As with all our events, we got off to a prompt start as planned at 6:30 pm. As always, our sincere thanks to all patrons for their early arrival without which this would not have been possible ! Sathish Duraisamy then quickly got onto introducing the core leadership team of “I for India” and our families, which was especially useful to the newbies to our event.
Children always come first in all our events and hence the event began with the first hour dedicated to our little guests, starting with even a special greeting from Mickey at their arrival performed by Miro from Mircko Party. Miro then enthralled the children with his bag of tricks, including some interactive magic, fun and participation from the children in games, balloon modelling, etc.
With the children all in good humour now, it was the turn of adult patrons to be entertained. The stage was taken over by Sara with a scintillating belly dance in 3 separate acts which also very engaging and interactive with audience participation. The fun was so much enhanced with a really sportive audience who happily came onto the stage in groups to join in the dance and learn a few groovy moves, and also have a photoshoot at the end of the show !
Following this was a mimicry performance from Abhinav Sahai with a fun concept involving Bollywood actors across different functions in a corporate set-up. Besides the grandeur and experience, the round table seating also worked well for a table service for starters during the entertainment. Shortly after, the audience was engrossed in the free game of Tambola conducted by our Sridhar Balachander with some very exciting prizes (Espirit Designer watches, Silver Jewellery and Bluetooth Headsets).
This was followed by a further round of raffle prizes firstly from our sponsor PT Wealth Management (luxury gift hamper and fibit), Lifeline Protect awarding a Tablet (need spec) , Tilda giving away a 20 kg bag of Tilda rice and Sri Rathigas giving free drinks vouchers. Following this were several raffle prizes from given away by the I for India team including Sriv Venkatesh and Karthik Raghavan which had 3 designer perfumes as 3rd prize, 2 fitbits as second prize and an LG LED TV as the grand first prize !! It was great to see the audience in surprise and delight with so many give-aways, almost every table winning some prize or the other ! Ramki Krishnamoorthy then closed the formal proceedings of the night with the vote of thanks.
No Indian event is complete without a hospitable meal and the audience was treated to a sumptuous vegetarian and non-vegetarian buffet dinner and desserts. JK and his team from Sri Rathigas once again did a fantastic job with delicious food as always, but also raising the experience with a full team providing table service, as well as the beverage counter open throughout the event.
Meanwhile,Prakash and his team had the DJ and dance floor set-up ready and opened up to the audience who merrily danced away until New Year 2017 was rung in with a countdown cheer from the entire audience with a live telecast of the London fireworks and celebration !
We are truly humbled and pleased with the smooth conduct of an event of this scale and once again wish to thank all our patrons for making this happen. Given the change in seating format, our capacity for the event was slightly reduced than last year and our sincere apologies once again to all the patrons who could not join us this time. We were unable to accommodate many requests which came in the last few weeks while we were already fully sold out by November.
Our heartfelt thanks and gratitude once again to our event partners (Nakshatra Hall, Sri Rathigas, Mircko Party, DJ Prakash), as well as sponsors (Tilda, PT Wealth Management, Lifeline Protect, DNS Accountants).
Our special thanks and gratitude to each and every I for India patron who attended this event and made it a memorable night, it certainly felt like a large family gathering !
The photos of the New Year’s Event and Testimonials from attendees are attached below.