Spring Fest
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| Type | Student-run non-profit organization |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1960 |
| Place | Kharagpur, India |
| Institute | Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur |
| Prize money | 30 lakhs |
| Guests | Salim-Sulaiman, KK, Shaan, Vishal–Shekhar, Sunidhi Chauhan, Shankar Mahadevan, Hariprasad Chaurasia, Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt |
| Slogan | The True Spirit of Youth |
| Website | www.springfest.in |
Spring Fest, popularly known as SF, is the annual social and cultural festival of Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur held during January in the spring semester. The first edition was held in 1960 and since then it has grown to be one of the largest student-run college fests in India. The 58th edition of Spring Fest is scheduled to be held from January 20th to 22nd, 2017.
The first edition of Spring Fest was held in 1960, which makes it one of the oldest college fests in India. It was conceived as a platform for the students of IIT Kharagpur to showcase their extra academic skills. Over the years, it began to attract participants from the neighboring colleges of West Bengal. In the last decade or so, the fest grew in scale, attracting participants from all over India and as well as abroad. The 2016 edition of the fest received a footfall of over 50,000 people.
During the fest, students from IIT Kharagpur and from different colleges all over the country participate in a multitude of social and cultural activities. The ambit of the events encompasses various genres like Dance, Music, Dramatics, Photography, Literature, Quizzing and Fine Arts.
Tremendous participation and aggressive competition are seen in all the events, especially the flagship events of SF, namely Nukkad, Shuffle, Wildfire, Rangmanch, Centrifuge, and Lake Side Dreams. The preliminary rounds of Nukkad, Shuffle and Wildfire happen nationwide. Every city that Spring Fest visits to conduct prelims, the whole atmosphere turns festive and the creative lot throng to the venue to see the show of talent.
Other non-competition based events include Hard-Talk, which involves talks/conferences by eminent personalities from a variety of fields and IIT KGP Model United Nations, one of the biggest MUNs that takes place in Eastern India. 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.
The hub for major activities during the fest is called the Arena, which has the Informals and Perpz stage. The informals stage hosts various fun filled casual activities, for which the participants can win numerous prizes. The Perpz stage is an all day dance floor with a DJ, that attracts huge crowds. Apart from this the arena also has numerous food and corporate stalls.
The evenings are notable for the "Pro-Nights", more commonly known as Star-Nites — the biggest events in Spring Fest which usually involve live concerts by some of the most famous musicians and bands of national and international acclaim. All the Star Nites are free to attend for any student of the institute and all registered participants. The genres of music are wide and varied and involve pop, rock and fusion bands. The venue for these events is the Tagore Open Air Theater (TOAT) and Jnan Ghosh Stadium which usually get packed to their full capacity during the Star-Nites, with crowds of up to 23,000 people. Famous Indian artists like Farhan Akhtar, Amit Trivedi, Salim-Sulaiman, Pritam, Kailash Kher, KK, Papon, S. P. Balasubramaniam, Shaan, Sunidhi Chauhan, Vishal-Shekhar, Shweta Pandit, Shankar Mahadevan, Shivamani, Sukhwinder Singh and classical performers such as Pandit Debashish Bhattacharya, Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia, L. Sriram, Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, and Pandit Divyang Vakil have performed here. Bands like Pentagram, Swarathma, Underground Authority, Kryptos, Parikrama, Euphoria, Indian Ocean, Strings, and Spunk have also performed.
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