College fests are a memorable part of our lives where extravagant decorations, sizzling celebrities/ stars and most importantly many, fun-driven events add to the flavor. Most colleges stick to a similar list of events thereby making the fest quite monotonous and stereotypical.

While some colleges make an attempt to introduce something new or modify an existing event, it may or may not turn out to be successful. A successful college event means a significant number of participants, a majority of good reviews, an excellent venue, a great judge/ moderator, etc., mostly with or maybe without handsome cash awards for the winner.

Beyond these factors, success for a college fest can be defined by the quality and the innovative aspect of the events. While event organizers, social secretaries, faculty members, etc., are on the lookout for creative ideas for new events, here are some super cool fest ideas that you can conduct in your upcoming college fest as an organizer.

Turn Coat (Block and Tackle)

A participant is given any random topic and instantly has to speak, “for or against” the topic. In a duration of 5 minutes whenever the judge commands ‘switch’, the speaker will have to toggle between ‘for’ and ‘against’ multiple times thereby contradicting the previous statements. Loaded with instantaneous humor, the speaker is evaluated by spontaneity, humor, content and of course audience response.

Shipwreck

You are given the role of Superman/ Justin Bieber/ Narendra Modi etc. The ship is sinking, and the Captain has only one Life-Jacket left. You are on the ship with other famous celebrities/ fictional characters/ hypothetical characters. Sink into the given character and try to escape from the sinking ship by using your impressive, convincing skills and prove that you deserve the only Life-jacket. Make yourself appear prominent and better than any other person/ thing on board to win the Life jacket and eventually win the event. The participants are judged on content, humor, cogent arguments, valid points and audience response.

JAM (Just A Minute)

This is group/team game. Around 6-8 speakers (participants) sit in a semi-circle and discuss a topic. The mic is handed over to one of the speakers and an incredibly humorous topic, usually, a pun is given. While the speaker tries to spin a story or only create a sentence around the given topic, he is restricted by several rules which can be classified into the three classic rules of the erstwhile JAM sessions, namely,

• REPETITION
• DEVIATION

Meanwhile, the other participants raise objections in case the current speaker breaks these rules and correct objections fetch positive points. However, wrong objections can award negatives.
Bound by the rubrics of JAM, the speaker gains points for every second he speaks and this entire process is controlled adequately by a moderator, also known as MOD and the final or any decision at any moment is dependent upon the moderator. While the procedure sounds too prolix, the event is actually fun to participate and is more fun to watch since the general topics can be taken for a ride depending on the speakers’ creativity, imagination, and rhetoric.

Mock Interview

A mock interview is an ideal event for those preparing for the placement process including preliminary examinations, group discussions, and HR interviews. An initial round of aptitude test may contain logical reasoning, aptitude/ math, and verbal questions, etc. The second round comprises a group of students trying to voice out their opinion to a problem statement given to them popularly known as Group Discussion (GD). Sometimes the topics for discussion can be as abstract as ‘Pink’ while students try to portray their creativity in their content. The final HR interview is similar to any final interview process that ultimately tests the soft skills of the applicant and general knowledge.

Market Mayhem

This event helps discover the marketer in you. Participants either in teams or as individuals are given some used/ refurbished/ recyclable products using which they can create an entirely different product thereby tapping the potential in the innovators. These final products have to be sold to students, teachers or anyone within the university campus. The winners of the event are decided based upon the extent of creativity imparted in the making of the product, quality of the marketing strategy used, the number of items sold and finally, the amount of money that each team made. Market Mayhem will definitely test whether you are ingenious enough to overcome the various impediments that marketers and innovators brook around the globe.

ADZAP

Bored of the commercials that you see on TV? Do you believe that the ads can be made better? Here’s an amazing platform where you as a group will be able to display your ad creating talent. This spectacular event persuades the students to instantaneously decide on a skit that would depict an ad for any product that is given to them. The ad can be in the form of role play which may or may not requires the students to use props, and the ad is supposed to be enacted for about 5 minutes. As ordinary people, we like to see short but witty ads that convey the point. This is exactly the judging criteria for this event that also includes the level of co-ordination while acting in a group.

Channel Surfing

Do you feel that you are capricious while you watch the television? Do you keep switching between various channels? For a change, imagine you to be the acting in all the channels and assume that someone is switching between the channels. Channel surfing requires you as an individual or as a group to either imitate various channels or come up with something humorous to represent a particular channel. Meanwhile, the judge will keep shifting between channels after every few minutes or seconds.

For example, a judge can switch between HBO, Discovery Channel and MTV within a minute and the student(s) have to imitate any remarkable shows of those channels. Students are judged on spontaneity, content, humor, audience response and coordination (if in a group). To add flavor to this process, sometimes the judge can rewind or fast forward a particular channel thereby forcing the participants to adapt to such changes instantaneously and hilariously.

App God

Here is a platform where some real time innovators can enjoy. App God does not require app development or coding skills. All that is needed is an idea using which the participant can build up mock screens depicting the User Interface. He also gives a presentation where he describes the functionality of the app and the main idea or result that he wants to achieve. During the presentation he can also propose a business model/ plan which can show the estimated investment, expected profit probably break-even point, etc.

LikeYou

In an attempt to motivate students to understand and experience Digital Marketing, ‘Like You’ persuades students to form teams and create a Facebook Page for a particular product and they go about doing marketing the page in a span of two days. Within these two days, they are supposed to get the maximum amount of likes for the page, inbound activities; page visits, etc., thereby comprehensively understanding the marketing analytics of a particular social media. The social media used need not be necessarily Facebook but requires only a single platform for the sake of evaluation of the teams.

 

 

Case Study

Case studies of real or hypothetical businesses are handed over to the students. They are given sufficient time to understand and analyze the case study and come up with feasible solutions to the problems or provide an alternative path that could have shown better results for the business. This event primarily focuses on the ability to analyze a case and think out of the box for a solution. The Case Study event can construe the future Business Analysts of various esteemed organizations.

These are few of the infinite event ideas that could make your college fest a paragon. As an event planner, if you come up with an idea it may seem really amorphous in the initial stages, however when you jot down the plan and attempt to implement it, you will be able to realize that your initial plan has found its shape. Make your college events the most memorable and enjoyable part of your college life!