread the word about the event. Some of the volunteers worked towards getting sponsorships for the events while others were busy with e-marketing for the event.  The fruits of all the efforts was evident on the event day when the auditorium was filled to the brim (~600 people) and we were scrambling for chairs to accommodate the last few people who showed up a tad late (what a wonderful problem to have).

Thanks to good leadership shown by the team leads and great efforts by the volunteers, the big day went very smooth barring a couple of minor glitches. To issue concert tickets for over 600 people and provide food and drinks to over 350 people isn’t a small thing after all. The setup team had the hall ready by the scheduled time, the ticketing team was very professionally managed, the food team packed and distributed the food as though they had been trained in the art and the ushering team which managed the seating of all the people. All in all it was a job well done and executed beyond excellence. 

The band itself did a wonderful job in keeping the attention of the people for the whole 3 hours of the event duration. The addition of Bollywood Shake provided the much needed color to the melody. The band had picked the right set of numbers to sing, the songs varied from the oldies to present day hits and the compilation had both Hindi and Tamil languages. It was evident that we had a great show when the entire dance area in front of the stage was occupied with audience dancing away and the band had to stretch their time in honoring the “once more” requests.

I do not know the financial aspect of the event, how much money the foundation raised or the final head count of the audience or the number of food boxes sold. I am sure I will have these numbers pretty soon and will share it once I have the same.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

It sure was a memorable treat to Austin including all of us.
Hats off to the tireless efforts by all Art Of Living volunteers and indeed Omkara & Bollywood Shake for a spectacular show.

Fantastic sharing Manju! As always!

Arvind said...

Nice work on the event overall & also well articulated Manju.

Way to Go Art of Living Austin team!

Unknown said...

Beautiful sharing Manju as always. I heard we had to send back people bcoz the hall was full, what a problem to have. Great work, team.

Manjunath said...

@Anonymous - can you please leave your name next time you post a comment?
@Yamuna - No we did not send anybody back, we had to stall them till we arranged for extra seating

Unknown said...

Good, concise summary, Manju. We will share the financial details once we account for all income and expenses.

Unknown said...

Awesome sharing Manju and that too writing up so promptly :) Needless to say, I enjoyed the show and being part of it.