Saarang is the annual social and cultural festival of IIT Madras. It is a five-day long event held towards the end of January every year and is attended by approximately 50,000 students. Called Mardi Gras when it was started in the mid 1970s, the fest has gone on to become an integral part of the city culture of Chennai.It was renamed Saarang in 1996.
History
In the early 1970s, a "cultural week" festival was held.
The fest was formally started in 1974-75 as Mardi Gras, the focus of the festival being to promote interest in cultural and literary activities and to develop the organizational skills of the students.
Spring Fest, popularly known as SF, is the annual social & cultural festival of Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur held during the month of January in the spring semester. Spring Fest is usually held for 3 days and 4 nights in the weekend closest to 26 January, India's Republic Day. 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 55th edition of Spring Fest is scheduled to be held from January 23 to January 26, 2014.
Inception and Growth
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 manifold in scale, attracting participants from all over India and as well as abroad. The 2013 edition of the fest received a footfall of over 50,000 people.
Activities
During the fest, students from IIT Kharagpur and from different colleges all over the country participate in a plethora of socio-cultural activities.The ambit of the events encompasses various genres like Dance, Music, Photography, Literature, Quizzing and Dramatics.
Other non-competition based events include Hard-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.
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.
