 |
| Equinox 4.0 - Crave, Create, Conquer |
The Oxford Dictionary defines the
term Equinox as that time of the year where day and night is of equal
length. Indian Institute of Management Raipur named its annual fest as Equinox,
when it became the first institute among the new IIM's to start the trend of
organizing its own annual fest in early 201. It was an amalgamation of
diverse business events and cultural extravaganza, which is the
ultimate signature of any successful college fest. Equinox 4.0 was the fourth edition of the
Business-cum-Cultural festival of IIM Raipur, which was held this year from 31st
January to 2nd February. Every year, this fest draws huge participation
from B-schools all over the country, and this year was no exception. The event witnessed
unparalleled reach and visibility among the corporate and b-school fraternity.
Any successful event needs a lot
of planning and ground work which needs to be done before the actual event on the D-day. Equinox 4.0 was no exception to this.
There was an immense opportunity to learn working with diverse set of teams and
people in this event, and I thoroughly relished the challenge of leading and coordinating the activities of various functional teams viz., Sponsorship,
Event Marketing, Venue Management etc. being some of the prominent ones among
them.
Without the support of sponsors,
this event couldn't have been conducted in such a magnificent manner. The
initial stage of the event planning was all about finding the appropriate
sponsors for the various set of events conducted by the eight different clubs
in the institute namely, CEC, CUSP, Finatix, Hridhaan, Kartavya, Mantra, OPEP
and Quizzing. We listed down the potential sponsors list obtained from the
various industry contacts in the city of Raipur, and allotted designated teams
to the various companies to follow up on the progress of individual companies.
Some of the major sponsors of the event were NTPC, SAIL, IDBI, Chhattisgarh
Tourism etc. Radio Mirchi was signed as the radio partner for covering the
event.
The next stage of the pre-event
planning was all about marketing the event so that it gets the desired coverage
and participation from among the premier institutes across the country and the local colleges. Various channels were employed to achieve this
successfully viz., social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter; mailers and
follow ups to dedicated PoC's from institutes across the country to spread the
word there. Various tools like daily quizzes were employed efficiently in
social media by Bharath Raju and Sumit Ranjan's team of PGP 2013-15 batch, as
part of the event marketing team, headed by Rajat Katiyar of PGP 2012-14 batch.
 |
| LAN Gaming event picking up heat among many local students from Raipur, Bhilai and other cities of Chhattisgarh |
The D-day arrived on the 31st
of January, and Equinox 4.0 started with a big bang. The on-the-spot event, LAN
Gaming witnessed huge participation from colleges across the cities of Raipur
and Bhilai and was a tremendous success. The business events went along all day
in parallel, and participants from premier institutes like the other IIMs,
IIFT, XLRI, FMS, MDI and a host of other institutes thronged to win the various
flagship and business events held in the campus.
 |
| Footwork- the Dance Competition of IIM Raipur |
 |
| Salvation Regained from Bhilai giving a guest performance at Armageddon - The War of Bands |
The second day witnessed
similar impressive participation in the business events through the day, and as
the evening set in, glitz and colour was in the air, as group Dance competition and
Armageddon-Battle of Bands were held as part of the cultural
events, which witnessed heavy participation from the local colleges and with
crowds thronging to support the various teams in action, the campus was
completely filled with action. The final day, the 2nd of February
began with heavy crowds thronging the venue for X-Quiz-It, the flagship
business quiz which was open to both students and corporates alike.
 |
| Verve - The Fashion Show Competition of IIM Raipur added extra oomph to the Equinox 4.9 |
As the
day wore on with more business events, the final night set in with the
eye-catching Verve-Fashion show competition. Various teams graced the occasion
with supreme designer outfits on par with the best fashion shows in the
country. The event was a mega success, and was definitely the most popular event
in Equinox 4.0.
 |
| DJ Night at IIM Raipur |
The relief and celebrations of the students was very evident
and went late into the night, as the fest culminated with some high-adrenaline
dance moves by the students on the dance floor, with the most popular DJ of Raipur DJ Kawal along with DJ Rizwan rocking
the show with the DJ night.
I certainly owe my heartfelt
thanks to everyone and mainly Vijay Krishnan,
Bir Bahadur and Manoj H of PGP 2012-14 batch who contributed in making this Equinox 4.0 reach
never-seen-before heights, and let’s all strive to make Equinox 5.0, much
bigger and better.
This article was contributed by Gugan N. of PGP2013-15. He can be contacted at 13pgp080.gugan@iimraipur.ac.in
