The Coalition-Festival of Creativity

4th-6th March, three days, the city saw creative minds from across media sectors rub shoulders with each other and also with the ones who aspire to be in the same space.

This was made possible by the collective efforts of the OML team, Vijay Nair, Ajay Nair, Girish Raj, Arjun S Ravi and Shreyas along with Laura Quinn(the cofounder of the festival) and Lynn McGuire Raj, who takes care of the event along with the OML team.

This was the third season of Coalition and its first time in Delhi, previous two events were held in Agra.

300 industry experts, speakers and mentors, across 11 different streams, spaced out at 3 different venues, shared their knowledge with about 2000 plus audience.

Luckily I chose the most happening stream, content planning, because content planning sessions alone had an audience of over 500 people aspiring to learn.

The first session was on The Business of Online Content, which has Ajay Nair from OML moderating a panel which consisted of Satya Raghavan from Youtube, Tanmay Bhat from AIB, Ashwin Suresh from Pocket Aces Pictures and Samir Bangara from Qyuki. It was a very enlightening session as all of them highlighted the importance of digital media, and the presence of brands on social media.

Next up on the panel were the Big Brand Guys featuring Manav Sethi from Askme, Mahesh Narayana from Saavn, Maneesha Khanna from Pepsi Co, Ashish Lingamneni from Ola Cabs, and was moderated by Arjun Ravi from OML.

This session focused on how brands are today utilising the digital space to reach out to their consumers and are also focusing on user generated content.

The next session was on DIY content moderated by Rega Jha from Buzzfeed and featured Arunabha Kumar from TVF, Malini Agarwal from Miss Malini and Rhea Gupte from Fuss. It went on to become one of the most interesting sessions of the day and the popularity of all three speakers was very evident as even at the end of the session, the audience didn't let them leave and they too were more than friendly and approachable to answer the queries of young aspirants.

They shared their stories of how their passions went on to become their businesses and how today brands look forward to reach out to them on their own. It was one of the most inspiring sessions for me personally. Being a blogger myself, hearing the success stories of two bloggers Malini and Rhea left my spirits really high and my will to do much more and much better.

The last session of the day was Like, Share, Subscribe, featuring Nishant Radio from Vidooly, Ritu Kapur from the Quint and Satvik Mishra from ScoopWhoop. After the high on energy DIY session, this seemed a little dull, though the knowledge shared was valuable.

The second day too had a full house with power packed back to back sessions, though I missed the morning ones, but was so glad that I could make it for the second half.

Profit with Purpose, moderated by Vijay Nair from OML, featured Roshan Abbas from Geometry Global Encompass Networks, Shyam Sukhramani from Good People Clothing Company, Jane Mason from Mason Chocolates, Prukalpa Sanskar from Social Cops and Florian Klaass from Red Bull. The session focused on new businesses and how one should approach the VCs. It is always a pleasure to hear Roshan Abbas speak and this session was no different. He has such a logical approach and is always bang on.

Followed this was an open mic session which started with Jimmy Goldblum and Adam Weber, where in they talked about their documentary We Disappear Tomorrow. The film focuses on the Kathputli Colony which comprises a community of these small time artists and how their land is been under the scrutiny of government and private builders. The movie was later showcased for audience viewing.

It was then followed by Deepak Ramola, Lets Happen to This World, where in spoke about his NGO that uses life lessons collected from across the country and globe to then help solve problems of other individuals or groups. At the age of 24, he truly is doing a great job and was very very inspiring.

Abish Mathew's Mom Dad, I want to be an Artist was more than hilarious as he went on to share the reactions of our parents when we tell them about joining the creative field or to become an artist. I think every single person in the stadium related to it and this made the session all the more enjoyable.

Followed this was a Story Tellers Session featuring Arunabh Kumar from FTV, Neelesh Misra from Gaon Connection, Sanket Avlani from Taxi Fabric and Amitesh Rao from MTS. It was moderated by none other than Rohan Joshi from AIB and Vijay Nair from OML. How brand stories come alive through different art forms like music, comedy, design, radio and gaming was the agenda of this session. Learning about these different mediums conveying brand message was really interesting.

This session was followed by a session on Save the Internet featuring the people behind this movement.

The last session was the most awaited one for everyone present I guess. It was called Breaking Bollywood, on air with AIB, Anurag Kashyap, Richa Chadha, Neil Bhooplam and Hussain Dalal.

People were so excited about this one as bollywood dreams is something everyone relates to in someway or the other. But somewhere all 4 of them ended up giving a very thoughtful insight that to be somewhere you first need to begin, you need to work towards it and keep trying because there is no fixed mantra to get an entry in bollywood or the Hindi Film Industry as it should be called.

I was not able to attend the last day of the event and I badly missed the opportunity, but all I can say is that kudos to team OML for putting up a show like this together and managing so many speakers, audiences and small small events at multiple venues, it was flawless and the effort gone behind was very evident.

I already look forward to the next season because such platforms are a boon for creative people like me. So much to learn, so much to get inspired from.