American Telangana Association(ATA)’s First world convention was held at Suburban Collection Showplace in Detroit between July 8th to 10th 2016. A number of Telangana NRI’s across USA volunteered and participated in this first world wide conference. The event also saw presence of good number of politicians from Telangana. Telugu360 provides a comprehensive report of various aspects of the conference.

Crowd :

Friday night’s banquet had a modest presence of  1800 to 2000 people.  On Saturday, a total of 3500 people attend the event, much to the delight of the organizing team. For a  fledgling organization such as ATA, this is a good number. Anoop Rubens’s musical show, which is tipped to be the marquee event had a houseful capacity of 3500. ATA management is excited about the response. Overall , ATA first convention has been very successful in drawing the crowds

Rating 4/5

Decor :

Decoration is not up to the mark and the artifacts at the hallways and at the exhibition place could have been better. Since most people attended ATA Chicago, one can’t resist but draw parallels to the event at Rosemont center and this pales in comparison to fabulous work done by ATA Chicago. Telangana Talli statue at the convention entrance was good. May be the organizers were working on tight budgets, but additional funds for this department would have brought grandeur to the event.

Rating 2/5

Movie Celebrities:

One of the main reasons that NRIs attend these conventions is the presence of celebrities (For some reason, even well settled NRI’s crave for a picture with even a second grade artist, who doesn’t find any audience back in the home country). Even though the organizers advertised that Kajal Aggarwal would be gracing the event, she was seen nowhere. There was no notable face from Tollywood, except few character artists such as Surekha Vani, Jyothi and some other self-proclaimed celebrities (??) about whom you truly had to google and find out.

Rating : 0.5/5

Food Arrangements :

After a operational bungle by the organizers  ( Read : Food Mishap in Telangana ATA) for Friday Banquet, food was excellent on Saturday. There was ample selection in the buffet and all the food items won the accolades of discerning palates. Testament to the fact is applause that Bawarchi restaurant, the food vendor, and food committee received when they were  called upon the state for felicitation. On flip side, organizers should have avoided delays in start time of serving the food.

Rating 4/5

Hospitality / Recognizing the teams :

ATA must be appreciated for the hospitality shown towards the local guests and outside ones. The ATA leadership team had recognized every single volunteer and the teams who worked hard for this event. Grand Donors were invited to the main stage and also  customized souvenirs were published and distributed, respecting donors.

Rating 4/5

Prime Time Entertainment:

ATA organizers made sure that Telangana culture and flavor is reflected in all the programs. On prime time ( Saturday Night), there were many programs such as classical Mridangam instrumental play,Rasamayi Balakishan group Dhamaka ,Local talent groups’ fashion shows and a grand finale — Anoop Roobens live concert. While other programs are decent enough, Anoop Roobens show recieved mediocre response. Anoop has tried make the show more interactive with the audience, but audience were unable to cheer as they were unfamiliar with the songs. As it is common with Telugu events, music show started very late at 11:20PM. A special song composed by Anoop Roobens exclusive for ATA was very good and got maximum applause. Entire ATA leadership team danced to this song.

Rating 3/5

Tidbits :

• Rasamayi Balakishan was named as American Telangana Association’s cultural brand ambassador
• Anchoring by Ramya Krishna (Popularly known as Racha Ramulamma) was appealing
• Lakshmi Narasimha Swami Kalyanam pooja on Sunday was well received – 200 registrant families participated
• Scant coverage in mainstream media. Except Tv5 , HMTV other newspapers and channels have not provided coverage.
• Political forums lacked proper debate as almost all participants to the event are mostly from ruling party
• Deputy chief minister, Education minister Kadiyam Srihari’s speech listing the activities of the Telangana government to reform education in the state is very good.
• Nizambad MP, Kalvakuntla Kavitha made her presence to the event on Saturday morning.
• There is no ” Business forum” in the convention
• Very few vendor booths and those who exhibited also didn’t have profitable sales.

Verdict :

Considering ATA being a new organization, given the fact that this is first convention,we should say they have done a decent job. However, the event appeared as an extension of a grand scale local event than a national convention. To conclude, certainly this event has sent a message that ATA is here to stay, given more budget and time they can match the other organizations down the line.

Overall rating: 3/5