| by Our London Correspondent
( August 26, 2013, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) The Tamils in the United Kingdom have shown their thumbs down to the controversial music director Isaignani Ilaiyarajah by not attending his much publicised ‘Raja The Raja’ show at the grand 02 Arena on the 24 August 2013.
The organisers only felt the failing fate of the event and tried their best to flood the 02 Arena with last minute gestures through subtle efforts.
VVIP tickets priced at £250 was slashed to £75 without any public announcements to avoid embarrassment. Heavy telephonic campaign was said to have been undertaken to sell the concessionary tickets some hours before the event. The £50 tickets was slashed by 50% for the 17 years and under and the last leg advertisements confirmed free tickets for under aged children.
Special and simple question and answer phoning programme was held in a Tamil radio for the winners to be offered free VVIP tickets for the right answers.
The turn of events confirmed even if people had gone to the 02 Arena without tickets or payments, they would have been admitted to boost the much wanted number.
Arena with a capacity of up to 20,000, it is the second-largest arena in the UK (after the Manchester Arena) and one of the largest in Europe.
Dumb founded silence is maintained in the Tamil media that were used to give heavy publicity about the success or scale of attendance at the event. The only media that gave publicity was the unknown Thamail website Thamarai that claimed close to 8,000 people attending the event without displaying a single photograph to justify its claim.
It became obvious that various factors caused the failure of the event. Politically Isaiknani Ilaiyarajah has proved him a anti-Eelamist due to his stand well known to the Tamil community. The insensitivity of the organisers to highly pitch the price of the tickets compounded the situation further. Then the adverse publicity involving Ilaiyarajah’s unaccounted ‘Thiruvasagam in Symphony’ project was an issue widely spoken about in the community.
The event is said to be an humiliation for Isaignani Ilaiyarah and the organisers.
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