Anupam Anand is a Professional Anchor, Personality Development & Communication Skills trainer based in Bangalore. He started doing Anchoring on stage in his college days and he fell in love with it. The love was so deep that he didn’t bother to join a mainstream job although he is a Civil Engineer. That’s why he says, “Unfortunately a Civil Engineer, Fortunately, a Passionate & Professional Anchor, Personality Development & Communication Skills trainer”. Having spent nearly a decade in the event industry, Anupam decided to decode the inner know-how of the industry for the curious souls out there who reach out to him on Instagram(@anupam_aanand) with various questions.
Events are something that keeps happening on day-to-day basis. If there’s a festival like Dussehra, Dandiya & Garba Nights are celebratory events. When a film is about to release, its actors/actresses do promotional events. There’s an app launch, that calls for a launch event. If the app doesn’t get organic growth, let’s do a marketing event. A kid is turning one and the family wants a huge celebration, a social event. All these are done by a lot of people behind it. Together they constitute what we call the “Event Industry” or “EventWalas”.
The event industry looks very attractive to those who aren’t a part of it. After parties, weekend getaways, and lots of money to show off but how much of this is reality? Often what you see is not real. The “Eventwalas” mostly can’t party because even at parties they’re organising things here and there. Their weekend getaways do look fascinating, but they are working on weekends. You might see luxury cars and expensive items with them, but how many of those do they really own? You won’t know, ever. Because you are fascinated by those 15-second stories of these exotic-looking things and now you want an in on this industry.
Alright, here’s how you can enter this industry of glamour and glitter. And no, it’s not by doing some online course or college degree in event management. Although they do create a good base for it the most important thing required in the event industry is skill. You need to learn to listen, process and then speak, all while not taking too much time either. These skills are the basics that need to be acquired even before you think of entering the industry.
Now you want to enter the industry but again you’re awestruck with the number of roles available here. You can be an Anchor, an Event Manager, a DJ, a VJ, a Stage Artist, a Promoter and many other things. There are roles that put you on stage and there are other roles that keep you behind the stage. If you don’t have clarity on what you want to do but you really want to be part of the Event Industry, how can you understand what roles you like or what roles you can do? The best way is to be an intern. When you’re an intern, there’s no specific role for you, one moment you might be doing patchwork on stage, and the next moment you’ll be a promoter for the same event. This way you can learn and understand the job responsibilities of different roles, workloads, and earnings.
Talking about the earnings in the event industry, Anupam says just one thing, “Rather than going into figures, I would say that I never had to do any job in the past 8 years, I’ve never taken money from my parents after becoming an anchor neither borrowed a penny from any friend. I live in Bangalore, considered the country’s most expensive city. I guess that’s good enough to make a guess about my earnings. I’m happy with my freelance work.”
Yes, that’s another benefit (or disadvantage, however you may perceive it) of working in the event industry. Sometimes you work the whole week, sometimes you work on some days of the week and sometimes you don’t have anything to do for weeks. You might have to work on days when everyone else is holidaying. But that’s the beauty of it, if you fall in love with your work and you’re passionate about it, you enjoy everything about it. Just like Anupam does when he performs in front of thousands of people at various events.
The event industry is an industry full of uncertainties. Itinerary changes at the last moment, guest changes at the last moment, and a lot of things might go wrong, but you should learn how to be instant in decision-making to make it right. You might get appreciation, you might even be abused at times, but as Mr. M.K. Gandhi used to say, “Keep your head down and do your work”. Keep giving your 100% dedication and you’ll excel.
Just like every other industry, this industry comes with pros and cons together. You’ll have to know your needs and balance things out accordingly to see if the earnings and learnings suit you or not. Because you are the only one responsible for things in your life, try to keep them the right way.
We hope you gained some insights about the event industry from this article. If you liked this opinion, you might also want to watch the 2nd Season of The Weekly with ChoubeyJi produced by Lockdown Productions(@lockdownproductionsofficial), Conceptualised By Anupam Anand(@anupam_aanand) and Created By Aditya Kumar Choubey(@chulbulachoubey) is streaming now on YouTube. You must watch this new season for in-depth knowledge about a few subjects that are a very big part of your life but very less talked about. You can binge-watch the 2nd Season of The Weekly with ChoubeyJi here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjqoKiQeB7E&list=PLmJVU0uUfGLagEUxr-RB4L1pjaBTS1vwf
