Preparations for WAVES 2027 were proceeding on both venue coordination and programme development in July 2026. Information and Broadcasting Secretary Chanchal Kumar met Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on July 17 about the second edition in Mumbai. The state and central governments were asked to coordinate preparations for the media and entertainment summit.
Before that meeting, ministry officials reviewed preparations and inspected the Jio World Convention Centre in Bandra Kurla Complex, the proposed venue. It had hosted the first WAVES from May 1 to 4, 2025. The inspection concerned a return to that location; those earlier dates belong to the inaugural edition, not the 2027 calendar.
A separate ministry invitation issued on July 13 set out a substantive part of the programme. Industry associations, organisations and institutions were invited to design and execute Create in India Challenge Season 2 competitions. The call envisaged more than 50 challenges, with emphasis on artificial intelligence, digital and social media, animation, visual effects, gaming, comics and extended reality.
The invitation made organisers responsible for developing challenges, with mentoring, training and grassroots outreach among the priorities. It provided for selection of both the proposed competitions and their executing entities through a common portal. The stated submission deadline was July 31, 2026. This was an invitation to organisations proposing competitions, rather than a single entry form for individual creators.
Selected challenges could receive a one-time grant of up to Rs 1 crore, subject to technical and financial evaluation and the invitation's conditions. The ceiling concerned support for implementing a challenge, not a promised individual winner's prize. Winning work was intended for presentation at CreatoSphere during WAVES 2027. That design connects the eventual summit showcase to a preceding period of recruitment, mentoring and competition delivery.
