While HICSA was synonymous with Mumbai in its early years, it has embraced change, moving to Delhi and Bangalore before making its much-anticipated return to Mumbai this year. Each location has added a unique flavour to the conference, but there’s something special about bringing it back to the city where it all began. As we celebrate 20 years of HICSA, it’s impossible not to look back at these moments with immense pride. But if history has taught us anything, it’s that the best moments are yet to come.

But behind the glitz and glam, there’s a lot of hard work. Planning starts months in advance—picking the right venue, lining up speakers, coordinating with sponsors, and making sure every detail is just right. And let’s not forget the egos. You’ve got speakers who are legends in the industry, hotel owners with strong opinions, and investors who want everything their way. Everyone has their vision of how things should go, and my job is to make sure everyone feels heard while keeping the event on track. It’s a delicate dance—like trying to balance a tower of champagne glasses on a wobbly table. One wrong move, and it all comes crashing down.

And then there’s the constant change. Nothing is ever confirmed until it actually happens. Speakers drop out at the last minute, panel topics shift, and schedules get flipped upside down. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve had to rewrite the agenda or scramble to find a replacement speaker. One year, we had a keynote speaker cancel the night before the conference due to a health scare. A few times, it’s been that a foreigner has shown up at the airport not realising that s/he did not have a valid visa or that they simply did not apply for it.

Panel confusions, moderators taking over the discussion, keynote speakers going beyond time or me deciding to dance for my opening speech, there is never a dull moment. But despite all the chaos, there’s something magical about seeing it all come together. When the conference finally kicks off, and you see people networking, sharing ideas, and making deals, it’s all worth it. The energy in the room, the buzz of conversation, the “aha” moments during panel discussions—it’s what makes all the stress and sleepless nights worthwhile.

This year, being the 20th edition, feels extra special. We’ve got some exciting new features planned, and I can’t wait to see everyone come together to celebrate how far we’ve come. The theme this year is “20 Years: Past, Present and Prophecies”.

Keeping in line with the theme, there are 20 things I want to highlight as mishaps or faux-pas! Often what we refer to internally as ‘behind the scenes’. Let me dive into them, in excruciating detail—much to my own regret (and your amusement).

The 20 Faux-Pas

• Let me start with an easy one, the host hotel’s "discounted room block" turns out to be more expensive than just booking directly. Making it really embarrassing for us as conference hosts.
• More on the joys of hotel overbookings—because who doesn’t love a little chaos? The front desk chose to start asking our VIP guests to walk away and book another hotel as they couldn’t confirm their confirmed reservations.
• The simple art of spelling—who knew it could cause such drama? You’d think we had personally rewritten their entire identity just to mess with them. Cue the awkward smiles, frantic apologies, and the collective realisation that sometimes, a misplaced letter can cause more damage than a missed flight.
• Ah, my personal favourite—the ever-reliable presentation clicker deciding to retire mid-performance. Picture this: me on stage, confidently clicking away, only to realise the slides aren’t budging. So, what’s the backup plan? An elegant, almost telepathic nod to my AV guy for every single slide change, turning what should be a seamless presentation into an elaborate game of charades.
• The magic of virtual conferences—where technology promises to bring us closer but mostly just tests our patience. Post-pandemic, our grand return to conferencing kicked off with a virtual session that, true to form, started streaming… completely mute. Attendees were treated to a high-stakes game of lip-reading, only for the universe to balance things out by cutting the video the moment the sound finally returned. A truly immersive experience—just not in the way we intended!
• The green room is a treasure trove of behind-the-scenes chaos that deserves its own tell-all article. One of my all-time favourites? A speaker who completely forgot that his mic was still on and, as he confidently stepped off stage, muttered something… well, let’s just say it was less than ideal for public broadcast.
• The perfect storm of panel disasters—and my personal nightmare is a poor moderator. Or a moderator who actually believes he or she is good and insists on getting that slot back for themselves, year after year.  Look, if we are not reaching out then just get the message. We rate our moderators and take feedback every year from the audience.
• Nothing adds excitement to a keynote quite like an unexpected AV glitch. The keynote speaker is on stage, and the presentation cannot be found! Awkward silences, frantic scrambling and sheer confusion. Yes, unfortunately this has happened on more than one occasion.
• Once, the banquet room’s acoustics were so spectacularly awful that the panellists on stage had a hard time. They couldn’t hear themselves, let alone each other, turning what was meant to be an engaging discussion into a high-stakes game of guesswork.
• A speaker who is supposed to be on stage and does not show up.  We had to send him up there 15 minutes late to join the panel much to his own embarrasment.
• While giving away door prizes one morning, a single delegate won the door prize three times as his card kept getting magically pulled out. Trust me, I enjoyed embarrassing the poor person.  Never again has he made it back to the conference, either.
• Oh, the one time a decade ago, a lady hotel executive chose to sneak into the conference without registering. She chose the perfect disguise to dress up in Grand Hyatt clothes of black and white to fit in as an employee only to be unfortunately recognised as a star actor. Shh….lets not name her as she’s still around in the business at a much more senior position today.
• A guest jacket caught fire because there were simply too many decorative candles in the Grand Hyatt Courtyard. We found a simple solution and exited the candle decoration business.
• An easy one, a bus breakdown to the closing dinner on Western Expressway.
• A nightmare: a lunch banquet without chairs and cutlery.
• This was a serious one. A union workers’ protest outside the hotel premises protesting a global hotel CEO’s presence in town required us to get police protection and get clearance to allow delegates to come through.
• A break out session which simply does not attract any interest by delegates to attend. Unfortunately, it’s a common thread—sessions on Education, HR and Sustainability just haven’t worked at Hotelivate. The only way to make them work is for us to send our own employees to attend and fill the room.
• Nothing like a bout of tummy belly on stage. Yes, we had to see a certain panel speaker make an early exit.
• Once, I left my opening speech behind and realised it only when I arrived at the podium – that’s when you discover something called brain freeze or, in Indian words, you have a “Bheja Fry” moment.
• Lastly, perhaps one of my biggest faux pas was not to thank the host hotel team in Delhi (IHCL) when they had been generous enough to host the entire conference post-Covid.

Despite all this, I would do it every year, mostly more than once, because it's the tangible manifestation of months of planning, the validation that you've created a space where minds connect and possibilities unfold, that keeps me going.

This year, as we celebrate the 20th milestone for HICSA, that feeling is amplified tenfold. It's not just another conference; it's a testament to two decades of shared passion, a legacy built on countless 'aha' moments, and a reminder that the pursuit of knowledge, the fostering of connection, is always, unequivocally, worth it.  Here’s to making this year’s HICSA the most unforgettable edition yet!