The last couple of years have seen an increase in festivals in the city. While some feel that too much of a good thing takes away the charm, others say that it can never be enough. While the Jaipur Theatre Festival was blamed for being “too commercial”, the ones in the city, are seen as “cultivating” an audience that the artistes earlier would scrunch their noses at. This gives rise to the question, if the initiative is to bring people together, why is one greeted with half-empty venues?

“There can never be an overdose of theatre; everybody is fond of them. But the venues are usually far-off and when you reach there they often tell you that there are no tickets. This is not true, because the answer is right in front of us with the place being half empty. Most of the tickets are sent to organisers and sponsors who might not be interested in watching the play, and others who want to watch it, miss out,” says socialite Anju Poddar.

In its seventh edition, the Qadir Ali Baig Theatre Foundation has been responsible for showcasing a number of “not-your-usual-bedroom-comedy” plays in the city. “The cultural events taking place in the city have shaped the audience. Earlier you would come across people texting and making phone calls during the performances. But if that happens now, they get dirty looks from others,” says Mohd. Ali Baig.

However, he points out that though conducting the festival was a fulfilling experience, he was disappointed by the audience’s response to two Marathi plays that had senior artistes performing.

Location seems to play a prominent role and that’s where many would point out that the Hyderabad Literary Festival lost out. Even the charm of some of the biggest names like Gulzar, Adil Jussawalla , Amish Tripathi and Saeed Mirza failed to get a huge response from the city.

“But doesn’t that alone guarantee the quality of the crowd? People who made an effort to come all the way are the ones to be taken seriously,” says poet Anindita Sengupta, who attended both editions of HLF. For the culture fraternities in the city, there are three types of audience: veterans, well-wishers and the “high-flying” Page 3 types. Aamir Tameen, executive director of Echo India states, “For new theatre groups, running full house shows become tricky when people prefer going to the established institutions,” he says adding, “Running repetitive shows also results in audience dropouts.”