Blood on the dance floor

The debacle at the famed charity ball in Karachi brought about a host of issues and left guests shocked and dismayed.

LAHORE: The debacle at the famed charity ball in Karachi on New Year’s Eve brought about a host of issues as security was breached and many sleazy men entered the venue as well as the dramatic collapse of the dance floor that had nearly a hundred guests lying bruised on the floor.

A ball is meant to be a quintessential sophisticated affair with a very select guest list, impeccable décor and ambience and an impressive food spread. It appeared that all these vital elements of an exquisite high society event were lost and the evening turned out to be quite a nightmare for those involved.

A decade ago there was no concept of an event manager. Who ever heard of someone else organising your personal event? Your party - your problem. At best family members would pitch in, at worst you would have to do the arrangements yourself. Being a closed society to include someone from outside the periphery of kinship was deeply frowned upon. Yet look at us now, from birthdays to weddings to corporate events to even soyems, we cannot function without an event manager.

Of course for most part it is fashionable to be able to say you have an event manager for your social event, the more renowned and expensive the better to flash to your kith and kin.

Once a niche occupation, several event management companies have cropped up across the country each differentiating itself on the quality of services and the ambience that they offer to their clients.

Overheard at the ball

Sharing New Year’s Eve experiences

It was the worst ball ever! I used to love attending these events. JnS is supposed to be so good, so what happened here? There was no queue, minimal security checks, stags and weird single men that just walked through. A designer wearing a backless dress was felt up and these men were collecting empty liquor bottles and throwing them on the floor. When the dance floor began shaking, I thought there was an earthquake! I fell flat on my back and bruised myself. A friend broke her arm and another hurt her fingers very badly. About a 100 people went down on the floor! Then there was no food at all! Even the chandelier was hanging loose.

Designer guest

There were just too many people. It was like ‘arafaat ka maidan’! Eventhough it was rather spacious inside, the security check post was very small. The dance floor was rather wobbly from the start and then starting gyrating and dismantling itself. The food was awful! A very disappointing experience, that too from a company that is known to do fabulous events. Such a slapdash and haphazard effort was quite unexpected.

A member of the Organising committee member

This is a new thing for them given that they do not know how this city operates. We have been doing this ball for the past 14 years on our own and it is shocking and deeply upsetting that all our efforts of giving this ball a reputable name has gone to waste with a professional management agency taking over. Since we were laymen trying to put a charity event together we would be extremely stringent with the guest list and people would be invited on the responsibility of the members. There would be constant deletion of people not directly linked and even then we would manage to pull in 700 guests.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 2^nd, 2011.