Client: TEDxMDIGurgaon, MDI Gurgaon
Activity: Clay Modelling Workshop
Date: 16 January 2026
Location: MDI Gurgaon Campus, Gurugram
Participants: 120+
Duration: 1.5 hours
Born To Banger team: 5 (3 facilitators)
Category: College Fest / Institutional Event

Case Study: Clay Modelling Workshop at TEDxMDIGurgaon

TEDx events run on ideas, talk after talk, an audience that's listening hard for two or three hours straight. What they don't usually have is a moment where attendees actually make something with their hands. That's the gap Born To Banger filled at TEDxMDIGurgaon with a clay modelling workshop for 120+ attendees, students, faculty, and visiting guests, alongside the day's talks.

About TEDxMDIGurgaon

TEDxMDIGurgaon is the independently organized TEDx event hosted by students at MDI Gurgaon, one of India's well-known management institutes, bringing speakers and ideas to a campus audience under the same "ideas worth spreading" spirit as TED's main stage. Like most TEDx events, the day runs as a sequence of talks and performances, with breaks built in between sessions.

The Brief

The organizing team wanted something for those breaks that wasn't just tea and conversation, an activity attendees would actually engage with, that worked for a large, mixed crowd of students and guests, and that gave the day a moment of hands-on energy between rounds of talks.

Why Clay Modelling

Clay modelling fits a TEDx-style audience better than most "fun activity" options for a specific reason: nobody needs to perform. There's no stage, no audience watching you try, just a lump of clay and a guided prompt. That matters at an event where people have spent the last hour sitting and listening, the last thing they want next is another activity that puts them on the spot.

It also doesn't require any prior skill. A first-year student and a visiting faculty member can sit at the same table and end up with two completely different, completely valid results. And there's a nice, understated echo of the event's own theme in it, taking an idea (or in this case, a literal shapeless lump of clay) and turning it into something specific with your own hands.

How We Ran It

For a group this size, the workshop ran across multiple stations rather than one single setup, so attendees could join during their actual break window instead of queuing for a single table. A five-person Born To Banger team ran the session, three of them facilitating directly at the stations, guiding new arrivals through the activity and keeping instructions simple enough that anyone could jump in without needing to catch up on missed steps. The full activity ran for 1.5 hours, with materials and tools set up and packed down without cutting into the venue's existing schedule between talks.

🎥 Watch the workshop in action on Instagram

The Turnout

120+ participants moving through a 1.5-hour window, with three facilitators on the stations, is a real logistics question, not a small one. The activity needed to absorb a crowd in waves rather than all at once, hold attention for long enough to feel worthwhile without running over the break window, and clean up fast enough that the next session wasn't delayed. That's the actual test for an activity at an event like this: not whether people enjoy it, but whether it survives contact with a real schedule, and whether a small team can keep pace with a large room.

What It Added to the Day

Between back-to-back talks, a hands-on stretch gives people something to talk about with the stranger next to them that isn't just "which speaker was your favorite." It's also, practically, one of the more shareable moments of a day like this, a finished clay piece photographs better than a notebook full of takeaways.

Why This Works for Any College Fest, Conference, or Corporate Offsite

The same logic that made this work at TEDxMDIGurgaon applies anywhere people are sitting through long stretches of content, talks, panels, a conference agenda, a corporate town hall, and need one low-pressure, hands-on break that doesn't ask anyone to perform. It scales the same way too: more stations and facilitators for a bigger crowd, fewer for a smaller one, without changing the format itself.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many facilitators are needed for a clay modelling workshop with 100+ participants?

At TEDxMDIGurgaon, a team of five, three of them facilitating directly, ran a 1.5-hour session for 120+ participants using a multi-station setup. The exact number depends on how the activity is staggered, a single large sitting needs more hands-on-deck than a multi-station setup where attendees join in waves during breaks. Multiple smaller stations generally need fewer facilitators per station but more stations overall.

Does clay modelling work for guests with no art experience?

Yes, that's a large part of why it suits a mixed crowd of students, professionals, and guests. Guided prompts keep the activity simple enough that prior skill doesn't matter, and there's no "wrong" result the way there might be with a more technical craft.

Can a clay modelling workshop fit into short breaks between talks or sessions?

Yes, when it's set up as multiple stations rather than one queue, attendees can join and leave within their actual break window instead of waiting in a single line, which is what made it work across a tight conference-style schedule.

Is clay modelling suitable for outdoor or indoor college fest setups?

Both, the activity itself doesn't require special equipment, just tables, materials, and facilitators, so it adapts to whichever space a campus or venue can offer.

Where Born To Banger Fits In

This is exactly the kind of college fest and institutional event work we do regularly, clay modelling included, sized and staffed for whatever your actual headcount and schedule require, whether that's 30 people in a classroom or 120+ across a full event day.

If you're planning a college fest, conference, or corporate event and want an activity that holds up against a real schedule, tell us your numbers and we'll build the setup around them.