The Delhi University fest season is something that most of us look forward to throughout the year. From the wide array of cultural competitions to the lively celeb performances, different people look out for fests for different reasons.
As hard as it is for the organisers to plan such fests, it’s as much difficult for media to provide coverage for the fests. This is a detailed perspective of the DU fests and the fest season from the media coverage teams:
Pre-fest planning
As soon as the fest organisers get in touch with us, we have to prepare a layout for the coverage. Correspondents and photographers are allotted a time slot in accordance to the events they would be best suitable for covering. More often than not, we are kept in dark about the fest schedule and we have to keep our best bets while allotting time slots to people.
Live coverage
Crucial things have to be kept in mind and decisions have to be taken accordingly during fests. Most of the time, the number of events taking place at one time are overwhelming. We are often seen running to and fro in the event venues, trying to gather the most. There are also numerous social media handles that are to be run live, to provide the best quality coverage. Results of competitions are given utmost importance and no error is acceptable. In a lot of fests, the organising committees refuse to cooperate and providing the best coverage out of what we have adds to the challenge.
Star nights
It goes without saying that star nights really make up the essence of all festivals, and if people are not present at the fests to see the stars perform, they at the least expect a glimpse of them online or on print. Therefore, there is immense pressure to cover the star nights. If it’s not the constant shoving and pushing from the berserk and often misbehaving crowd at the venues, it’s the bouncers and security personnel that block us from going near the stage.
Publishing and post-event work
A lot of time goes in on discussing each photo, video, article or results that go up online or in print. Still a lot of content goes unappreciated. Post event reports and highlights require the input of a lot of people from the team and then there is the task of compiling all the content that went up for a fest to send it to the organising committee. By the time all this gets done, another fest would start.
So wash, rinse, repeat.
Kartikeya Bhatotia
Feature Image by Chirag Sharma for DU Beat at Mecca, the annual cultural fest of Hindu College.
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