Like many other 20-year-olds in the Emirates, Rahul Aswani is keen to attend talent events that showcase budding young stars. Which is why he decided to launch a management company focused solely on this business. Mr Aswani discusses getting Legendary Event Productions started in Dubai.
Why did you decide to focus on youths when you launched the company in November?
The prime reason is I'm young. When I was in school, there were less opportunities for our generation to expose our talents [in] photography, art or dance. Students had to focus on academics. I was a photographer myself when I was in school. There was something lacking, and something negative about when people were getting exposure. They weren't getting the coverage and they were pushed into streams such as engineering or being a business person. We have the West, and people who are big stars. Why can't we have such stars in the UAE?
How young is your target demographic?
We're looking at university and younger.
What kinds of events are you aiming to put on, and how do you generate revenue?
We have to partner with big companies [and] bands that can support these initiatives, which are creating encouragement [for] these kinds of talents. You do not get a huge amount of profit, but we are looking to encourage talent for the first year of business and break even with my cost. We have five events lined up for the next [few] months.
Do students, or participating students, pay a fee?
No. Why should a student pay a fee to participate? If they have talent they should just come in. What we're trying to do is if we have a talent show, have a ticketed audience. At the same time, sponsors come in. We're trying to develop the talent in such a [way that] there are 5,000 who come to watch. Five hundred [watched our talent show last month] and the auditorium was full.
Do you focus only on talent shows?
We have different events lined up [such as] a cricket and football league coming out. We have a young music sensation who is really good and [we are] trying to launch him.
So you would you act as a talent manager?
Yes. We only had a performance in Dubai. We're trying to push him to an Abu Dhabi show as well. He's 16 years old, a singer and has a band.
What was your own dream job back in school?
When I was really young I always wanted to become an astronaut. When I went into year 9 to 11, that was when I discovered myself in photography, art, dancing, music. I was a career coach as well and wanted to encourage talent in ages younger than me.
Where do you aim to take your business?
We want to develop the company within different regions in the Gulf and India, which is my home country.
* Neil Parmar
twitter: Follow our breaking business news and retweet to your followers. Follow us