Sev­er­al pos­i­tive su­perla­tives are of­ten used to de­scribe The UWI Fete by the pa­trons who at­tend the event. How­ev­er, aside from be­ing among the most an­tic­i­pat­ed and pre­mi­um all-in­clu­sive par­ties dur­ing the car­ni­val sea­son, The UWI Fete has in­creas­ing­ly be­come the most suc­cess­ful fund-rais­er for the UWI De­vel­op­ment and En­dow­ment Fund.

The Fund's 2012 fi­nan­cials re­vealed that more than $2.7 mil­lion in bur­saries have been dis­trib­uted to 351 un­der­grad­u­ate stu­dents over the past five years. These bur­saries are pri­mar­i­ly fund­ed through The UWI Fete.

A re­lease from the UWI Fete or­gan­is­ers, said the par­ty has be­come the UWI De­vel­op­ment and En­dow­ment Fund's sig­na­ture fund-rais­er. One of the main rea­sons for the suc­cess of The UWI Fete is that a great deal of plan­ning goes in­to its stag­ing. The Board of the Fund is close­ly in­volved in the de­tails that shape The UWI Fete's brand and every year plan­ning for the next fete be­gins im­me­di­ate­ly fol­low­ing the last.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, a UWI Fete Com­mit­tee com­pris­ing of pro­fes­sion­als in fields such as mar­ket­ing, ad­ver­tis­ing and fi­nance work year-long on the op­er­a­tional as­pects of its or­gan­i­sa­tion. The com­mit­tee's goal is to main­tain the high stan­dard of the fete and keep rais­ing the bar on what the fete of­fers its pa­trons.

The 2013 UWI Fete con­tin­ues its tra­di­tion of ex­ot­ic lo­ca­tion themes. Yal­la! (a pop­u­lar Ara­bic ex­cla­ma­tion, mean­ing "Hur­ry up" or "Let's go") is the name this year, as the event takes fete-go­ers on a Mid­dle East­ern jour­ney. It takes place on Jan­u­ary 13, on the lush grounds of the Prin­ci­pal's Of­fice of The UWI St Au­gus­tine Cam­pus.

Among The UWI Fete's unique fea­tures in­clude an in­ter­ac­tive Web site, a site map catered specif­i­cal­ly for pa­trons, and two dif­fer­ent stages. The per­for­mance line-up in­cludes Dil-E-Nadan, JMC 3Veni, Roy Cape All Stars, De Mighty Tri­ni, Os­car B, David Rud­der, Black Stal­in and Kes the Band. As a spe­cial trib­ute for the 23rd an­niver­sary of the fete, David Rud­der will per­form 23 of his own ca­lyp­so clas­sics.

For fur­ther de­tails and tick­et sources, please con­tact UWI Stu­dent Ad­vi­so­ry Ser­vices (662-2002 ext 82326) or Pep­per Ad­ver­tis­ing (622-6502/2762). Al­so vis­it Face­book or www.uwifetett.com.