Monday, 30 September 2013

Pawan Kalyan’s 'Attarintiki Daredi': The 5 AM Show

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They wake up at 3 in the morning for a movie screening. Spend five times the amount for a regular movie ticket and yes, are joined by probably thousands of others.

Welcome to Tollywood’s infamous ‘fan shows’, a practice as old as the industry itself and a trend that shows no signs of dying out. The ‘practice’ has even changed names to benefit shows, charity galas and more.

The latest example was the first-day screening of actor Pawan Kalyan’s 'Attarintiki Daredi' at 5 am. And unbelievably, all six screens in the city reported houseful for the “benefit screening”.

The culture of benefit shows, or fan shows, started off with movies of Chiranjeevi.

Srinivas Rao, one of the organisers and a die hard movie fan says, “This culture has been there for many years now. It was started by the fans association of Chiranjeevi who would organise screenings of the actor’s movies even before they officially released in theatres. Even fan shows are official, the only difference being that fans had the opportunity to watch the movie before anyone could.”

There is also a ‘cause’ behind such special shows. “The tickets for these shows are generally priced very high, at around Rs 1,000 to Rs 5,000 per ticket. Earlier, the profits used to go to financially weak fans —often contributing to maybe a surgery in the family,” explains Rao.

“But supporting fans is now out of the scene. All the profits now go to support old age homes and orphanages in the city,” he adds.

Talking about Pawan's 'Attarintiki Daredi', Srinivas reveals, “The benefit show was initially planned at 4 AM, but due to lack of permissions, the movie was allowed to be screened at 5 AM. All these benefit shows are official and the screening is done only after taking permission from concerned authorities.”

But how do these shows land such turnouts? “The organisers have meetings with the presidents of the fan associations and then decide on how to go about the whole thing - funding charities etc. The president then, gives these tickets to the members of the association, who in turn sell the tickets at a decided price. These tickets are available only with these associations and are not sold over the counter, he added.

And the experience? Moviegoer Abhishek Maharshi described an "awesome time".

"The whole theatre was echoing with the lead actor's name and during the introduction song fans even climbed onto the platform below the screen and started dancing. Fans were even sitting on the staircase inside the theatre to watch the movie. Every small corner was occupied. It was surprising to see fans waiting outside the theatre from almost 2.30 AM, where as we were allowed to go in only at 4.30 AM.

Famous films with ‘fan shows’