midjanuary it took us more than two months to put together a budget of rs 30 lakh to organise this event in fact given last years budget of around rs 40 lakh we should have raised this years budget but we had to scale it down as sponsors were playing to safe thanks to the recession says nikhilfrom fashion shows and western dance competitions to solo singing and standup comic acts the threeday event was packed with at least 1200 participating students every day not to mention singer mohit chauhan and neeraj shridhar performing the festivals closing act that had a maximum turnout of fans however there are some festivals like fergusson colleges oorja that have remained smallscale yet enjoy good enough patronage among the student fraternity oorja 08 that was held in september last year was entirely sponsored by the exfergussonians association the sponsorship amounted to around rs 15 lakh and the prize money was around rs 20000 some 1500 students attended the festival that had 32 events including dance and drama competitions classical and semiclassical singing spoofs and gigs facepainting debate and justaminute jam among othersbut given the scale of the festival sponsorship wasnt a big issue after all right from the very beginning we have been smallscale so we didnt have to really struggle to get sponsorship even during recession says ameera patankar a third year arts students of the college who was the cocoordinator of the event