Festember 2026

Festember is the annual flagship inter-college cultural festival of NIT Trichy, running for three days every September and now in its 52nd year. It started in 1975 with nothing but a bunch of students willing to build something from scratch, and has since grown into one of India's largest college fests, pulling in close to 18,000 participants from 500+ colleges across the country.

The fest runs across nine clusters — Music, Dance, Fashion, Arts, Gaming, Dramatics, Literary Arts and Photography — competing for a prize pool of over ₹16 lakh, along with the Festember Rolling Trophy (originally named the Ilayaraja Trophy, after Ilaiyaraaja performed at the very first edition in 1978). Beyond competitions, there's a guest lecture circuit — Carpe Diem, Vox Populi, Talks by The Firelight, and Ad Meliora — that's hosted names like Dhruv Vikram, Adah Sharma, Sid Sriram, Jonty Rhodes and Viswanathan Anand.

The nights belong to the proshows at the Golden Jubilee Convention Hall (capacity 5,000+), which have seen performers like Ilaiyaraaja, Sunidhi Chauhan, Benny Dayal, Amit Trivedi, Jonita Gandhi and Karthik take the stage over the years. It's part competition, part carnival, part concert — three days that NIT Trichy builds all year for and empties out completely once they're over.

Festember'26 runs close to 90 events across a dozen-plus clusters over three days. Dance brings Choreonite, Rhythm Roulette and the Eastern/Western Solos; Music has Tarangini, Acoustics, Gigahertz and the Solo Vocals; Dramatics is Theatrix, Improv, Mime and Monoacting; Fine Arts covers Wall Painting, Sketch-a-thon and Body Art; Fashion has Fashionitas and Mr. & Ms. Festember; Gaming's got Valorant, FIFA, Mini Militia, F1 and Battle Zone; and there's Photography & Videography, Shrutilaya for Carnatic music, plus the English, Tamil, Hindi and Telugu Lits clusters loaded with quizzes, debates and JAMs. If competing isn't your thing, there's a full informals lineup too — board games, an escape room, VR and PS4, soapy football, carnival rides (Columbus, Break Dancer) and balloon shooting. Plenty to do whether you're performing, competing, or just around for three days.

Day 1 – Vasanth Ravi

Day 2 – Special guest alert coming soon! Stay tuned and keep an eye on Festembers Instagram for the reveal.

Day 3 – Team See U (Kishen Das, Sanjana, M. S. Bhaskar, Akshaya Hariharan) and Team Texas Tiger (Hridhu Haroon)

Four workshops this year — Couple Dance (couple tickets only, ₹400), 3D Ocean Art (single or couple, ₹325), Chennile Flower workshop (₹250) and Resin Keychain making (₹200). Two combos if you want to bundle: 3D Ocean Art + Couple Dance at ₹675 (couples only), and Chennile + Resin Keychain at ₹400. All three days — 25th, 26th, 27th — with slots at 10 am and 2 pm.

No hard deadline for workshops or informals — register on the website anytime till the slots fill up. Most cluster events are still open too, but registrations for Dance, Fashionitas, a few Music events and Theatrix have already closed, so if you are aiming for one of those, keep checking the site in case a spot frees up.

Cluster events — Dance, Music, Lits, Arts, Gaming, Fashion, Dramatics, Photography, Proshows — are free to register for. The paid ones are informals and workshops: informals range from ₹100 for rides up to ₹640 for an 8-person Board Games pack (Escape Room ₹150, VR/PS4 ₹120, Soapy Football ₹120 per head), and workshops sit between ₹200–₹400, with the combo deals above if you want two.

NIT Trichy is on Thanjavur Road, about 20 km from Tiruchirappalli city and roughly 15 km from Trichy International Airport and Trichy Junction railway station — both well-connected to major Indian cities. Taxis and autos are readily available from the airport, railway station, and central bus stand, and its roughly a 30–40 minute drive from any of them to campus.

accommodation deets:
nitt guest house: https://www.nitt.edu/home/students/facilitiesnservices/guesthouse/