Waves (festival)
| Waves | |
|---|---|
| Waves 2015 - Escape Reality | |
| Genre | Cultural |
| Dates | October/ November |
| Venue | Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani – Goa Campus |
| Location(s) | Goa, India |
| Inaugurated | 2006 |
| Website | |
| http://www.bits-waves.org/ | |
Waves is the annual cultural festival of BITS Pilani, Goa Campus. It is a three-day-long festival held in the late October - early November period. The first edition was in 2006 and in spite of being a relatively new festival, it has attracted considerable media attention and many prominent sponsors over the years.The fest, very much in the spirits of Goa, holds a spectacular bonanza with a marvellous blend of fun and frolic, devotion, dedication and lots of happiness.The special events that Waves,BITS Goa offers include Natyanjali, Fashion Parade and Mr. and Ms. Waves. Sea Rock, their semi-professional rock band competition has gone on to become a national event with several elimination rounds held in major cities accross the country. The Pro nights are a major attraction, with every night in the three night festival dedicated to a different genre. The workshops organized are very interesting and include classes on mock tail making, siporex art, graffiti making,hip-hop dancing and other such creative arts.Waves celebrates talent, creativity and the spirit to party. This fest is a meeting of all the talent in the country which comes together not only to compete but also to lose itself in the atmosphere of the fest. This is a festival to be witnessed, not told about. The 2015 edition of the festival,with the tagline "Escape Reality" received a footfall of more than 35,000 students from 150 colleges all over the country. Waves, BITS Goa has grown really fast since it's inception and has become one of India's leading college fests in less than a decade.[1][2][3]
Contents
History
Waves was first held in 2006, when it was an inter-college affair. Since then, Waves moved on to being a regional festival, with many colleges from the Goa-Mumbai region participating. Waves went national in 2008 and was extremely successful. Following this success, 2009 saw two editions of the festival. The subsequent years saw the festival grow in terms of participation and number of events. In the past, celebrities like Vishal–Shekhar, Priyanka Chopra, Kalki Koechlin, Kailash Kher, DJ NYK, Shafqat Amanat Ali, Karsh Kale and bands like Indian Ocean, Agam, Parikrama, Raeth, Dead Letter Circus, Thermal and a Quarter, Blackstratblues , Salim-Sulaiman , Dj Paroma ,Lost Stories have been a part of the festival.
The tagline of Waves 2014 was "Lights, Camera, Mayhem!”. The year saw an international act, The WorldFest, a Coke Studio performance for the English Nite as well as the Searock event which had become one of India's biggest semi-professional rock band hunt contests. There was a performance by renowned Artist, Shankar Mahadevan for the Hindi Nite, and DJ Candice Redding for the VH1 Supersonic Nite. The year also saw a special performance by well-known Indian Comedy group, All India Bakchod.
The theme for Waves 2015 is "Escape Reality". The festival is going to be held from 6 to 8 November.
Events
Competitions
The events and competitions at Waves belong to a variety of cultural categories such as Music, Dance, Literary, Quiz, Drama and Fine Arts. Some of the popular competitions include Step-Up, Indian Rock, Jukebox, Contention, Moot Court, Nukkad Naatak,Word Games, and JAM. Over the years the number of events have increased with several new competitions like "Sizzle" and "Vices Quiz" becoming very popular among the participants. There are more than 40 competitions in total.[4]
Big 3
‘The Big 3’ events of Waves consists of 'Natyanjali', 'Fashion Parade' and 'Mr. And Ms. Waves'.Natyanjali is the group-dance event, Fashion Parade or FashP is the Fashion Show event and Mr. and Ms. Waves is the Talent Hunt Event. They are the most competitive events and attract the biggest crowds.
Sea Rock
Tagline: Where Music breathes Life.
"Sea Rock" is a national event and held in several cities. Searock gives participants the opportunity to make it big in the Music Industry. With eliminations in nine cities including Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore and Goa—Searock gives contestants the chance to bring out their thoughts and music and showcase it to the world. The winners receive cash prizes, scholarships at the best music academies of the nation and a feature in leading media publications.
Specials
The Specials at Waves encompass a variety of unconventional events and competitions. Previous editions have included paintball, blackjack, poker, donut eating competition, Limca Book of Records attempt, Guinness World Record attempt, Housie, All Night Treasure Hunt and Last Entrepreneur standing.
Creative works
- Waves Ball
BITS Goa hosts the The Waves Ball, to which couples from all participant colleges are invited. The highlights of the Ball include the elaborate cuisine, a live-band, and a number of fun couple events and games.
- Workshops
Waves hosts a number of workshops, including Belly Dancing, Origami, Skate-Boarding, Beat-boxing, Canvas shoe Painting, Latin dance, Pottery etc. Besides the on-fest workshops, Waves organizes its pre-fest Dance Workshop in the month of October. This dance workshop gives an opportunity to explore various dance styles taught by professionals from reputed dance academies.
- Adventure zone
Includes Zorb Soccer, Laser tag, Paintball, Bungee Run, Slip soccer, Sumo Wrestling.
- Informals
Waves organizes informal events to keep people occupied throughout the fest. People can participate in these off beat events and win prizes. Some events in the past include flash photography, beg-borrow-steal, vasco amazing race, twister, limbo, pillow fight, quizzes and many more mobile informals.
Professional Nites
Waves has previously featured the likes of Vishal–Shekhar, Priyanka Chopra, Karsh Kale, Blackstratblues, Kailash Kher,[5] Shafqat Amanat Ali, Shankar Mahadevan, Strings, Indian Ocean, Parikrama (band), Thermal And A Quarter,[6] Pakistani Rock act Raeth (band), Carnatic Rock band Agam (band), Dead Letter Circus, DJ Candice Redding, DJ NYK, DJ Suketu. The ‘Nites’ are usually divided into a DJ Nite, a Hindi Nite and an English Nite to cater to various tastes.
- DJ Nite
The DJ Nite is usually held on the first Night during which an Electronic musician performs. Previous additions of Waves have seen performances by renowned DJs like DJ Amit, DJ Candice Redding, DJ NYK, DJ Suketu, Nikhil Chinapa and many others. DJ Nite also hosted an official Pre-Sunburn event in previous editions of Waves.
- English Nite
English Nite is one of the major Nites having performances by renowned English Music Artists. In the past the English Nite has seen performances by Dead Letter Circus, Blackstratblues, Baiju Dharmajan, Nikhil D'Souza, Thermal And A Quarter, Junkyard Groove among others.
- Hindi Nite
Hindi Nite is usually the biggest of all three. It has witnessed performances by renowned Hindi Music Artists such as Vishal–Shekhar, Kailash Kher, Indian Ocean, Parikrama, Strings, Agam, Shafqat Amanat Ali, Shankar Mahadevan and Raeth.
Waves 2014
Tagline: Lights.Camera.Mayhem!
Waves 2014 featured events organised by the various clubs of Music, Dance, Literary, Quiz, Drama, Moot Court and the Fine Arts. ‘The Big 3’ events of Waves, Natyanjali, Fashion Parade and Mr. And Ms. Waves attracted a huge crowd of cheering students. Specials, another segment, consisted of unconventional events like Treasure Hunt, Photography Competitions, Film making, Last Entrepreneur standing, etc. The Adventure Zone consisted of events like Lazer Tag, Reverse Bungee, Sumo Wrestling, Zorb Soccer. Workshops like Blackjack, Poker, canvas shoe painting, dance and parkour were also organized catering to a wide array of interests. One of the highlights of the Events at Waves was the on-spot cash prize. Waves 2014 also featured renowned artists like D.J. Candice Redding for the VH1 Supersonic Nite. The 2014 edition of the festival received a footfall of around 35,000 students from more than 150 colleges all over the country. Popular Bollywood singer Shankar Mahadevan for the Hindi Nite and Baiju Dharmajan (Syndicate) for the Coke Studio Nite. Comedy Nite featured the well-known Indian Comedy group, All India Bakchod(AIB) which entertained the audience with their comic sketches and parodies on topics like politics and the Film Industry. This iteration of Waves also held the Worldfest, which was an event where artists from all over the globe presented their skills. WorldFest featured Andrea Pixie, a Fire artist, Fire Kydd with his Aerial Act, Leona Rodrigues with her Hoola-Hoops and Sonya Nakti, a Belly dancer showing off her superb skills. Waves 2014 also presented Searock, an annual national level Semi-Rock Band Competition. At Waves 2014, L-ACOUSTICS K1, one of the best sound systems, was for the first time used in a college festival.
Waves 2014 saw Christ University, Bangalore, take away the overall winner’s trophy.
Media and publicity
Waves, being one of the premier college festivals, has been featured on many national platforms. Various media powerhouses such as MTV, VH1, Hindustan times, The Times of India, The Hindu, Comedy Central, Channel V, The Outlook Magazine, The Score magazine and several others have covered Waves in the past. Waves has had International presence for the past few years, being featured in highly prestigious magazines such as The Rolling Stone magazine. Waves has an enormous online presence, being featured on several websites, social media pages and mobile applications. Over the years, Waves has been covered extensively by TV channels, Newspapers and magazines local to Goa. All in all, the Waves experience has not been limited to the people attending the festival.Waves has managed to reach millions through mass media.
Sponsors and associations
Waves, with a footfall exceeding 35,000, witnesses participation from over 150 colleges from across India and thereby serves to provide the ideal target crowd for branding of numerous multinational corporations. Since its inception, Waves has attracted sponsorship associations from industrial giants like Coke Studio, LinkedIn, Cadbury, Britannia, TATA, ICICI Bank, Idea, Crompton Greaves, Reliance, Bharat Petroleum, Hero, Classmate, Redbull, Dell, LG, Reebok, AIRCEL, State Bank of India and Union Bank, to name a few. The crowded sponsorship matrix, with a wide range of repeating sponsors every year, is indicative of the mutually beneficial and productive associations BITS Pilani fosters with its clients.
Waves has associations with some of the top academics of the country for the variety of events in their arsenal. Some of them include Indian Idol Academy, True School of Music(TSM), National Centre for Performing Arts (NCPA), Indian Mime academy, Jogesh Mime Academy, Thespo, G R Kare College of Law, Indian Institute of Photography, Terrence Lewis Academy, Saroj Khan Dance Academy, Shiamak Dawar International Dance Academy, Indian B-Boying Federation, Indian Institute of Art and Design, Style Fiesta, and the list goes on.
References
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