Navratri organisers see dip in sponsorship in Mumbai

With less than a week for Navratri to begin, organisers of dandiya and garba events are witnessing a dip in sponsorship and advertisements, owing to the economic

With less than a week for Navratri to begin, organisers of dandiya and garba events are witnessing a dip in sponsorship and advertisements, owing to the economic slowdown. Many big organisers are complaining that the big players, especially from the real estate sector, have stayed away from sponsoring events.

HT Image

According to organisers, their sponsorship revenue has decreased by more than 50%. While last year, organisers earned around ₹1.5 crore to ₹1.7 crore from their sponsors, this year, sponsorship revenue has gone down by ₹75 lakh.

A Navratri organiser from Juhu said that on an average, a mega dandiya-garba event would cost between ₹1 crore- ₹2 crore, of which the organisers would invest ₹25 lakh.

“In today’s times, it is difficult to get sponsorship of that big an amount. Thus on most occasions, the committee members organising the event, put money from their pockets,” the organiser said.

Organisers are also facing difficulties because sponsors are laying down several conditions. “Right now, we cannot approach the real estate sector for sponsorships as they are witnessing a slowdown. Many big sponsors are also laying down several conditions upon us in return for sponsorship. So we are going to smaller sponsors such as salons or cloth brands who are willing to sponsor the prizes for winners,” said Jitendra Mehta, the organiser of Thane’s Raas Rang Navratri 2019.

However, some organisers have not witnessed any dearth in sponsorships. “In the past few years, we didn’t have title sponsors. But this year, we had two to three sponsors approaching us for title sponsorship and we are yet to finalise one. We are also expecting a higher footfall of participants this year,” said Anupama Bhalla, spokesperson, NESCO Centre in Goregaon (East), which has been organising several dandiya events.

Organisers have also expressed their concerns over the weather. With uneven rainfall throughout the season, some of the oldest dandiya organisers in the city have cancelled their events altogether. Some others, such as the Utsav Gujarat No Rangilo Re, has been organising Navratri event indoors at the at NESCO Centre. “Owing to the rain, many participants opt for dandiya events which are organised indoors now,” Bhalla said.