Sponz StuCCAn Siddhant Narula was having a lively discussion with the department’s second year batch when he was interrupted for the interview. The second years shoulder most of the burden of attaining the sponsorship target for Oasis, and they continued their work without him.

The Department of Sponsorship and Marketing starts their work much earlier than most other Oasis departments. The sponsor database is updated by May and they are contacted in the summer, often as a mail blast, with phone calls made to the big fish most likely to sponsor the fest.

“Thanks to these initial calls, we did get a title sponsor very early on this time”, Narula said. Most of the sponsors prefer music or dance events and some certain niche events like film making. As most companies sponsor the fest through these events, the events themselves need to be sold to them via formal sales pitches.

The second year batch handles most of the pitching and negotiation and the third years usually step in to expedite the deal making with the contacts they have made over their time working for the department. The first years have just begun the journey up their learning curve and work mostly as volunteers during their first fest and help out the second years.

Although Narula does not deny that the work gets hectic as the fest looms nearer, he believes that being one of the most work intensive departments does not in any way prevent the members from enjoying the fest, as many believe. During the fest, it is more of supervision and ensuring the sponsors get the deliverables that they have been promised.

“It’s great being the StuCCAn of this department, obviously, but it is also getting stressful”, Narula said, chuckling rather nervously. “But I get to work with a group of people who are really good at what they do”.  Every department has very different work ethics and different perspectives, so hurdles are inevitable in the StuCCA. Preparing for and running a fest with a budget of 1.5 crores is not a  piece of cake and it’s imperative that the right decisions be taken.  But with the sponsorship that the department has achieved this time, Oasis – 2017 is expected to outdo the fest’s previous editions.