Waves (festival)


Waves is the annual cultural festival of BITS Pilani, K K Birla Goa Campus. It is a three-day-long festival held in the late October – early November period. It is a cultural festival that is held annually to celebrate music, dance and art. It is an inter college festival with students coming in to participate in events and competitions from across the country. With a footfall of over 40,000 recorded in recent editions, it is one of the leading college festivals in the country.
The first edition of Waves was in 2006. In spite of being a relatively new festival, it has attracted considerable media attention and many prominent sponsors over the years. There are many events in various categories like Dance, Drama, Literature, Comedy, Fashion and Music. Elimination rounds to many of these events are held across various cities in India during the months before the fest.
The Professional Nights, often called "Nites" in the college lingo, are a major attraction, with every night in the three night festival dedicated to a different genre. Both Indian and International artists have performed in past editions.

History

Waves has evolved into one of the leading cultural fests in India. Waves actually sees its roots in an intra-college festival organised in 2005. Waves as an inter-college festival was first organised in 2006, which was then seen as a prominent regional cultural festival in Goa. Many colleges from Goa and Mumbai participated in Waves in the subsequent years and Waves became the biggest and most coveted cultural festival in Goa. Waves then reached another milestone in 2008 when it entered the mainstream and came to be known as a popular National Cultural Festival in India, which had a theme suiting the culture of Goa- "Nirvana". This edition of Waves was such a big success that the year 2009 saw two editions of this festival. The fame and glamour of Waves attracted participants from all over India, and the festival exponentially grew in terms of participation and number of events. Waves 2014 saw an international act, The WorldFest, a Coke Studio performance for the Indie Nite as well as the Searock event which had become one of India's biggest semi-professional rock band hunt contests.
Today Waves is counted among the top 10 Cultural festivals in India. Celebrities like Farhan Akhtar, Amit Trivedi, Neeti Mohan, Vishal–Shekhar, Priyanka Chopra, Kalki Koechlin, Kailash Kher, Karsh Kale and musical acts like Nucleya, Ritviz, Quintino, Marnik, Lost Stories, have performed at Waves in recent years. Popular comedy houses like All India Bakchod, TVF, Being Indian and others have also performed at Waves. Popular events like Sunburn and Femina Miss India eliminations have been hosted by Waves.
Waves celebrated its 10-year anniversary in the year 2016 from 4–6 November and had therefore come up with the theme Waves 2016– "Tides of Time". The last theme of Waves 2019 was "En Voyage".

Events

Competitions

The events and competitions at Waves belong to a variety of cultural categories such as Music, Dance, Literary, Quiz, Drama, Fine Arts, Film, and many more. Here participants get to showcase their talents and win laurels for their respective colleges. 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 has increased with several new competitions like "Sizzle" and "Vices Quiz" becoming very popular among the participants. There are more than 40 competitions in total.Waves #cite note-4|
The concept of mini-fests was initiated in 2017 edition of Waves. The competitions and events are grouped into four mini-fests. Florence, the performing arts festival. Beau Vista, the design festival. Carpe Dictum, the literary arts festival. Specials, includes interesting line-up of Quiz, Film and Photography events.
Waves, being a popular national cultural festival, also holds the elimination rounds of certain competitions outside the campus in various cities. The event "Show Me The Funny", where Stand-up Comedians from all over India compete, held its elimination rounds in various cities like Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Delhi and Hyderabad for Waves 2016. These elimination rounds have seen overwhelming response in these cities in terms of participants and crowd.

Big 4

These are the biggest competitions in Waves, which attract the maximum crowd and see a tough tussle between the finest performers from all over India. Teams from various notable colleges all over India participate in these three events. The Big 3 events are namely:
1) Natyanjali:
Natyanjali is the most popular competition in Waves. It is a group dance competition in which participants show-off their dancing skills. A variety of dance forms and even a blend of Classical and western dance forms can be seen at Natyanjali. The event is judged by people from dance and choreography academies in India.
2) Mr. And Ms. Waves:
This event is the Talent Hunt event of Waves. Participants showcase their varied talents like music, dance, acting etc. Then in the next round they are asked tricky questions to judge their overall personality and attitude.
In Waves 2019, this event was judged by Raghu Ram from the hit show MTV Roadies.
3) FashP:
FashP or Fashion Parade is the prestigious Fashion event of Waves. Thematic ramp walks, new concepts and trends of fashion are showcased in this event. The event has been judged by fashion training academies like Femina in the past editions of Waves.
This event was judged by Meghna Kaur in the 2019 edition of Waves.
4) SeaRock:
Tagline: Where Music breathes Life.
"" is a national semi-professional band competition and is held in several cities. With eliminations in 12 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. SeaRock also hosted Kathmandu elims, Nepal in 2018 for the first time as a part of its expansion process. The winners receive cash prizes, scholarships at the best music academies of the nation and a feature in leading media publications. The top three bands also get to open for the headlining artists on Waves main stage. Searock is one of the highlights of Waves, and attracts a large audience every year.

Lex Omnia Moot Court

A Moot Court Event by the name “Lex Omnia” is another speciality of Waves. Participants from various Law schools all over India participate in this event. In 2015, Waves organised this event in association with NALSAR, Hyderabad, one of India's leading law school. It received an overwhelming response and was a big hit. The event has shown phenomenal growth since its emancipation.

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, Wallstreet fete, Ratatouille etc.

Creative works

;Waves Ball
BITS Goa hosts 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.
Waves Ball at Waves 2015 had a theme "A Midnight in Paris", wherein a very romantic and ecstatic setup was organised for the participants.
;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 a pre-fest Dance Workshop a month before the fest. This dance workshop gives an opportunity to explore various dance styles taught by professionals from reputed dance academies.
;Adventure zone
Waves also organizes a lot of fun loaded adventure events during the three days. Previous editions of Waves had exciting events like Zorb Soccer, Laser tag, Paintball, Bungee Run, Slip soccer, Sumo Wrestling and many more.
;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 Campus Roadies, Game of Scrolls, flash photography, beg-borrow-steal, Vasco amazing race, twister, limbo, pillow fight, quizzes and many more mobile informals.
Waves associated with NBA in 2015 to conduct an NBA Jam during Waves.

Professional Nites

Waves gained popularity far and wide due to the euphoria and ecstasy it creates in its Professional Nights or Pro-Nites as they are called. Popular national as well as international artists perform every year at Pro Nites. Waves has previously featured the likes of Vishal–Shekhar, Priyanka Chopra, Karsh Kale, Blackstratblues, Kailash Kher, Waves #cite note-5| Shafqat Amanat Ali, Shankar Mahadevan, Strings, Indian Ocean, Parikrama, Thermal and a Quarter,Waves #cite note-6| Pakistani Rock act Raeth, Carnatic Rock band Agam, Dead Letter Circus, Candice Redding, DJ NYK, DJ Suketu etc.
The Pro-Nites of Waves are divided into 3 Nites, to cater to varied tastes of the audience:
;EDM Nite
The EDM Nite is usually held on the last night during which an Electronic musician performs. Previous editions of Waves have seen performances by renowned electronic music artists like Nucleya, Quintino, Marnik, Diego Miranda, Ritviz, etc. This is the biggest musical act of the whole fest and draws the largest crowd.
EDM Nite also hosted an official Pre-Sunburn event in previous editions of Waves.
There are usually two to three acts on EDM night, with the opening acts performing initially followed by the main artist.
;Indie Nite
Indie Nite is one of the major nites having performances by renowned Indie Music Artists. In the past the Indie Nite has seen performances by Dead Letter Circus, Blackstratblues, Anand Bhaskar Collective, The Yellow Diary,
Indian Ocean and Sifar among others.
;Bollywood Nite
Bollywood Nite is a major crowd gatherer. It has witnessed performances by renowned Bollywood such as Vishal–Shekhar, Kailash Kher, Salim Sulaiman and Farhan Akhtar among a lot of others.

Waves 2019

Tagline: En Voyage On Uncharted Ventures!
The theme "En Voyage On Uncharted Ventures" promises to take the performers on an exhilarating and electrifying journey for the 3 days. The fest is to be held from the 1–3 November,Though eliminations of different events such as SeaRock, Inverse and SMTF have already taken place in different cities across the country.

Waves 2018

Tagline: Embrace The Shadows!
Waves 2018 featured events organised by the various clubs of Music, Dance, Literary, Quiz, Drama, Moot Court and the Fine Arts. ‘The Big 4’ events of Waves, Natyanjali, Fashion Parade and Mr. And Ms. Waves and SeaRock 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. This edition of Waves attracted a footfall of over 50,000 with students from 150+ colleges taking part in the events. It was also the first edition of Waves in which a YouTube Conclave was held and many known YouTube celebrities like Meghna Kaur and YouTube channel Filter Copy shared a stage and engaged in a fun round of games.
The Pro Nites of Waves 2018 saw performances from Farhan Akhtar in the Bollywood Night and Quintino, one of the top 25 DJs in the world performed in the EDM night. The Indie Night saw a performance from music band Anand Bhaskar Collective.

Waves 2017

A Tale In Two Shades!
Waves 2017 came with a completely new concept of celebrating the abstract. Apart from the Big 3, even the smaller events received overwhelming response. Photography events like ‘Montage’, ‘Mezzo-tint’, ‘Time Lapse’ and ‘Reverse flash’, ‘Waves Open Quiz’, ’Waves Debate Championship’, ‘Rubik’s Cube Challenge’,’Wallstreet Fete’ also saw enthusiasm and success. Other events like Searock, Show Me The Funny also showed continued growth from the last edition of Waves.
For the Bollywood night, vishal-shekhar ended the festival.

Sponsors and associations

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, T.I.M.E, Parle, Maruti Suzuki, ToneTag.
Waves has associations with some of the top academics of the country for the variety of events. Some of them include Indian Idol Academy, True School of Music, National Centre for Performing Arts, Indian Mime academy, Jogesh Mime Academy, Thespo, NALSAR Bangalore,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, Chalta Hai Comedy, Old Delhi Films.