IIFA BRIEFING

The IIFA week finally kicked off after much wait on the 19th of June, 2011 and here's how the day went:

The volunteers congregated at the Fairmont Royal York hotel's concert hall at around 10 in the morning. Out of the 800 odd applicants 334 have been chosen to be 'Friends of IIFA' this year and the congregation today represented nearly half of it. The other half was assigned team leads and departments on Friday, the 17th of June.
I reached the  lobby at about 9.45 am and the wait to be seated at the presentation arena was definitely long. The first thing we were required to do was get hold of a consent form from inside the hall. Three of IIFA's management members were present inside (registration desk), giving these forms out. On it were spaces provided to fill in our names and addresses and the rules of conduct as a IIFA team member.

 After waiting for an hour, at around 10.04 we started entering the concert hall. The first tick off on the to do list was to hand over the forms at the registration desk. We then tailgated each other to the inner sanctum, where the briefing started in a moment's time and addressing us were members of IIFA's core team. A slide show followed and we were taken on a journey of IIFA's last eleven glorious years. IIFA began in 2000 and the first ceremony was held in London at The Millennium Dome. Thereafter, each year the event has been hosted in different countries worldwide, and the chief consideration that the  organizers keep in mind while selecting the host country is the density of South Asian population residing in it. Given below is a list of 'where and when' of IIFA Awards:

Year	City	Country
2000	London	United Kingdom
2001	Sun City	South Africa
2002	Genting Highlands	Malaysia
2003	Johannesburg	South Africa
2004	Singapore	Republic of Singapore
2005	Amsterdam	The Netherlands
2006	Dubai	United Arab Emirates
2007	Yorkshire	United Kingdom
2008	Bangkok	Thailand
2009	Macau	Macau
2010	Colombo	Sri Lanka
2011	Toronto	Canada

Following this information session, the next speaker Priyank, presented us with a slide show of Macau backstage activities of IIFA, to demonstrate how the volunteers are expected to function; what emerged, was a picture of fun and extravaganza. He also told us about his experience as a "friend of IIFA" at Macau. Yes, he too had started his career as a volunteer like us and later joined Wizcraft out of his love for the magic of the world of entertainment and media.

      Here he is---

& there we are---

Now, for the real deal--- who does what!!

The IIFA management has identified different departments with respective heads, for instance:

 

Every department has a team leader and a band of volunteers are assigned to this lead. The team lead reports to the head of the department and the volunteers report to the team lead. Now that's easy to understand...isn't it? :)

Here is where I come in. I am in-charge of a 6 member team (excluding me) which is assisting in an after IIFA event called "RK Retrospective". 

 This is my lovely team: Right from me- Megha, Hena & Shraddha; Left from me- Nav, Isha & Ilaha.

 The RK Retrospective pays tribute to Sri Raj Kapoor, the Indian Film legend by showcasing a number of his most celebrated films like Mera Naam Joker, Sri Charso Bees, and so on. Well, at first I really thought that it was a bummer- as we would not be working at the event venue- Rogers Stadium; but later I realized that its actually going to be a pretty nice experience because the Retrospective is an 'entry by invitation' event where a very exclusive gathering is going to be received on the 26th evening. The entire Kapoor family (all three generations) is going to be there as also many other twinkling stars of the Bollywood galaxy! So at the moment I am all excited and anxious to get going...my team is expected at the Tiff Bell Lightbox on 22nd June and we are going to be given our IIFA T-shirts and IDs on the same day. 

More updates will be following shortly, till then...see you soon in Joyee Nation!