College students are increasingly volunteering at major cultural festivals in Bengaluru. Their roles range from guest relations to social media co-ordination and crowd management. Their motivation? They want to take on new responsibilities, gain exposure to arts and media, and watch their favourite artistes up close.
The ongoing city-wide BLR Hubba has around 130 volunteers and mediators, a majority of them college students. The student volunteer base has grown steadily, from about 30 in their first edition in 2023 to 70 in 2024. For the current edition, organisers ran a month-long open call on social media and received applications twice their requirement. Volunteers were shortlisted based on their skill sets. Some work on weekends, others after college hours, while a few have sought permission to be excused from classrooms for the entire duration of the 10-day festival. They get a daily honorarium of Rs 1,000.
Puja Das, who oversees the festival’s youth engagement initiative, says students are critical to the festival’s smooth functioning — before, during, and after events. While volunteers mostly handle visitor engagement and floor operations, mediators, who are more experienced, work with children or liaise with artistes. Many mediators come from backgrounds in education or part-time museum work.
Echoes of Earth, a two-day music festival held in December, saw participation from 120 student volunteers. The team says the response to their open call was "overwhelming", with over 900 applications received. "These volunteers supported the festival across multiple categories, including art installations, accessibility support, media and content, hospitality, production, operations, artist coordination, and other key on-ground functions," the team added over email.
Multiple gigs
The opportunities are not limited to any discipline. On Sunday, Metrolife met engineering student Maanya Bhardwaj at the registration desk of Culture-otsava, a sub-festival of BLR Hubba. Maanya is also involved in the festival’s upcoming neighbourhood event in Panduranga Nagara. Overall, her roles have included contacting artistes and workshop facilitators, leading a flash mob, curating activities, and co-ordinating teams handling social media, ambulance services, and traffic management. She says such events combine her interest in arts and culture with the opportunity to meet people of diverse interests who are “passionate about what they do”.
The same day, Metrolife met BCom students Sherly Bernard and Tejaswini S at Richmond Park during RichLang Rasthe Hubba. They were posted as part of civil defence services for a stipend of Rs 1,500. Their role requires them to respond to emergencies. When they noticed a young boy bleeding from the nose, they administered first aid and handed him over to his family who were outside the park.
Both chose civil defence to get a glimpse of government service — Tejaswini wants to join the army. They have previously assisted during New Year’s Eve bandobast on M G Road, and Muharram processions along Richmond Road. They have helped inebriated women get home safely, redirected vehicles, and supported the police. “During Muharram, I fell sick after seeing men whip themselves and had to drop out of duty,” Sherly recalls.
Chaotic but worth it
Now running a food business, Palgun K J began volunteering at Atta Galatta’s bookstore at the Bangalore Literature Festival roughly a decade ago while awaiting the results of his postgraduate admissions. “In my first year, I was packaging books, unloading trucks, shelving titles, and helping visitors choose books. Now, I manage operations,” he says. The experience, he adds, taught him to be outspoken, think on his feet, and thrive “amid chaos”.
Maanya found it inspiring to see teams bring ideas to life, handle conflicts with kindness, and promptly fix issues such as doing registrations amid poor Internet connectivity and under blazing sun. A law student helped with event set-up and queuing participants at Maya Bazaar 2025, an LGBTQIA+ festival. She says the experience offered insight into different individual identities and perspectives. For Sherly and Tejaswini, the takeaway was different. They experienced the authority that comes with wearing a uniform, their neon jacket. “Most people in the crowd do what we say,” says Sherly.
Reflecting on the significance of such festivals for college students, Aparajitha Sankar of Atta Galatta sees them as a stepping stone into adulthood. She says students are entrusted with responsibilities they may never have held before, and enjoy being seen as responsible adults. Aparajitha, who leads the team running Atta Galatta’s bookstore at the Bangalore Literature Festival, says some volunteers return year after year. “Ten have been coming back for the past five years, and five for nearly a decade. Many started out as students and are now working professionals,” she says. The roles are unpaid. The latest edition, held in December, had around 60 volunteers, and the slots got filled up the day the open call was announced.
Hiring volunteers
Often, open calls are posted on social media. Sometimes, old volunteers recommend college juniors or friends, or colleges send students for exposure.