Chennai:

With satellite channels bidding for telecast rights (they recover their costs from advertisements), conducting music shows is a good business idea. The latest to enter this scene is Holistic Entertainment, promoted by R Chandra Mohan Nair and his three associates.

Nair, a mechanical engineer by qualification, started out as a marine engineer with Shipping Corporation of India and romanced for sometime with the oil rig industry (ONGC and Schlumberger) only to go back to run ships. He hit the Indian shores to promote ACME Marine Services, a trading consultancy outfit, and now he is into entertainment.

On 11 October 2003, Holistic Entertainment will make its debut in Chennai with an event for the Annamalai University Engineering Alumni Association.

The show will be conducted by three music directors — the famed pair Viswanathan-Ramamurthy and the upcoming Bharathwaj. Viswanathan is Nair''s father-in-law. "Only now am I leveraging the goodwill of my father-in-law and my contacts in the Tamil cine field," says Nair. But that doesn''t mean that he will not contract other music directors in the Tamil cine industry.

According to him the songs that will be sung at the company''s first event will be Tamil cine melodies. "We will not restrict ourselves to Tamil cine songs. As per plans we will also conduct such shows in other southern capital cities in the language of the state. In addition we will also hold ghazal (all languages) and bhajan shows."

A similar programme is slated to be held in Hyderabad. "The Hyderabad event will have a jugalbandi of cine songs around a theme," Nair adds. According to him, the company will also hold a musical event in Mumbai on the theme Hindi film songs, viz south Indian film songs.

The company''s business plan also includes production of music albums. Contracts have been signed with Bharathwaj to record songs on Lord Guruvayurappan and with Viswanathan on Lord Ayyappa and for the Onam festival.

Speaking about the revenues from musical shows featuring famous music directors, actors and dance groups, Nair says each such event will cost around Rs 1 one crore. "The cost will be recovered by selling the telecast rights to satellite channels and gate collections. Our policy is to peg the ticket prices low so that there is a good crowd."

Holistic Entertainment plans to hold 20 small programmes and six big programmes in the company''s first year of operations (October 2003-September 2004).