Music maestro Ilaiyaraaja’s two-day concert at Chennai’s Nehru Outdoor Stadium drew thousands of fans eager to witness a historic occasion, the composer’s first-ever symphony performance, titled Valiant, followed by a three-and-a-half-hour concert of his greatest hits. But for many in the audience, the experience fell well short of the occasion, with complaints ranging from filthy seats and inadequate screens to a jarring technical breakdown near the finale.
The event was organised by ACTC Events, the same company behind the widely criticised AR Rahman Marakkuma Nenjam concert in 2023, where allegations of mismanagement and the molestation of women attendees sparked public outrage. Three years on, the firm appears to have drawn similar fire.
Seats, screens and no guidance
A concert attendee who held a MIP pass — among the premium seating categories — told this reporter that the problems were layered and began well before the music did. “There were two main problems,” he said, requesting anonymity. “One was the stage constructed in the middle of the stadium to accommodate the videographers filming the event. Second, it was bad management. The LED screens weren’t adequate in number or quality for viewers to see, and on top of that, there were bird droppings on many seats, which management didn’t clean.”
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The poor visibility was compounded by the absence of uniformed volunteers to direct attendees. Multiple concertgoers reported having to navigate the venue without assistance, while those seated further back in the Gold pass area faced the dual disadvantage of obstructed sightlines and inadequate screen coverage.
Sound that failed everyone
If infrastructure was one grievance, audio quality was the defining complaint — and it cut across ticket categories. “The problem everyone faced, including those of us in the MIP area, was the poor quality of the sound production,” the attendee said. “The sound simply wasn’t good enough.”
He was particularly emphatic in defending the singers who have since faced criticism online. “Sirsha Vijayasekar and Ananya Bhatt are being criticised on social media for being off-key and out of sync, but the problem may have been that they weren’t receiving proper audio feedback. Sirsha was constantly adjusting her in-ear monitor (IEM),” he said. The implication is clear: what audiences perceived as performer error may well have been a production failure.
Glitch that stopped the show
The evening’s most dramatic moment came near its close. “Towards the end, the penultimate song, Kundukulla Unna Vechu, was disrupted by a technical glitch — it sounded like a short circuit,” the attendee recalled. “Ilaiyaraaja Sir himself stopped the song because of the strange sound.” The final number, And Jodi Manja Kuruviwas performed, though by then the audio quality had deteriorated further.
ACTC in dock, again
On X, fans directed their frustration squarely at ACTC Events, calling the lapses unacceptable for a concert of such scale and cultural significance. For a composer of Ilaiyaraaja’s stature, whose catalogue spans five decades and thousands of songs, many disgruntled attendees felt the evening deserved far better stewardship than it received.
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