An Interview with Dileep Somashekar, Proprietor, Inferno Event Management Studios

In our  live insta series we invite experts and juggernauts of event industry to join in to talk about the future of the event industry especially at a time when the future seems quite uncertain. 

The whole purpose of such a series is to address the queries and concerns of people, students and people working in the event spaces regarding the future of events due to the ongoing pandemic.

The current pandemic has hit many industries hard and one such is the event industry too. Thus, through our live series we bring in experts to answer and address these concerns and queries asked on a daily basis these days. 

On a fine evening at 6pm on a Wednesday of 24th June, 2020, we had Mr. Dileep Somashekar join our CEO Mr. Arvind Jyot Sabhaney to talk about his firm Inferno Event Management, his resort Bonfire Bannimantappa and more! 

Mr. Dileep Somashekar is the founder and proprietor of Inferno Event Management studios They usually do all kinds of events but specialise mostly in birthdays. He also owns the hotspot resort Bonfire Bannimantappa, and along with that has his own house production. 

Tell us your journey in the event management industry and about your firm Inferno’s journey.

For Mr. Dileep Somashekar, his and his firm’s journey started way back in college days. “Back in college I had few family get-togethers for which me and my friends went to get some balloons from the market and since then we started doing a bit of small birthdays and then for promotional activities”. From then on they started conducting major college fests and events, and that’s how slowly inferno emerged 12 years back.

Fast forward to today, and Inferno have their own godown and kits for decor materials. They also have their own stage, lights and music. 

For Mr. Dileep, along with being the proud founder and owner of Inferno, has his own production house and owns his own farm house called Bonfire Bannimantappa which is a hotspot for different private events in Bangalore.

Tell us more about Bonfire Bannimantappa

Bonfire Bannimantappa is a farmhouse owned by Mr. Dileep. The plot belonged to his family for 13 years.

“I liked event outdoor activities so I used to call my friends to my farmhouse and we used to play some desi games. So slowly this made me realise that we can use this farmhouse for events. Then we started building things on the farmhouse. We started rain dance and fresh volleyball which was 8 years ago. Slowly we made this into a place for conducting events. Now we have a green pool, first of its kind in Bangalore.”

The farmhouse was named Bonfire 6 years back, and only a month back it was changed to Bonfire Bannimantappa. According to Mr.Dileep this addition to the name is like an addition of a wing to his farmhouse. 

How many staff work at Bonfire Bannimantappa?

“We have 12 working staff members to take care of housekeeping cleaning and everything.”

 How have you managed the expenses and the salaries of people working in Bonfire?

According to Mr. Dileep, he paid the salaries for his team members working here for the initial month of March. But in the subsequent month of April, they did not conduct a single event. Thus his team members took a collective decision to not take the month’s pay since there was no work. “I love my team. They are amazing, they work as a team and took this decision for the betterment of the company. So since last month onwards we have started paying everyone since we have been conducting events.”

He says that the turnovers from the events that have happened in the past few months have gone into paying the salaries of his team members.

How’s the situation with Inferno?

“At Inferno the work we do there is to majorly support event managers which focus more on B2B.” Says Mr. Dileep as he further tells us how his B2B business helps in providing key services to event managers. “We provide games, stalls, basic supply of lighting and sound and thus this is how we have managed the salaries of our team working at Inferno.” 

At Inferno, in the past few months they have started believing in supporting the other event firms, and thus dividing the work. They don’t see this as a competition during this situation. “We tell ourselves that today they will work, tomorrow we will.”

What are your thoughts about the event industry’s future in the next 1 year?

According to Mr. Dileep, things should slowly open by Jan 2021. “Jan 2021 is a good start for us. The corporates are our major targets in the next quarters. Once corporates start celebrating, the events industry will be back.” 

He also feels that this entire restriction on the number of people to attend in a wedding won’t work for a very long time, and thus that’s why the normal wedding events will be back. 

 Any advice to the students who are interested in pursuing a career in event management?

“I would say to them just be together and have a vision and stay ethical don’t spoil your name and the ethics of the profession you’re in, especially in the event industry. So that’s one thing and the other thing is if you are creating a startup make sure it’s collaborative. Collaborate with your friends or with people studying with you together and team up and start something for the duration one year or two years. This way you will gain experience and then later you split up. But do not straight away say start single handedly on your own. This will be very difficult. Take advice from event experts.”

It was fun catching up with Mr. Dileep Somashekar. To watch the full interview head over to our instagram page, and don’t forget to follow us and like us on Instagram to get more of such insightful conversations with events experts.