ATA conference Chicago 2016
ATA (America Telugu Association) Silver jubilee conference concluded at Donald J Stephensons’ center in Rosemont, Chicago on Sunday July the 3rd. This event was well attended by a number of YSR Congress and TRS party bigwigs. Also, some celebrities from Telugu Film Industry added glamor to the event. Telugu360 provides a comprehensive report of various aspects of the conference.
Crowds:
Let’s start with the positives. ATA conference organizers did a very good job in attracting good number of people to the conference. Telugu360 has checked with a number of leaders in ATA and caterers of the event. As per consensus estimates, 6000- 7000 people have attended the event. This is a very good number even though ATA leadership bungled the celebrity invitations and drew lot of bad press.
Rating: 4/5
Decorations:
ATA decoration team has done an excellent job and the artifacts at the entrance are aesthetically very pleasing. The team has thought through this aspect well and one can see the artifacts ranging from “Moodu Namalu” (Lord Venkateswara) to “Batukamma” reflecting the life and culture of both Telugu states. We’ve seen a number of families taking pictures at these artifacts.
Rating : 4/5
Artifacts reflecting Telugu States culture at ATA Conference Chicago 2016 pic.twitter.com/dCmLAkCaLZ
— Telugu360 (@Telugu360) July 4, 2016
Movie Celebrities:
Even though the organizers have widely publicized that a number of celebrities would be attending the silver jubilee function, one feels that presence of tollywood at ATA has been scant. Kajal Aggarwal, Rashi Khanna and Lavanya Tripati were only recognizable female leads. Jagapathi Babu and Nani are the only attendees from male fraternity. One feels that ATA has widely mismanaged this aspect by relying on rank outsiders. Till the fag end, ATA publicized that Samantha, Rashmi, Anasuya and Tamannah would be attending the event even though they knew well in advance that they would not be attending. “They took free video bytes from us without any advance payment. I blocked July 1st to July 20th to attend both ATA’s and they didn’t pay us a penny and we had to back out. They don’t realize how much scheduling nightmare it was for us and a lot of people are depending on our programs. ATA should have communicated with us directly instead of relying on third party” told a well known telugu actress, who dropped off at the last minute.
Rating: 2/5
Food arrangements:
This is one area, which has received lot of flak from attendees. Food in general has been below par and most of the times food was over after serving 1/3rd of attendees. For ‘Banquet’ on July 1st, which is supposed to be an exclusive function for Donors, Food was catered from a restaurant which generally has medicore reviews in Chicago. Telugu360 talked to internal sources and found that the restaurant owners are well connected to ATA leadership and so was given the contract. For buffet’s on July 2nd and 3rd, food spread was very thin and even that was not available most of the time. Attendees tend to measure the success of any conference by quality of food served and one feels that ATA has failed big time in this aspect.
Rating: 2/5
Grand Finale:
Another instance of mismanaged schedules, which is a common place for any Indian functions. Manisharma show, which was projected as Grand Finale didn’t start until 11:30 PM on Sunday. Attendees with kids were tired of waiting and were exhausted by the time the show started. Everyone wanted a pie of prime time and conference organizers failed in keeping the speakers unto the task. For example, Roja tried to use this platform to further her political interests. She took an inordinate amount of prime time. Then there was an ugly onstage confrontation with Rasamayi Balakishan, Telangana Balladeer. There was no professional anchoring and the whole program looked amateurish and insipid.
Rating: 1.5/5
Overall, the conference organizers succeeded in pulling good crowds, but failed in all the other aspects. A lot of hard work by volunteers has gone into this, but attendees in the end were grossly disappointed with the programs, food and overall event organizing.
Overall Rating: 2/5
— Krishna (krishna@telugu360.com)
