An Interview with Tanya Sah from ‘Avant Events and Entertainment’

With a motive to educate and a drive to inspire, we at team.i began the 2nd season of the team.i Instagram Live Series on the 7th of June. 50 brilliant speakers, 30 days and lots of interesting conversations are what we are hoping to bring to you over the course of 1 month.

The topic of discussion being the ‘Paradigm Shift in the Event Space’ this series will dive right into what the world today is tackling with and try to understand what the future holds for the industry.

To kick-start the second series, our first session will be conducted in the presence of a guest speaker who is the owner of ‘Avant Events and Entertainment.’ Tanya Sah started her professional journey with Showhouse back in 2004 and then spent 2 years as an Associate Director at Switch Events and Entertainment Pvt. Ltd.

She then went on to start her own boutique agency, Avant Events in the year 2016.

Tanya is committed, hard working and strives to achieve perfection in every aspect of her business.

 A little more about Tanya…

Tanya, as a student was not very academically inclined but was very active when it came to taking part in cultural activities and creative tasks both when in school and even later when in college.

This passion towards the artistic and creative side to her led her to pursue her degree in Event Management in Bangalore. Thus began her journey into the world of events and she hasn’t looked back once.

Her work approach

“I think this was what I was meant to do and is still my calling” is what has kept her going all these years. She believes that the creative satisfaction and the adrenaline rush that comes with being your own boss is truly one of the best feelings.

She shares an experience close to her heart where in spite of it being a big grossing event, it was the recognition and the appreciation for her phenomenal work that was the highlight for her and her team.

Tanya through her work aims to bring in a touch of finesse and completely transform the event space to surpass the expectations of her clients. She has over the years, brought in several clients and has done an incredible job each time.

When she started Avant, she decided that she wanted to explore everything that came her way. Over the years, this is exactly what she has done, from learning and executing about short video edits, which she knew nothing about to creating content, she has done it all.

She is grateful that a lot of her clients believed that she could do it and that she was given the opportunity to partner with colleagues that were great to work with and made all of it happen.

What she has been up to this lockdown

Tanya has been spending her days enjoying the company of her daughter Myra along with ensuring that her business is continuing to cater to the needs of their clients even in these challenging times.

While the challenges and the limitations that the pandemic has forced upon the event industry, she and her team at Avant have not succumbed to it and have been working on creating and setting up installations for several of their bigger clients like Prestige.

Apart from this, they are working on new and innovative approaches to meet their client’s objectives while also following the new global norms that are being imposed.

So now, the bigger challenge lies in waiting for a fixed structure to be put in place before they go ahead with the operations. Tanya, however, the optimist that she is, sees this as a small glitch and is something that will pass and is positive and hopeful for the future.

Her take on the current situation and its impact on the industry

“It’s less money, but everybody’s going to be fed. Nobody’s going to go hungry.”

With a more or less comfortable number of clients approaching them for their services, she then goes on to speak about the people she works with and how effective and efficient it is to work with like-minded people.

With the onset of virtual events, she believes that over a period of time we will be forced to reinvent ourselves or look at different opportunities.

Studies have shown that the next big thing for advertising will be the smartphone. Pop Ups and notifications is how we will eventually be targeting our audiences.

 Marketing or Creative?

“It has to go hand in hand. If you don’t know how to sell the product, you can be as creative as you like but it will be of no use.”

The inability to understand that both these aspects are crucial and need to go hand-in-hand in order for there to be a positive and responsive impact is what most professionals face and therefore hire a separate creative team to handle the creative aspect of the business.

The changing market space

The market space is without a doubt changing drastically and that too in such a short time. Similar to when the Chinese market opened, Tanya would like to believe that India will see a similar response as well.

With new and innovative approaches, she believes that the industry will come out of this pandemic stronger and better in no time. This is the time, she says, to explore opportunities that might be risky and try to incorporate those learnings into how you conduct your business.

The idea that it will eventually recover and things will slowly but surely get back to what it was is what she stands by.

 Her message to aspiring event enthusiasts

Prior to the pandemic, I would have advised you to get as much industry experience as possible but today, that is not enough. Equipping yourself with the required skill set and understanding the technological tools and applications to progress is what is the need of the hour. I urge you to undertake a learning process before you begin your journey as an event professional.

This session was truly an insightful one and gave us a new perspective on the changing times and how best to proceed. In case you missed out the live session, don’t worry, you can access the recording.