Big Bazaar Kids Carnival 2016

At the end of any year, I always look forward to a lot of get-to-gethers, weddings, fests, shopping sprees and meets. But unlike every year, this year we had to struggle with the burden of demonetization and are reeling under its effects. Yet the year end still has a silver lining for me. It did not dampen the celebrations much as I would've thought it would.

So when I was invited by the good folks at Big Bazaar to be a part of the Mommy Bloggers meet I was elated. Usually blogger meets are all about the blogger, but this one was with a difference, my little one was invited too! My kiddo and I were invited to the exclusive launch of the Big Bazaar Kids Carnival 2016, a fun initiative by BB Kiddie Club.

The lovely Emcee welcoming all mommy bloggers & kids to Big Bazaar Kids Carnival 2016

My kiddo and I were warmly welcomed by the BB team. After a round of introductions, all kiddos were encouraged to participate in some fun and games. Moms were not left behind, as there were fun games for us as well! The zest and the enthusiasm was infectious when we witnessed the staff of the Malad store cheering for the moms. Though the winners were rewarded a sweet token of chocolates, the fun we had was one to cherish.

Checking out the latest in fashion for kids

Toys section: Kids love this section, but is a danger zone for parents!

A group capture of all the mommy bloggers and their kids present at the event.

We were made aware of the exclusive benefits of being a #BBKiddieClub member.

The Big Bazaar Kiddie Club is a novel idea which aims at providing a platform for 3 to 15 year olds to pursue their passion and showcase their talent whilst having fun. This Club offers these kids an exclusive card which entitles them to accumulate points when they shop at Big Bazaar and also by participating in the events held.

The key highlight of this carnival would be that kids to stand a chance at being featured in the Chhota Bheem TVC! And all they need to do is take a selfie at any of their stores!
There will also be Stores will have a dedicated area to engage kids and will follow a theme that ranges from superheroes to a jungle setup.

Isn't it a win-win situation for parents, when they can shop at ease as their kids are engrossed in the various fun and engaging activities held by one of the leading retail chains in India?

So head to their store right away! This carnival will be held at Big Bazaar stores across the country from December 10, 2016 to January 8, 2017.

The event concluded with some mouth-watering refreshments for the kids and their mommies as well as a loaded goodie bag full of toys for all ages! What a fun day it was!

What YOU missed at the BigRock Indiblogger WordUp meet

I cannot believe it has already been 5 years since my first ever Indiblogger meet. I can distinctively remember it was 15^th August 2009. This makes me feel old now. Back then blogger meets were attended primarily focused around
1. Free food
2. Freebies
3. As an excuse to nagging parents forcing you to attend your uncle's nephew's neighbour's son's mundan ceremony. Yours truly was no different and subsequently added to the list was Free Wi-fi. (I sense techies nodding their heads in agreement.)

So this was my probably my 5th blogger meet since I started blogging and I've been on and off. The Vodafone McLaren Mercedes Lewis Hamilton meet is the last I attended and so was looking forward to this meet. Location: The famous resto-pub The Blue Frog at Lower Parel and time of meet : 9 am. 9 am? Who goes to a fun blogger meet at 9 am?! However I went and the early getting up bit was made up with a rocking concert by the IndiBlogger band. Who would've thought a rock concert at 10ish in the morning! Awesomesauce.

Now the real fact this meet was more awesome – was I was gonna meet bloggers like me. The only difference was they had made a cool living by blogging. Back in 2008, when literally everyone had started blogging -yours truly included- one never imagined it to be a full time profession. Why, even the mere thought was incredulous. And then the boom of social media happened and suddenly Content was King. The meet started with IndiBlogger's Anoop as the emcee followed by Vinit Goenka delivering the keynote peppered with diplomacy.

Speaking next was Amit Agarwal from labnol.org, who was blogging since 2004, like the Jurassic era of blogs advocated using wordpress.org over blogger.com. His thoughts made a lot of sense as wordpress was more search engine friendly and had more analytics features. He also spoke about never giving away content for the lure of freebies.

Next up was the literal YouthKiAwaaz Anshul Tewari who relentless struggle and belief in his socially aware idea catapulted during the Arab spring of 2011. Cannot believe he does not have a single ad placed on his website.

Varun Krishnan, the founder of FoneArena.com gave an insight on monetization on blogging. He spoke about how important it is keep focus on the content while the money will follow.

Chai with Lakshmi Rebecca can give a KJo a run for his Koffee. Her tete-a-tete along with Sumit Singh of Cleartrip, was refreshing. Lakshmi advised hiring your own help for editing content for video blogging while Sumit gave due importance to maintaining a clean, easy to navigate and responsive template for Pcs, Tablets and mobile devices. Sensible. Harsh Agarwal of shoutmeloud.com highlighted more technical aspects of blogging with primary focus on SEO. Who knew search engines can be picky!
Uber cool Sherezade Shroff described her dislike for writing and love for fashion. She reminisced her experience when a brand approached her to review facewashes and rejected them outright because of her affinity to Medimix soap. Story ninja and Tea sommelier Snighda Manchanda narrated a sweet story of how she discovered her liking for Tasting Teas and weaving wonderful stories. 'Ideas come and go, Stories Stay' So true. Also, I truly liked her 7 basic story idea plots. CS Krishna highlighted their run in with the law for turning up the heat with Mrs Gandhi and Mr Singh video. Their video got a million likes, but the Sec 66A IT Act was breathing down their necks.

Overall the day long meet was supercharged and even better that it ended on time with a bang. Like literally, headbanging.