Ahmedabad: Garba tickets to be pricey as space, parking, sponsorships to get costlier

Parking of vehicles and sponsorships are major bottlenecks for organising garba events this year. These have resulted in either organisers cancelling the events or organising them together to minimise risk. Dedicated space allocation for parking could also mean lesser space for events and shooting up the cost of tickets.

Himanshu Shah, a pioneer organiser of Soi Garba, has for the first time organised garba in partnership at YMCA. Till now it was on an open plot.

"Organising in a traditional manner would mean that we need a host of permissions from Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC). We thought it is better to organise garba at YMCA to avoid issues like parking of vehicles and other bottlenecks," said Shah, chief mentor of SOI Live Events.

YMCA management has made special arrangements for parking. "We have made sure that we have enough space for parking for the number of people coming for garba on the ground", said Vinesh Shetty, one of the event organizer at YMCA.

Meghal Shah, the owner of Mitmegh events, said that along with parking issues, lack of proper sponsors, fears of rainfall and high over all inflation has stolen the sheen for professional garba organizers and traditional 'Sheri Garba' and 'Colony Garba' are back in vogue. However, a section of organisers say that in a longer term, the issue of parking will be sorted out and things will be normal.

"It may hurt now. Parking was a major issue for enthusiasts as well. There were traffic jams. We hope that this would no more be the case," said Samir Shah, partner of Archie Events and Entertainments.

BACK TO THE ROOTS

Lack of proper sponsors, fears of rainfall and high over all inflation has stolen the sheen for professional garba organizers and traditional ‘Sheri Garba’ and ‘Colony Garba’ are back in vogue