All You Need To Know Before The GBM

Q: What are fests?

A: Every year BPHC holds festivals across campus with a certain theme around them. These fests themselves are made up of a smaller number of events which students can attend or take part in. Atmos is our technical fest which happens usually in the first semester of the year. Arena is our sports fest which takes place at the start of the second semester. Pearl is our cultural fest, usually done post-mid sem of second semester.

Q: What is Orbe Novo? When is Orbe Novo?

A: Orbe Novo has been cited as a Cultural+Technical festival for the year 2022. Since we did not have Atmos at the start of the first semester, it has been rolled together with Pearl. This is the first fest since the past two years. There is no official date for Orbe Novo yet but estimated dates are around the last week of March – first week of April.

Q: What is the budget of a fest?

A: A fest budget is just an estimate (hopefully very accurate) for the revenue and expenditure for the upcoming fest. Fest budgets in BPHC are given alongside the previous year’s fest budget as well so you as the GB can compare with the expected and actual values of revenue and expenditure. 

Q. What are these sources of revenue? How exactly does our college fest money especially since I’ve heard it might be only for BITSH-ians

Some of the sources of revenue are given below.

1. SUF – Student Union Fund is made up of a non-negotiable 450 rupees that every student pays at the start of the year along with their fees. This amount is separate from deductions and is always a major chunk of the revenue. During the online semester, the SUC has collected these 50% of this fees (Rs. 225) both in 2019 and 2020 but no fests were conducted during this time.

The SUF should be used for the overall improvement of the campus – but it has almost always been used to finance fests.

2. Director’s Fund – This is an amount (usually ten lakhs) that is given to the SUC by the Director every year. Symbolically, it should be used for the betterment and complete development of the campus. Historically? It has almost always been used for supplying funds to Pearl.
3. Sponsorships – This is the money that is collected by asking brands or companies for sponsoring the fest in return for various things like advertisement of their product, trade kiosks etc. Historically, Pearl has always had a problem with not reaching its sponsorship targets. We either fail to reach our required sponsorship amount or we fail to recover it adequately. This is the first source where we have losses in our budget.

Usually, the budget of Pearl has been around 65 Lakhs. 

The budget of Atmos has been around 50 Lakh.

ATMOS usually ends in a profit of around 10-15L, while Pearl has historically been a loss-making fest (i.e, the SU puts more money into it than it gets out) and lost 22L in the last year.

Q: What does a loss-making fest mean?

A: It basically means that the SU at the end of Pearl has less money than it started with. This means that it has to either take the profits of ATMOS to subsidize the losses (this has happened in the past), or it has to pass over the loss to the next academic year. When this happens, the Student Union of the next year starts their balance with a negative number. This means they have to use the SUF and Director’s Fund to sort out the previous year’s financial losses before they can start their term.

Q: But hey, isn’t that a vicious cycle?

A: Yep. Every time Pearl runs into a loss and runs a negative budget into the next year, the next SUC has to compensate and charge deductions to run their fest. Additionally, since every SUC wants the “biggest and best” Pearl – they often overspend their Pearl as well, leading us into deeper and deeper losses.

Q: Why was this SUC supposed to be different?

A: Remember how we’ve all been stuck at home for 2 years? That meant, we weren’t able to spend that much money on fests and had a very net positive account at the start of this SUC’s tenure. This was unprecedented and it meant we could actually have a decently sized 0 deduction fest provided we stayed within budget. It was a chance to make things better and to run the SUC account like any proper budgeted account should – within its means.

Q: What is the budget of Orbe Novo? Is it more expensive than previous fests?

A: The SUC has cited that since the fest is a combination of both Atmos and Pearl, it will have a grander budget. Currently the budget for Orbo Novo stands at 124 Lakhs for a Rs. 700 deduction, 106 lakhs for Rs. 400 deduction and 89.5 Lakhs with no deductions. Consequently, they intend to make a profit of four lakhs with the Rs. 700 deduction, break even for the Rs. 400 deduction and have a loss of one lakh with no deductions.

NOTE: No other BITS campus charges deductions for it’s fests. And they are often bigger and more profitable than Pearl. 

Keep in mind that these profits are only speculated ones, it may be (and it has happened in the past) that the SUC goes overboard on their spending. 

Q. Can you put all this together?

A: Sure.

We started with way more money than any previous Pearl. We have a once in a lifetime opportunity to end the year with a fest and not go into losses. This will put us at par with our sister BITS campuses. We would also be able to have a fest at 0 deductions meaning it would actually be cheaper for all of us.

If we vote for 700 tomorrow – we fall against all of those.

Q: What is a GBM? What is tomorrow’s GBM about?

A: A GBM is a General Body Meeting. It is required to pass any fest budget that goes through campus. You need 50% of the campus voting yes on a budget to pass it.

Q: What is a deduction?

A: A deduction is something taken from your mess advances and is something the SUC uses as a part of their revenue to make the fest happen. It is money taken from you – money that you could otherwise spend on food stalls, ANC, campus merchandise etc. Just because you can’t see this money go – it’s still very very real.

Q: How have fest deductions been in the past?

BITS H has always had a problem with deductions. We’ve charged around 500-600 for Pearl in the past and 300-400 for ATMOS using the same guises of better Pro-Shows and a “bigger and better fest”.

Once again, no other BITS campus charges deductions.

Q: Have fests in the past been profitable? 

A: Atmos has always been profitable with a profit of around 15-20 Lakhs. Arena also usually manages to break even. But Pearl has begun to turn into a money siphoning giant that always ends up in a loss. Not only this, the incurred losses have been increasing every year with increasing budgets. This presents a serious problem if not kept in check. 

Q: Why not do more deductions and make the fest will be profitable?

A: Nope. Historically, the trend has always been that the more we deduct from the students accounts in a fest, the more it is spent on things which don’t get returns. 

Q: Okay then – what do more deductions get me?

A: More deductions can get you more artists and a bigger festival, but this comes at the cost of more losses that carry over to the next year and funds that could be redirected to campus development and to technical associates to finance their activities. 

Q: But more money means better pro shows right?

A: Not exactly, take the example of Verba Maximus 2018. It had a budget of around 4 to 5 lakhs with pro shows that included Kunal Kamra and Karunesh Talwar along with several other events with prize pools. Verba Maximus even made a profit of 60,000 that year. There are more efficient ways to utilize money that the SUC should explore instead of just increasing the budget with the help of the General Body’s sheer numbers. 

The marginal utility of spending 50L vs 30L is minimal if not 0.

You will be told that more deductions = better quality Pro-Shows. Note that the more likely scenario is

1. We overpay on Pro-Shows leading to a loss (has almost always happened)
2. We have the same types of experiences that we would have with no deductions.

But lastly, the idea of the fest isn’t what big name you saw or you danced to. It’s about the friends you make and the experiences you share – all of which don’t depend at all on what big name celeb you squinted at from 50 feet away.

We’ve had cheap comedy Pro-Shows which have forged some of the best friend circles on campus and some extremely expensive high deduction Pro-Shows that have been unwatchable.

Don’t let people get away with high deduction = high quality Pro-Shows. Ask them to tell you names. Ask them to tell you visible material differences over why it matters. 

Otherwise we’re just throwing money at the names of rich people who don’t need more money. 

Don’t be fooled by abstractions here.

Q: Why do Sponsorship amounts increase with more deductions?

A: Absolutely no idea. The idea is that more deductions means a bigger fest which means that more sponsors. This idea falls flat when you realize that

1. Orbe Novo has a captive audience. That captive audience is only BITS students. There is no scope of that increasing due to no outside participation. Hence, a “bigger fest” doesn’t really explain why you get more sponsors or more sponsorships.
2. The team responsible for pitching sponsorship would have been pitching a while ago. They would have pitched with the assumption of the highest amount they can get – whatever budget passes now should not affect that number in any way.

Hence it’s unclear as to why sponsorship increases with deductions. Ask the SU this tomorrow.

Q: What is DoRA? Why do they get 1.4L of revenue?

A: DoRa is the Department of Recreational Activities, they hold events throughout the year with some amount of entry fees. This money is supposed to act as a source of revenue for the fest. In the past DoRA has struggled to make even 15,000 (2019), it is unclear as to how the SUC plans to make 1.4L through DoRA this year in an event which doesn’t have participants from outside campus.

Q: What are Tech Workshops? Do I need to pay for them?

A: Tech workshops are events where a class on a specific topic is held to help people learn more about it. You pay for workshops out of your own pocket.

Moreover, because of the separation in the Tech Senate and the rest of the SU – this year the workshops and tech side of Orbe Novo would remain unaffected by which deductions you get. Hence, the lowest deductions will also lead to the same workshops

Q. Are they useful?

A: That depends on how useful you make them. They are not the cure-all that will make you a tech whizz, but they can help guide you to a path. Additionally you also get kits from the departments conducting these workshops.

Q: What are Food Stalls? Do we pay for them?

A: Food stalls are specified areas that are given to vendors to sell their wares. Food is not free and you pay for it from your pocket. Keep in mind that the food prices are always expected to be obscenely high. 

Q: What did this SUC start off with?

A: This is the first SUC in a long time, around 7-8 years, that has started off with a positive account because of the fact that there has been no fest in two years. They have the funds of SU Fees from the past two years from all the batches.They are taking 50L from the SUF and 8.5L from the Director’s Fund which is a luxury that most other SUCs have not had.

Q: What is this SUC spending money on?

Primarily this year the expenditure is on Clubs and Departments (up 6x from last year), Pro-Show Artists (up to 50L), Flights for those Pro-Show Artists (up to 12L which would be enough for 100 round trips) and Prize Money.

Q: What’s the Prize Money for?

A: There are competitions conducted during the course of the fest. These competitions are conducted by the various clubs and departments on campus. Given that most participation is expected to be from within campus – this prize money will basically be for the folks within campus.

Q: What are Pro-Shows?

A: Pro-Shows are events that include a celebrity or personality and are available to all students. These can range from comedy standup sessions to musical artists. Pro-shows may be ticketed or non-ticketed and are usually free for BITSH-ians

There are usually different types of Pro-Shows

1. Comedy Nights – Famous Stand Up Comics from India have 1 hour sets in the Auditorium.
2. EDM Nights/DJ Nights
3. Bollywood Nights – Famous Bollywood personalities + Music
4. Live Music Nights – We’ve had some fantastic indie Indian bands like Yellow Diary and the Local Train in the past.
5. Other Pro-Shows the SU hasn’t spoken about yet.

Q: How much money are we spending on Pro-Show Artists?

A: In the past, we have spent around 32-34 Lakhs on artists. This year the SUC has allocated 50 Lakhs if the deductions are Rs. 700, 40 lakhs if they are Rs. 400 and 30L if there are no deductions. 

That means that even in the 0 deduction case – we are giving the same amount of money to the SU for Pro-Shows as prior Pearls have received. That must mean that even in the worst case – there must be some equivalence from the Pro-Shows from those years to this year.

Q: Do we know anything about the Pro-Show Artists we’ve called this year?

A: No information has been shared on this topic from the SUC. 

Q: Why has the expenditure on clubs and departments gone up 6 times since Pearl 2019?

A: No one really knows why. This is purely money given to them for managing their events and reimbursements and does not include Prize Money for their events. As such the claim is that Orbe Novo is going to be so big that the cost for clubs and departments will be 6 times what it was last year.

Q: Why is the Prize Money so much? Are we having participation from outside campus?

A: Once again, no clue and nope. Participation in on campus events by BITS H students has always been abysmally low and as such most of this prize money will probably be redistributed to people on campus and not really serve any long term publicity goals.

Q: What are the precautions taken for COVID? What happens if we get sent home/the situation worsens and the fest gets canceled?

A: As of right now, we do not know whether the fest will be offline or online. And we definitely do not know whether the SUC has formulated a plan to keep the fest safe for everyone. 

Q: Why are there 3 budgets?

A: The SUC comes up with three proposed budgets, each having a different amount of deduction. They draw up the proposed expenses for each case and these budgets are put to vote in the GBM. Whichever budget is approved will be the final one. 

Q: Why should I attend the GBM?

A: Because you are the key to breaking this cyclical state of growing debt that the SUC puts itself in every year. You have the chance to force the SU to reconsider the scale at which they are doing this fest and leave the next year’s SUC with a clean account. By doing this, you send a message to future SUCs to be more responsible with their funds.

Q: What do I need to do in the GBM?

A: Listen, ask questions, go in with an open mind and vote for what you think is the best

Don’t vote for 700 because your seniors tell you that Pearl is the best thing ever

Don’t vote for 0 because we’re telling you that it’s the best way to do so.

Don’t vote for 400 because you think it’s the best way to keep everyone happy.

Vote for what you think is the best option for you.

Q: How should I vote?

Decide that for yourself. Listen and make your own call.

Q: What should I tell seniors who tell me to vote in one particular way?

A: You can ask them how bad the loss will be this time. And if they say that Pearl is supposed to be a loss making fest then ask them how much longer can the institute keep sustaining a SUC account that goes into more and more loss each year. And remember, ultimately your vote belongs to you alone. Formulate your opinion, identify the correct side and don’t hesitate to do the right thing.

Q: Where can I do my own research about the fests in BPHC?

A: You can look up old budgets on the facebook page of Election Commission BPHC. They outline the history of spending in fests. There are always seniors available to ask around, but remember to take each opinion with a grain of salt – even ours. Just note that all data that we’re trying to present here is based on fact and history and not abstractions.

In finality, here’s to 2020 and 2021.

Please please please – care about this. Don’t come into the GBM tomorrow knowing how you’re going to vote because some senior told you to vote in a particular way. Don’t listen to them, don’t listen to your batchmates, don’t even listen to us – the authors of this piece. There are far-reaching consequences to your decision tomorrow. It will guide how the next SUC makes their fest budget.

Please think consciously about what you think is worth spending money for and why you think fests matter. Ask difficult questions to the SUC and make them make you understand why certain things need that much money.

People will tell you that the Pearl Pro-Show is the best thing in the world, while others will tell you that it is a moshpit with overrated artists – figure out whether you think spending 62L (and quite possibly more) is worth that. Decide for yourselves how you want Orbe Novo to be. 

It’s your fest. Make it that way :”)