MTV awards rock Mumbai

Looking after pop stars, recording executives, film and TVcelebrities and the hippest crowd in the country is never an easy brief. Yet the JW Marriott in Mumbai had to tackle this late last year when it put together the post-show party for MTV India's Immies. The client perspective Ashok Cherian, manager marketing MTV Networks India, explains: "MTV Immies is the country's only official music awards. The awards show itself is MTV's biggest activity of the year — with scale, stage, performers and effort. Therefore, a ground event as big as this had to be followed by a post-show party that was at par." He says the JW Marriott was chosen because "both MTV and the JW are leaders in their respective spaces, and enjoy fantastic brand equity in the city and country. Then there is the central location, great attitude of the place, the people, and the infrastructure. The party took just three weeks to plan. "Normally this would be impossible. The first year took more than double the time; but now since the benchmarks are set and both teams share a great working rapport, it's just about possible. But we would recommend beginners to not try this at home," jokes Cherian. There were 1,200 select guests on the invitation list. "They were primarily from the music industry — artiste and record-label heads and seniors, international performers, Bollywood stars, top media, corporate and advertising bigwigs. The artiste who performed at the Immies were also present," he says. The client perspective Jason Nuell, director of operations. JW Marriott Mumbai, says: "Since the MTVImmies is one of the biggest events that the JW Marriott Mumbai plays host to, general preparations for this event started over six months ago. "Besides the magnitude of this activity requires almost the entire hotel to come together and ensure a smooth and seamless operation. There are so many special requirements that we have to cater to hence detailing to the smallest level has to be done. "On site on the day of the event we have around 200 of our best associates which includes some of our best chefs providing an experience that is hard to forget." "Consistency and co-ordination are really key to make this event successful especially if you look at it from an operational point of view. We have been hosting this event for three years now, hence the team is very well trained and is pretty much familiar with the grind. However we still make sure that all the staff working on this particular job is briefed hours before the show actually begins. "Logistically the biggest challenge we really face is procuring enough supplies to last us for the whole party. Since the number of attendees are huge we need to ensure that we are adequately stocked. This time round, we needed almost 2,000 kg of ice as there were huge amounts of drinks that needed to be chilled," Nuell says. "Every year our culinary team creates new experiences lead by executive chef Chris Baker, this year we had eight individual zones allocated for different menus, the biggest hit this year was our New York Pizzeria. "Having been the home of the MTVImmies for the past three years, here at the JWM we pride ourselves on unique experiences for our guests. So we go the extra mile to make it different and special. "The most requested offering this year was our 'raid the fridge' concept which had six domestic refrigerators stocked with red bull, breezers, kingfisher,chilled beers, iced lollies and not to forget shooters. "This event in particular is a hugely prestigious one, so we make sure that down to the very last detail it's a successful one, Nuell says.