Written by Sneh Lahurikar
Edited by Nishtha
The stage on 27th April loomed in front of us. Usually viewing it as spectators, the entire area seemed like a different ballgame when viewed from the backstage. The arena which continuously delivered moments of magic had become a repetitive, disciplined system of recreating pleasant patterns across dance, music and theatre. That day it held a different significance and significance: it was the venue of our class production, Navarasa, which also decided our performative arts grades.
Besides the on-stage aspect of the production which involved the practice and refinement of the performative aspects, Navarasa also posed a unique challenge and with it an opportunity. As a student production, the students themselves had to arrange all the concerned logistics for the event, something which would be a novel experience and develop organizational and managerial acumen among the students.
That is what we were informed. Well, it turned out completely differently. Initially, the idea of handling all the necessary logistics seemed like a manageable task as long as tasks were delegated efficiently. However, with the onset of submissions (aka CIA III), initial plans were derailed until there were merely two weeks left till the production was to hit the stage. And, we didn’t have an idea of what all work a production of such scale entailed.
Few things were clear though: we required a dedicated team to maintain a record of expenditure and revenue from the transactions involved for the production, unique ideas to promote our outreach and by extension the event. With lack of time to theorise plans of action, we turned to a reliable source of assistance: our seniors. They had been the first batch to put on a full-fledged offline Navarasa production and their insight would definitely help.
This was when the logistical aspect kicked into action. Firstly, the budget was allocated, followed by tracking expenditure and revenues. Then came the time to attract attention from the prospective audience. We had very little time to create an extensive and effective social media campaign so we stuck to an equally effective but much more intensive method: offline promotions which involved personally inviting all the campus faculty and the wildly successful bake sale which not only generated interest in the event but also translated to direct success in the form of ticket sales.
All of these aspects posed unseen challenges: tracking and authenticating each transaction, working to reimburse students who had used personal means to fund aspects of the production, making sure the bake sale had garnered enough crowd for its duration of stay and lastly working on the documentation and paperwork which involved all sorts of permissions from confirming bank accounts and allowing spectators entry into college to selling food.
These logistical requirements had to be met while simultaneously practicing for the production itself while carefully planning out various events in coordination with all other final events for the semester.
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