With Bollywood stars Kareena Kapoor and Aishwarya Rai-Bachchan keeping away from New Year's Eve bashes, actor Malaika Arora Khan may just walk away with the plumpest assignment because of the craze for Munni number, says a media report.
The report says, sponsors are now lining up the next rung of Bollywood actors like Mallika Sherawat, Bipasha Basu, Lara Dutta, Celina Jaitley, Genelia D'Souza, Neha Dhupia, Esha Koppikhar, Amrita Rao, Yana Gupta.
"The standard performer rate for any bash is around Rs 3 crore for an hour. You can add one more crore for a big name to meet the cost of dancers, costumes. We had approached Bipasha, but she's yet to give us the nod," says a prominent event manager.
All event managers agree on the fact that the current hit songs determine the market value of a performer, which explains why Malaika Arora-Khan is topping the list as she has the biggest chartbuster Munni badnaam hui to her credit at present.
Says Sabbas Joseph, director of an event management company,"Given a choice, everybody will like to see a Katrina and Kareena on stage. Though we aren't hosting any such event this year one always goes by the immediate market demands (read : hit songs)."
The bigger the star, the bigger hole it will dig in your pocket. "New Year Eve is a premium date (for partying). The prices of all commodities shoot up. Even the star, who's to perform, charge high, which again is validated by the star's popularity at the moment," explains Mohammad Morani, director of another event management company.
Malaika's current market price is said to be Rs 2.5 crore for a half-hour performance.
Celina and Neha are apparently charging Rs 57 lakh (for one hour) and Rs 15 lakh (for half-hour) respectively.
The male brigade performing this year: Actors Vivek Oberoi in Dubai and Govinda in Mumbai. Vivek's fees are said to be around Rs 1 crore.
