International Indian Film Awards Weekend!!!

Well so much has gone on in the past three days. I starting writing a blog about 2 days ago and about half way through it my computer froze so it was lost.

Anyways so this weekend the IFFA (International Indian Film Awards) website http://www.iifa.com/website/cntnt/iifa.htm

were going on in Dubai. It is from Bollywood where all of the Indian films are made, and they have it in a different destination every year. So we got invited on Wednesday night to go to the red carpet premier of provoked. Which staring the former Ms. Universe of India. We got to walk down the red carpet with all of the photographers there and then had drinks and hourdervs before the movie started. It was cool because we sat right to the right of Amitabh Bachchan whom is one of the most famous Indian actors as well as the star Ms. Universe. It was interesting seeing how crazy the fans and paparazzi go to get a photo of him.

The film was very good, but there was something very interesting that happened. There was an intermission during the film something that I have never experienced during a movie before. Anyways the next day we were having a normal day of work well….

I went to a networking thing called the Indian Gulf Summit. Which was invitation only and was greeted when I arrived by the conference director who escorted me to my seat on the second row. This was very interesting because like most international conferences there were sections for all the different groups and then there was the VIP section and the VVIP section. This was the first time for me to ever see or sit in a VVIP section very funny.

Afterwards I was able to meet with several top CEOs but my favorite was the CEO of HSBC bank (which is one of the worlds largest but there are very few in the states). During this conversation I was able to set up a meeting for that afternoon before he went out of town. Which enabled to the girls to make a large sale so they loved me. Because of the Indian part of the summit there was a great Indian food buffet for lunch. Then later I got word that we would be going to a fashion show to do some more networking.

Although I had never been to a fashion show I was a little interested to see how Dubai would do one considering how they do everything else so OTT (in Dubai people call everything OTT for over the top) and the event was. It was the IIFA Foundation 1^st annual fashion show. Again they had the red carpet with all the stars. And inside were tons of table set up with all the fancy place settings with bottles of wine and chivas scotch on the table. They had several different Indian personalities and a band, and a Rapper come out and perform and then during dinner they did the fashion show. And I have got to say that this event was a lot of fun. They really did everything up nicely. Oh and it was pretty funny we ended up meeting Sylvester Stalon there as well. Who was sitting like three tables over from us.

Then yesterday was the big night for the awards and my one day off. The girls wanted to go shopping and get some things done because they had the IIFA awards and the Sheikhs wedding to go to all in the same night. And I needed to go get the official IIFA press credentials for Juliet (my sales manager) and I but the other two girls already had there. So it was at the grand Hyatt which is this enormous hotel very OTT. But after talking to the press director for over an hour it seems that we never filled out the proper paper work a month ago and they were only giving out the passes on Wednesday and the story went on and on. Anyways I did not know how we were going to get us all in. But we had a few contacts to call. Somehow Dell knows the organizer of the event who is from India but when she would try to call of course he wasn’t answering his phone. And I tried to call the contact who set up the conference and she said that she had just given away her extra tickets and she had been offered several others from people and that she would try and get some for me.

When I left the grand Hyatt I went to the mall of the Emirates. I have talked about it before and it is supposed to be one of the largest malls in the world when it is finished. But the same company that has the Emirates Palace hotel has a hotel in the mall. Which is where I was let out. It is perfectly located right next to a restaurant row that has huge glass walls that look out into the ski sloops that are there at the mall. I have got to tell you it was one of the most amazing things that I have ever seen and it is just one of many things that make Dubai OTT. The engineering etc that goes into making it possible is just nuts. But you can see the ski lifts taking people up the mountain and people skiing, and my favorite was one restaurant that looked out to the little tubing hill where the kids would tube down. And to think all of this was out in middle of the desert. I ended up having an excellent Indian Lunch (as you can tell it has taken the place of Mexican food for me) that was great and cheap about 5US so. I then decided the best thing to do was go from the snow, to the dessert sand to the beach.

So I got the taxi to take me home to change then off to the Le Meridian hotel. It is great with tons of pools and a nice big beach with cabanas and nice blush recliners to enjoy the beach. It was a typical Dubai ocean view with huge yachts parked right off the coast. It was interesting getting in the ocean water, it was so hot about as hot as bath water. So you really don’t cool off when you get in the ocean you just get wet if you weren’t already from the heat. And it was sitting here thinking about the snow the sand and the beach that made me just laugh at how much there is to this city of Dubai. After sitting on the beach and by the pool I got a call from the girls saying that I needed to hurry up and get to the house and change so we could make our way to the red carpet to try to get in before everyone else did. And it was then that I was so relaxed it felt like if only for about 4 hours I had been on a cruise to some great Caribbean island. IT is definitely an experience that I will have to do again in the near future.

The girls told me that I needed to meet them at the hair salon so we could hurry. It ended up that they took forever and we completely missed the red carpet. You would not believe the traffic getting there it seemed like everyone in Dubai was going there and we were probably the only ones with out passes. So our strategy was the typical smile and wave to try to get us in. When we got to the front doors the security of course stopped us. And we started talking about calling dells friend that was in charge but he didn’t answered. And finally with our press passes we convinced him that we should be able to go in. And he said well where we wanted to go to the front section we were going to have to go through 5 more security checkpoints and that we would be seeing him again soon because we weren’t going to be able to get that far. And one security check point after another we made our way through. All the way to the very front next to the stage. Where the VIPs and celebs were coming in late off the red carpet. We got to chat with a few until some of the bodyguards we new from being at some of the events before told us that there were seats on the other side. So we ended up getting 4^th row seats and we didn’t even have tickets it was amazing.

The show was great. There were all kinds of performances and one guy even road in on a camel smoking a hookah. Something that you don’t see on TV when your watching these events is that they are constantly changing the stage while they are presenting the awards so there is always something going on. You think it would be little distracting to the people hosting. Which was the Ms. Universe that we went to her film two days before. The girls went to the Sheikhs wedding about half way through. It was funny because I had different people asking me why I was there and how I knew what was going on. It was pretty funny.

Afterwards I meet up with the girls at the Grand Hyatt for the VIP after party. When I pulled up in the land cruiser there were swarms of people everywhere with the cameras screaming with tons of security holding them back. I guess they thought that I was someone famous. But anyways we didn’t have invitations to this either. But had the same bodyguards escort us in. It was a really fun party. With open bar with bartenders doing all kinds of tricks setting the drinks on fire etc. A DJ and an amazing Indian Buffet. We were also able to meet a lot of the winners like best actor etc. and get photos with them. We also meet Chan Claude Van Dam (I don’t know how to spell his name) the karate guy. He was very small and invited the girls and I to go up to his suite for another after party but we decided that we didn’t want to go. We finally thought that we ought to hit the road at 3am because we had appointments the next day.

It was defiantly something that I will never forget and made an interesting past couple of days. I have just posted pics on my webshots.com site of all the weekends activities with more to come. I hope everyone is doing well!!!

Chad