Chennai Music Season Concerts Schedule December 2014

Last year, I promised a (Carnatic) Music lover that I will attempt to collate the complete schedule of concerts or kutcheri’s for the Chennai December Music Season 2014.  With an estimated 5000 performances or more at 65 Sabhas in just over a month, the Chennai December Music Season must be one of the largest Music performances in the world.

On 1st of December, that friend slipped me the supplement pages from The Hindu – a pointer that I should make good on my promise.  So I went about collating the kutcheri timings from as many Sabhas as possible.  And ended up with about 36 organisations, including Narada Gana Sabha, Brahma Gana Sabha, Vani Mahal, Krishna Gana Sabha and The Music Academy, among others.
The number of kutcheris or concerts totalled a whopping 2000 plus events, feature more than 400 artists.  The sheer number of

• concerts – at 2000 plus;
• sabhas – 36 at last count;
• artists – 400 plus says the spreadsheet; and,
• dates – 45+ days,

created a headache of its own.  How to display the information, in a meaningful way?

Putting it up as a spreadsheet – MS Excel or Google Sheet, is of no practical use.  For unless the user knows how to use advanced ‘sort’ and ‘filter’, he or she is sure to mess up the data.  One single moment of forgetfulness or a thoughtless click would skrew up the list – and the user will never realise it – till he or she ends up at the wrong venue at the wrong time.

To get more technical, while a spreadsheet like an MS Excel or Google Sheet is a very good tool to compile, hold, analyse, and understand data, it is not the tool for presenting or displaying data.  That is the reason MS Excel (and others) have in-built graphs and what not – so that data can be displayed in way people can understand easily.

So it was time for an outside-the-box solution.  I can put it up as a mobile App, but it requires more time, effort and skills, and as a lazy-doozer, I always run short of those three.  There is one more I run short – moolah – but that is not the subject of this article.  So instead, I hit upon the solution – the first time it has ever been attempted.

A simple, widely – and freely – available solution, suitable for viewing on PC, laptops, mobiles or handhelds, with all the search capabilities of MS Excel, with an interface to Maps to show venues, and inbuilt reminders, invitation and print capabilities.  Yes, you got it – Google Calendar.

So, here is the Google Calendar of the full schedule of Madras December Music Season 2014 displaying the date and timings of over 2000 kutcheris by more than 400 artists at 36 sabhas.  A real, true, magnum-opus – even if I say so myself.

It is searchable by artist, venue, or dates.  If you do not know how to use Google Calendar, a very good how-to is at [http://learn.googleapps.com/calendar]

Go ahead and enjoy.  If you like it spread the word, visit often, or encourage me by donating or even better – sponsor your company’s advt. in this blog.  Here is the actual link for the Google Calendar
Chennai Music Season 2014 Schedule

PS:

• Yet to add Sri Parthasarathy Swami Sabha, and Tamil Isai Sangam.
• If any Sabha wants to add their schedule, please send the fixtures preferably as MS Excel through contact form.
• The end times of the performances are approximate.  Errors may be present.  Please check the dates, venue, timings, and performers with concerned Sabhas to be doubly sure.

Image for Pinning:

---