Artkhoj

I booked the venue with 100% advanced payment. The event was 10:00 am - 1:00 pm. I called the person (who talked to me for booking and payment) at 9:30 am. She didn’t answer (twice). I wanted to know about when I can begin prepping for the event, making the place ready for the guests. Since they didn’t respond to my calls, I decided to walk directly to the venue. First thing that turned me off is that, this is not an event space, it’s a residential house. They’ve just put black curtains in a hall and have placed a cheap elevation you can barely call a stage. That’s not even the worst part. The worst part is that they think and act like it’s their house even after you’ve paid in full for the place. This is what I was told first: “BOTH THE GUESTS AND THE ARTISTS NEED TO LEAVE THEIR FOOTWEAR OUTSIDE”. Now they sent a mail before the payment was made. Obviously, if they had mentioned it before, I would have never booked the venue. I’ve done 10 seminars all across the country and in no Venue I was asked to leave footwear outside. It’s not like the floor was clean or had a carpet either. why would you make the guests uncomfortable? When I straight up refused to take my shoes off, they just lied and said that, “artists can have it on”. Meanwhile, I have a witness who heard what we were told earlier. Second, they said that you can’t have food items. I agreed. Then they said you can’t even have a beverage. I said, I’m speaking for 3 hours, I’ll have coffee and no Venue have ever prohibited a simple coffee. Then they countered with following stupid argument: “if you have coffee, it’s smell will diffuse in the hall.” I refused again and was ready to walk out. The they lied again and said “We were saying that the guests can’t have it. Artists can.” I have no idea, what kind of dummies run this place but all this was so illogical that it made me laugh. In short, the experience was horrible and I’ll never recommend anyone to book a venue here. Even if you’re a guest, it’d be a bad experience as they’ll ask you to take your foot wear off, you won’t be able to eat or drink and the seats are just Rs 50 plastic chairs.