Desk report
Popular Pakistani singer Rahat Fateh Ali Khan is in Dhaka now. He is performing at the ‘Echoes of Revolution’ concert organized by the ‘Spirits of July’ platform at the Bangladesh Army Stadium today to support the families of those martyred and injured in the July-August uprising.
Rahat Fateh Ali Khan will also perform at the BPL T20 Music Fest to be held at the Sher-e-Bangla Stadium in Mirpur on December 23. After the BPL Music Fest, the tournament’s other two venues will also be held in Chittagong and Sylhet.
However, he will only sing at the Mirpur event. Although he did not take any honorarium for singing at the ‘Echoes of Revolution’ concert, a BCB source said that Rahat Fateh Ali is taking about 34 million taka from the BCB for singing at a BPL concert, which is about 286 thousand dollars in US currency.
The decision to pay this amount to Rahat Fateh Ali Khan as a performance fee was approved at the BCB board meeting held at the Sher-e-Bangla Stadium in Mirpur today.
After the meeting, BCB President Faruk Ahmed told reporters that Modhumoti Bank has bought the title sponsor rights for three events to be held in Dhaka, Chittagong and Sylhet on the occasion of the BPL Music Fest. For this, they will pay BCB 4 crore taka, almost all of which will go to Rahat Fateh Ali.
Today’s meeting also approved an expenditure of around 7 crore taka for music festivals to be held in three cities of the country on the occasion of BPL, the unveiling of the youth festival logo and BPL mascot, the official publication of the BPL official theme song and graffiti, the display of giant balloons in three cities, a social media influencer campaign, and a tournament trophy and mascot tour in the cities of the seven BPL franchises.
Tickets for the BPL Music Fest have already been released online. However, due to the lack of response from the audience, the BCB has decided to reduce the ticket prices. Initially, the price of platinum tickets was set at 12,000 taka, gold at 8,000 taka, silver at 6,000 taka, grand stand at 4,000 taka and club house (upper) tickets at 2,500 taka. Now, the price of platinum tickets has been reduced to 8,000 taka, gold at 6,000 taka, silver at 4,000 taka, grand stand at 1,500 taka and club house tickets at 500 taka.
