Bollywood shows, corporate sponsorships mean event budgets touch Rs 50 lakh

Gone are the days when college festivals in the city were limited to annual gatherings of a few hundred students on a shoe-string budget. This year, colleges in the city are all geared up to start the year with much fanfare.

Barely 15 days ago, the Symbiosis Centre for Management and Human Resource Development, ended the year 2010 with its annual festival Neev. Operating on a whopping Rs 60 lakh budget, the event that saw participation from 7,000 students had the rockband Parikrama performing on its last day.

Aditya Sen, co-ordinator for ISB&M's annual college fest Crescendo, said the budget for the event starting in the third week of January is about Rs 50 lakh. That's not all. The students are planning to get big names from Bollywood to perform for their event.

"The event previously had singers like Mohit Chauhan and Atif Aslama and bands like Strings performing. This year the event is likely to have performances by Mika, KK and the music band Faridkot," he said.

From January 24 to 31, Vishwakarma Institute of Technology (VIT) will be hosting its annual fest Melange. The festival that has a budget of Rs 40 lakh would have the rock band Indian Ocean performing. "Every year VIT organises three different events ufffd Epiphany which is a cultural fest, Vitality which is a technical fest and Agon which is a sports fest. This year all the three are combined under one and there will be week-long celebrations at the campus," said a volunteer.

This month-end would also see one of the biggest sports festivals in the country to be hosted by the College of Engineering Pune. The festival which is now in its eighth year sees more than 3,000 participants and nearly 6,000 spectators from all over India.

Probably the biggest inter-engineering college fest, it covers nearly all sorts of indoor and outdoor sports from table tennis, chess, carom, tennis, badminton, cricket, kabaddi, kho kho, among others.

Besides that, organisers also arrange for accommodation, travel and food for participants on advance notice.
Axlerate, an annual college festival of the mechanical engineering department of Maharashtra Institute of Technology.

It is sponsored by SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) and will be held from February 18 to 20.