23 December 2017
WHISPERS IN THE WOODS
'IT WAS ALMOST A MINI MBA'
SUGAM GANDHI ON DEPP, STAND-UP AND THE '17 BATCH
This year ATMOS saw a massive increase in footfall and a shattering amount of profits with it's improved event quality and tremendous participation from students both on and off campus. With registrations for workshops increasing manifold contributing largely to this success, we sat down with Sugam Gandhi. CoStAAn of the Department of Publicity and Public Relations on what they did right this year. Read on as we continue chatting about the new and expanding stand up society, working with the 2017 batch and dealing with campus issues.
The footfall of ATMOS this year was much greater than in previous editions. According to the consensus on campus, it’s largely due to the role of DePP. What did DePP do differently this year to achieve this feat?
We started the work much earlier. I also found flaws in the existing framework and came up with solutions for them. For instance, the Campus Ambassador Program was launched a mere 15 days before the fest last year. This time we launched it 2-3 months in advance. Consequently, last year, we had only about a 100 campus ambassadors, whereas this year we had around 400.
We prepared well in advance before we went to colleges for publicity. We prepared a formal permission letter, with the stamp of BITS Pilani to make the letter look professional, to ask the colleges for an auditorium. This way when we went there it was easier to communicate with people.
ATMOS, right now, is a brand that people already know about. No other fest in Hyderabad matches ATMOS in terms of prize money and scale. What people want to know is what ATMOS has to offer. It’s the job of DePP to communicate that to them.
Regarding social media publicity, I knew that Facebook wouldn’t give me the outreach I needed because currently, our page doesn’t have that many likes. Even Instagram doesn’t have the target audience that attends our technical fest. Instead, I focused my efforts on WhatsApp. One of my insights was that in other colleges WhatsApp groups are way more prominent than Facebook groups. So I made sure that on the day of a poster release, the campus ambassadors made the posters their WhatsApp story. Every story’s visibility was 300 views on average. We scheduled the posts properly instead of releasing them all at once. DoTA had a very big role to play in all this.
There are some small features that really help. Like, rather than asking students to fill out their complete details in the form on the ATMOS website, we gave them the option to login through Facebook or Gmail, which could be done in a single click.
As for the workshops- we made sure that they were finalized at least a month in advance so that we could begin publicity. The footfall of workshops was greater than last year, which contributed to the revenue and hence a profitable ATMOS.
You’ve been in DePP for two years as a member, but this year you were a leader. How was that different? You must’ve been part of the strategizing last year as well.
Working is easy; getting people to work isn’t. The only thing I wanted to ensure was that everybody played their part. The retention rate of DePP is very low, because either students lose interest or they don’t get any incentives. It is seen as a very laborious task. I made sure that everybody did at least a little bit of work; that every contribution counted. Working for the fest fostered in them a sense of connection with their fest.
The Stand-up Society has seen a lot of new inductees this year, and there’s even a female member. You were one of the early members. How does it feel to see the society’s progress?
The society was started by Jai (Srivastava) bhaiya last semester. 4 to 5 people were inducted and we tried to keep the society active. We wanted to pursue stand up only as a hobby and that’s why it is a society and not a club.
As for a girl getting inducted, that’s great because we need to promote female comedians. Humor can from anywhere.
In college life, everyone faces a period of depression. If the Stand-up Society puts up a good performance it serves to lighten everyone’s mood. There is a lot of stand-up content available on digital media but a live performance is always better.
Had you thought of doing stand-up before coming here or is that something you decided to take up here?
Everyone has their ups and downs. When I was going through one of my downs, I just tried my hand at stand-up and I liked it. Now, I’m learning some of the more (formal) methods
of stand-up comedy.
After you started doing stand-up comedy, did people come up to you and say, “Ek joke suna de?”
Oh, that happens. People think you can always be funny but that isn’t the case. This is just a hobby for me.
(I’ve learnt that) you won’t always do well at an open mic. An open mic is meant for experimenting with your jokes; to know what people like. The problem is that, there’s only one audience here and you have to live with them. The familiarity can work both ways. On one hand, it’s less scary performing for a known audience, but on the other you have to deal with the judgement that comes after. Consequently, there’s more pressure when performing within campus. I’d advise the newer inductees to go perform in front of alien audiences as well because you develop more confidence that way.
This is your third year on campus. How has BPHC changed in the last two years?
BPHC has changed in many ways. There were so many problems in college that we don’t face anymore. The in-time wasn’t always 2 am, it used to be 12 am. There’s a lot more freedom now that the in-time has been extended. The food was a nuisance. We didn’t have Bits n Bites, Yummpy’s or C3. We only had a restaurant called Viceroy and a Sandwich Corner, which was pretty terrible.
I think the BST problem is also getting slightly better.
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