Spring Fest

Infobox_Kshitij
company_name = Spring Fest
company_
type = Student Run, Non-Profit Organisation
company_slogan = The True Spirit of Youth
foundation = 1960
location_city = Kharagpur
location_country = India
location =

num_employees = 41
events = Taal, Pal, Anubhav, Armageddon, Wildfire, Rangmanch, Hasya Kavi Sammelan etc.
institute = Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur
homepage = [http://www.springfest.in www.springfest.in]
prize_money = Worth more than Rupees 9 Lakhs
guest = T. N. Seshan, Shaan, Sukhwinder Singh, Sunidhi Chauhan, Shankar Mahadevan, Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia, Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, S. P. Balasubramaniam

Spring Fest, popularly known as SF, is the annual social & cultural festival held at Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur during the month of January in the spring semester. The Spring Fest is held for 4 nights and 3 days on the weekend closest to 26th January, India's Republic Day.

Activities

During the fest, students from IIT Kharagpur and from different colleges all over the country participate in a plethora of socio-cultural activities. Most of these are day events which involve dramatics, music and dance competitions, fine-arts contests, quizzes, and other literary events. Other non-competition based events include "Star-Talk" which involves talks/conferences by eminent personalities from a variety of fields. The number of these events is particularly large and serves to cater to the very large number of participants — both local as well as from other colleges all over the country.

There are other "just-for-kicks" events that are kept on running throughout the day and usually provide entertainment to the partcipants in-between the main events. Some of these events, such as "Perpendiculars" (which runs throughout the 4 days), are so popular that they are able to attract students away from the main events.

The official website of the fest is [http://www.springfest.in www.springfest.in]

Star Nites

The evenings are notable for "Star-Nites" — the biggest events in Spring Fest which usually involve live concerts by some of the most famous musicians and bands in South Asia. The genres of music are wide and varied and involve pop, rock and fusion bands. The usual venue for these events is the "Tagore Open Air Theater" (TOAT) which usually gets packed to its full capacity during the "Star-Nites" as the students, faculty members and the assistant staff turn up in huge numbers to see the shows. The security for these events is very tight and is managed by the students themselves. For latecomers, it is usually impossible to get a seat inside TOAT and sights such as students hanging on tree branches and on the high TOAT walls to catch a glimpse of the concert are not uncommon. These are some of the biggest concerts in Eastern India and attract a huge number of non-IIT Kharagpur students as well. Famous Indian artistes like S. P. Balasubramaniam, Shaan, Sunidhi Chauhan, Shankar Mahadevan, Shivamani and classical performers such as Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia, L. Sriram, Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt have performed here. Bands like Parikrama, Euphoria, Indian Ocean, Strings etc. have also been performing here.

Other notable events

Other events include the annual fashion parade "Fine Frenzy", which includes apparel designs by the students of the participating colleges. This event also attracts a large audience and has been a cause for concern in the past when some of the designs were a bit too revealing compared to Indian norms. Also featured is Indian classical night "Anubhav". SF also hosts an inter-collegiate dance competition "Centrifuge". New additions include events such as "India Calling", a professional play, "HKS"(Hasya Kavi Sammelan) & an event to promote India's diverse & rich culture. SF has traditionally been started off with a live concert by IIT Kharagpur's own eastern musical group — the Eastern Technology Musical Society (ETMS). This event is held in the Netaji Auditorium (IIT Kharagpur's main indoor auditorium), and being the first event of SF, is very popular.

A notable event is "Wildfire" which involves a competition between rock bands from various colleges. The event culminates in the finalists playing in an all-out live concert on the last night of SF. Another such event for fans of Indian music is "Sargam".

Organization

SF is notable for being the second-largest student event in the country. Due to this, SF is often cited as one of the prime example showcasing the management skills of IITians in general. The fest is also able to attract a reasonable amount of coverage from the electronic and print-media (MTV India and The Telegraph, Kolkata). The core-team, known as the "Action & Publicity (AP)" team, is formed around seven to eight months before the event. This team consists of student representatives, student team heads and members. The team is largely responsible for garnering sponsorship for the event from external agencies, such as companies in India and also conducts publicity of the events throughout colleges in India during the year. During SF, the AP team performs coordinative tasks to make sure the events run smoothly and the guests and sponsors are catered to.

The individual events are handled by event-specific teams managed by student heads, sub-heads and volunteers. The pre-event tasks, like putting-up of banners, internal publicity, security, student accommodation, transportation, guest reception, and arena design, are distributed among the heads and members of the core organizing team.

Influence on IIT Kharagpur

The regular academic sessions at IIT Kharagpur are known to be intense due to the large number of courses and topics involved which are taught during an extremely short duration. This is taxing for both the students as well as the faculty members and assistant staff. SF provides a welcome respite to the residents of IIT Kharagpur by being rejuvenative and recreational as well as by acting as a mid-session break. Acting as the ultimate wind-out time for KGPians, SF is known not only for its events but also for the general atmosphere of student revelry surrounding the institute. Even after SF ends, casual chats between students regarding the various events and speculations regarding the participants/artistes for the coming year are very common throughout the rest of the academic session.

References

* [http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl1909/19090840.htm Kharagpur's legend]

External links

* [http://www.iitkgp.ac.in IIT Kharagpur - official website]
* [http://www.springfest.in Spring Fest - the official website]