The Story of Light: Festival Freeconomics
An insight into the economics behind our first festival
Two and a half years ago, we hosted The Story of Light (SOL) Festival (14–18 January 2015) in Goa: India’s first science-meets-art festival, organized in cooperation with the Corporation of the City of Panaji, Goa under the aegis of The International Year of Light and Light-based Technologies, 2015 (IYL 2015) adopted by the United Nations. We did it to establish a new interdisciplinary platform for India that engages scientists, artists, educators and philosophers to expose cutting-edge science and the wonder of our universe to a more general public, from kids to the elderly, through interactive installations, workshops and performances. We curated 45 proposals and in total hosted 99 people (64 participants and 35 volunteers) for one month in Goa. Our website has all the details on the participants and team). You can also click here to access a PDF of the final program.
The festival was attended by about 15,000 people from the following groups: local public in Panjim and nearby areas (~5,000); school, college, and university students from Goa (~6000), and visiting tourists, both Indian and foreigners (~4000). As a recognition of our efforts, we were invited to speak on the panel for Education and Outreach through Light at the International Year of Light closing ceremony held in Merida, Mexico in February 2016. We were one of three projects selected to be showcased in this panel.
So, how did we do it: tapping into the freeconomy
First critical step:
By making partnerships
Essentially we started with a cause, an idea, and a small team. From there on, partnerships were all important to our success. We sat for hours outside offices and spoke to everyone. From people in government departments to corporate big wigs. The first two strong relations established were with Sanjith Rodrigues, the then Commissioner of the Corporation of the City of Panjim, and Richard Dias, the cousin of a team member who took on the event management and production. They guided us and opened doors. This is what we started with. We learnt early on the secret behind successful collaborations — dialogue and emergence of common objectives. Through almost a year of interactions, the following partnerships made the festival possible — most through non-cash exchanges.
City Partners: City partners provided city-level support for the planning and execution of the festival
Corporation of the City of Panaji, Entertainment Society of Goa, Department of Art and Culture, Department of Tourism, Department of Education, Goa Science Centre
Education Partners: Education partners offered scientific support and review as well as pedagogical insights into the overall event programming and acts.
Open University, Leiden University, Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education (TIFR)
Cultural Partners: Cultural partners supported international participation by providing tickets and room for stay.
Fundação Oriente (Goa), Italian Embassy Cultural Centre (Mumbai Section), Japan Foundation (New Delhi)
Project partners: Provided resources to bring projects to life
Barco Projectors, El Rhino Papers, Mr. Farmers
Second critical step:
By galvanising the community
Personally I find being volunteer-run to have many advantages (in terms of galvanising the community) as well as many challenges (in terms of establishing systems). But our network and message was strong enough to attract an amazing team of designers, producers, scientists, and volunteers, students and otherwise. Our organizational approach was collaborative, trying to ensure that everyone contributing had a strong experience and learning takeaway— this something for everyone approach really trickled through all our operations.
The participants we attracted were also a special breed of people, compassionate, motivated, and open. We offered stay and production budgets, but could not offer honorariums and per diems for their time and energy. The participants came from various walks of life and from different stages of their professional careers. They comprised Artists and Designers (47x), Scientists (5x), Educators (4x), Philosophers (1x), Performance Troupes (4x), and Institutional Participation (3x — National Institute of Design, Srishti Institute of Art, Design, and Technology, Goa Energy Development Agency).
We did need cash: Here’s the flow of our income and expenditure
Of course you need cash to make a festival possible. It’s not a full freeconomy. Being educators and designers, we weren’t particularly marketing savvy, and three months before the festival we capped the budget to 20 lakhs, made our plans accordingly, and went for it. Eventually, here’s what we raised and how we spent it.
The crowd and principal sponsorship were equally big contributors of the income pie. Being volunteer-run and non-profit, we put the word out there to ALL our family and friends to support the initiative. And they did. And we could not be more grateful.
Putting our learnings into the next edition
Post the festival, we’ve had many long meetings on the road ahead and how we’d like to approach fundraising. We’ve now organized as a non-profit society following sociocracy with a five-member general circle. We’re sowing the seeds for long-term change in what we learn and how we learn, what we know and how we know, what we do, and how we do. Looking to the future, we want to engage the platform we’re creating to solutions for society.
With the next edition, The Story of Space, our budget has been doubled with deeper concentration and resources poured into aspects we missed out on the last time a much more thorough communication experience, evaluation and impact of the project, a stage for networking and future collaboration. Here’s the budget pie:
Setting the intention
The intention behind this write up is really to just say if you have a cause, an idea, and a small means, you can go a really long way in the freeconomy. Work hard for a few years and you have a platform. And platforms are good for change-making.
