(credit to http://www.singaporeartsfest.com/festivalbloggers/)

(credit to http://www.flickr.com/photos/26714995@N02/3622333808/)

Though I was not at the closing of Arts Festival, I am still very proud that Singapore hold such a big event. Well the performers really deserve a round of applause for all their hard work and great performances!

The finale is just the beginning of everything.

Labels: thefinale

Who is involved? (The Stakeholders)
The greatest stakeholder I would say is the artists themselves. Though Singapore is a small country, however for these performing groups to perform here, they need to have the potential too. Thus each and every one of these artists are great and have passion for arts. Getting to perform at another country is everyone's dream, Singapore as a red dot on the map may have fulfilled many of their dreams.

The host organisation that make this event successful is another important role too. It is organised by National Arts Council. It has helped to transform the Singapore's cultural landscape, transforming it into one of Asia's major cultural capitals today. It has influenced the work of artists and has since generated a growing public demand for the arts, cultures and events that strengthen the culture scenes in Singapore.

The sponsors that work together to make this event successful are another shareholder of this event. Art Fest 2009 brings in big crowds. With someone who does not know if there is such event going on, he will definitely know about it sooner or later as the performances are all over Singapore! Without these partners, the funds to hold some of the free events will be unable to carry out thus the premier partners play an important roles too.

Another stakeholder would be the audience, be it in a theater hall or along the Orchard Road, they play a part in the Arts Festival too. Without them, the casts will feel very demoralised especially for those came from overseas. Can you imagine the agony that a group of artists who came from the Europe and there were no audience when they are performing? As a host country of this event, we would not want the artists to go back to their home country with disappointment.

The media play a parts in promoting Arts Festival. One example of media would be the official TV station, Channel 5 and supporting TV station, Okto. They are a big influence as they reach out to the mass easily.

The co-workers who manage the logistics and backstage are very important. This is because the lack of one item may cause the whole event unable to carry out. Thus these co-workers have to ensure that everything is available in order to make the event a successful one.

These stakeholders are equally important. These stakeholders are just like the fingers on a hand. With one of them missing, the Arts Festival would not be successful at all!

Huh what is Art Festival? (Purpose)
I supposed the main purpose of this festival is to promote arts from all over the world. Many art lovers were able to show their passion in arts through these performances. I realise that many of the performances were free. It could be true that this performances are paid by sponsors, but let's say someone who really loves art, I got to say he would not mind performing for free at all!

It also shows the vibrant art side of Singapore which attract more visitors to Singapore. The city aims to inspires and capture the public imagination during the 4weeks of performances and events, as stated from http://www.singaporeartsfest.com/aboutus/.

What's going on? Why got so many people? (Tourism Benefits)
The first benefit anyone would think of is extra income for the country but that's not what I think. There are many free performances in this festival. For those performance that are ticket-based are not that expensive too. Spending so much on firework in both of the opening and closing of Art Festival 2009, it is still able to open free for people to go in to watch. There could be sponsors funding these items but it is still got to cost a lot. Thus in my opinion, there is not much of tourism benefits in this area.

The key benefits of Art Festival 2009 were to attract more visitors to Singapore, especially during this period whereby the school holiday is still on.

Art Festival 2009 brings out another side of Singapore, Singapore is not just a small city but a place to showcase other countries art talents too. That is why Art Festival is not just all about local talents.

Another benefit of the Arts Fest is that it brings people together in a such a big events which creates social cohesion in Singapore. In Art Festival, it brings art lovers from any country together.

Mentioned earlier in my previous post, Art Festival also help to broaden people's cultural horizon e.g. Saman Traditional Dance. If I have not been to the Art Festival, I would not know that there is such performances going on. Thus, it educates more people regarding art-related festivals.

Since Singapore is such as bustling city and able to hold such as big event like this therefore it is able to show the country is still good in investment. With more investment, there would be more tourism revenue and business opportunities too.

In such a large-scale event like Singapore Arts Festival, there ought to be many benefits for the country. Therefore as the hosting country, we have to make use of such opportunities to bring Singapore to a greater heights.

Labels: art festival 2009

Arts Festival VS Galway Arts Festival

Introduction
Here is a brief introduction about Singapore Arts Festival and Galway Arts Festival before I start.
Singapore Arts Festival founded in 1977 is a one-month event whereby performances took place all over Singapore. The performances are divided into six types of categories: Dance, Music, Theatre, Fest Connect, Visual Arts and Outreach. Arts Festival showcase talents from many countries including France, Indonesian, Chile, Japan and many more!

Galway Festival founded in 1978 is a two-weeks festival that celebrates performing and visual arts. In Galway Festival, one can see international programme of theatre, dance, music, literature and comedy. Unlike Arts Festival, Galway Festival showcase talents mostly only from Ireland, England and USA.

Firstly, I would say I will mixed some content of Galway Arts Festival 2008 and 2009 as the one in 2009 has not taken place yet.

Banner at the Raffles City Shopping Centre facade fronting Robinsons
(Credit to http://www.flickr.com/photos/25802865@N08/3526390069/in/set-72157618660877086/)

Galway Arts Festival tentages in 2008
(Credit to www.google.com)

Product
The core product of both events I would say it is the experiences. When I went to the performances for Art Festival, each of them gave me a very different and unique feeling. I enjoy the firework at the end of the Opening at Marina Barrage. The Glittering Bestiary is more of an interactive street event compared to the rest of the performances.

From what I have seen online, Galway Arts Festival has been receiving good critics these years. This festival is one of the leading art festival thus explaining its quality. I have not been to Galway Arts Festival before but I am sure who loves music and street festivals would love to visit Ireland for this event at least once!

Place
Art Festival performances are all over Singapore! You can see the artists performing even in the heartlands areas such as Toa Payoh, Ang Mo Kio, Bedok, Yishun (the Closing Celebration was held at Yishun) and Tampines. The best atmosphere I received was from The Opening at Marina Barrage. It is because it was my first time there. I was at the Marina Barrage is not mainly because I want to watch the Opening, I also wanted to take a look at what this new reservoir is all about.

Just like Singapore Arts Festival, Galway Festival is scattered throughout the city! Three of Galway Fesival performances were on the street which also attracts many people to come and watch them. Some of the performances are held in a enclosed area such as a theater and hotel. There is a few which are exceptional - they are performed at the Festival Big Top. It is a open space whereby everyone can stand anywhere despite buying a ticket. This is because there are no ranges for the prices of the tickets. Most of the music performances are held at the St. Nicholas Church or Roisin Dubh. The Roisin Dubh has been firmly established over the years as one of the finest music venues in the world, as stated from http://www.roisindubh.net/contact.php

Therefore for a festival to be successful, it is important to have the performance spread out the whole city. This allows people to gain exposure even they stay in different parts of the city. And then this two city has did it, they managed to spread the festival around the country. I supposed such things will only able to happen in small city like Ireland and us.

Partnerships
So who are the premiers partners involved in Art Festival?
Official TV Station - Channel 5
Supporting TV station - Okto
TV commercials is a good way of promoting an event or festival as everyday there are at least thousands of people watching television programs.
Official Sparkling Beverage - Coca-cola Light
Premier Partners - Singapore Tourism Board, Tote Board, Singapore Pools, Shaw Foundation, The University of Western Australia, PSB Academy.


There are more sponsors that can be found at http://www.singaporeartsfest.com/sponsor/
Singapore Arts Festival collaborate with some of the shopping malls in Singapore. For example, one of it was Vivocity (the Saman Traditional Dance and many other performances were held there.)
(credit to http://www.singaporeartsfest.com/sponsor/)

There are also many sponsors that are involved in Galway Arts Festival 2009.
For Galway Arts Festival, they have a section called the funding agencies. They are the one who give funds in order to carry out Galway Arts Festival.


(Credits to http://www.galwayartsfestival.com/dpages.php?page=190&title=Our%20Sponsors)
Under Galway Arts Festival, they even made open to public that what kind of benefits will they get if they were to become one of the sponsors. One of the benefits was tax relief, it would be very useful for commercial company. Hence, this is something Singapore Arts Festival can put in order to attract more companies to participate as sponsors in the next Singapore Arts Festival.

One thing similar about these two festivals is that they are not funding body and not-for-profit organisation, which raises its income through ticket sales and sponsorship along public sector grants.

With reputable sponsorship, people will tend to go for these festivals. This is because these reputable partnerships have make the products even more attractive. Since both festivals are such a large-scale event, there ought to be a lot of sponsorship and partners supporting the event. Hence, I would comment that both festivals did equally well in this area.

Promotion (Communications)
Art Festival was somehow different to Galway Festival in terms of marketing strategy. Big and colourful banners were put along Orchard Road which is a famous shopping area for tourists. Mass commercials on TV were one of the marketing strategies for Arts Festival.

Posters were designed for Galway Arts Festival and they even have t-shirts for audience to buy and keep as mementos. As both events have a history of 30+ years of history, it has already established themselves in many people's heart. With Ireland that is a country with many festivals and events, Galway Arts Festival is a must have festival in Ireland's event calendar.

Advertising on vehicles was one of Singapore Art Festival promotion plans too. There was this eLITE cabs that were used to promote Art Festival. "They uses LED technology, making a campaign visual ‘glow’ in the night from the time the headlights are switched on", stated by Leela V, one of the blogger on Art Festival Blog.

(Credits to http://www.singaporeartsfest.com/festivalbloggers)

Promotions privileges were also given to ArtFest ticket holders and members.

One example of the promotion for ArtFest Club Card members.
(Credits to http://www.singaporeartsfest.com/promotions/)

Vehicles were also useful for Galway Arts Festival, look at this:

This is to promote dancing in Galway Festival in 2008.
(Credit to http://flickr.com)
Both events have done incredibly well in this areas as they are creative enough to make people notice them. They use loud colours to make it outstanding in the crowd. However, I think it will be better if Singapore Arts Festival were to have some souvenirs for the audience to bring back home. It is true these could costs more but it will leave even a deeper impression in the audiences' hearts.

People
The interaction between customers, the setting staffs/volunteer constitute a large part of the event experience, stated in Lecture 3 notes of Festival and Events Management. Well during the 'moving' Glittering Bestiary, I have actually asked one of the volunteers if I can took a photo of the board she is holding. She smile at me politely and replied 'Can, take your time'. Isn't that so sweet of the volunteers? During the visit to watch the performance by Helios II, the staffs were polite and helpful when giving us directions as to how to get to Marina Barrage. What's more, there are free shuttle bus to Marina Barrage too!

You can join their mailing list or add them on myspace here at Galway Festival website to update yourself with various programmes that are coming up. In that case, even if you miss some of the events, you will still get to know what's going on at the Galway Festival! There were the latest news on the right side of the website, constantly updating readers what's going on.


(Credit to http://www.galwayartsfestival.com/news.php?id=117)
Similarly to Arts Festival, many performances were on the street. Thus, the interaction between audience and performances were greatly increased too. These photo happen during Galway Arts Festival 2008.

(credit to http://www.flickr.com/photos/mckennapj/2697382884/)

Both Singapore Arts Festival and Galway Festival has their Facebook account! Something different from mailing list, Singapore Arts Festival has a Twitter account! Twitter is a free social messaging utility for staying connected in real-time. This is useful to where it comes to updating of events. However, mailing list would be more personal as updates are send directly to the members' e-mails.

Packaging & Distribution
Both of the events tickets can bought through online booking which is rather common in today's society. This is because it is a lot more convenient since so many people are computer-savvy. One can buy tickets through phone too. Galway Arts Festival even provide a hotline for international callers to call in to book tickets. Singapore Arts Festival also cater to international visitors, there are various SISTIC agents located in Malaysia and Indonesia. Despite that, I still think that the hotline services for international visitors would be better. So probably Singapore could provide such a hotline which cater to more international visitors. Buying a ticket in Singapore are a lot more convinient compared to buying ticket in Ireland for Galway Arts Festival. This is because SISTIC Agents are all over Singapore! These SISTIC agents are usually located in a shopping mall which make it even more easier to buy the tickets.
(credits to http://www.sinchung.com.my/images/logo-sistic.gif)

One matchless thing about Galway Arts Festival is that one can also book tickets through mailing. Someone who is not computer-savvy are able to buy tickets too if they are unsure of online booking. Another reason that people will use this method to book ticket is the Galway City Centre is too far from them. Since Galway Festival is unable to have so many agents around Ireland, booking ticket through mailing could be another alternative for the potential audience.

Well both country have their own way of distribution to the audience. In a fast-paced country like Singapore, everything got to be convenient. Therefore if there was only one Sistic outlet in Singapore, everyone minds would be turn off. And by then

Programming
Singapore Arts Festival chose to has it opening at Marina Barrage brings out a loud bang of the first new reservoir in town! Whether if it will attract audience to come and watch, it all depends on the programmes of the events. For Singapore Arts Festival, it has many form art performances - dance, music, theatre, visual arts, outreach and fest connect. Under each of this categories, there ought to be many performances cater to different type of audience. For example, someone who loves martial art dance may not like ballet dancing (Sutra versus Anna Karenina). Since Singapore Arts Festival have more variety of art performances from all over the world, it creates more exposure to many people. For example, the Saman Traditional Dance, you do not need to go Indonesia to watch them perform as they have already came to Singapore!

For the Galway Arts Festival, the artists are mainly from UK and U.S.A which does not really involve any Asian countries at all. There is one exception which is the Varvara Shavrova. It involves countries from Russia and China. The programmes could be boring to some people as it would always be the Caucasians who are performing and they do not get to know more about other countries' cultures.

Singapore is able to invite artists from many nationalities to perform in the country. This would be beneficial to Singapore as tourists would see the country as a multi-racial country.

Price
It is true that every event comes with a price tag including those that are free e.g. time, travel cost and lost opportunities. Thus it is important that the event has to be appeal to the audience that it is worth attending or this will affect the audience rate. I think Art Festival's programmes are worth to watch and the prices are rather affordable. You can either watch it for free or top up a little bit more to watch some concerts at the Esplanade. How awesome is that? There are price ranges for most of the theater and concerts performances as well.

There are free events in Galway Arts Festival too. However, there were lesser free street performances compared to Singapore (there were only 3). Most of the free events are visual arts, mainly in a museum or a gallery area. This would cause boredom and less interactive unless there is someone in the museum to bring them around, explaining to them the various art forms. As I mentioned earlier on, I realise the ticket prices for the performances are fixed unlike Singapore Art Festival. You are able to get a ticket as low as €7.00 which is around SGD14.10. It would be good if there is price range as those who pay more, they can get up to closer look.

(3 free street events at Galway Arts Festival,
credits to http://galwayartsfestival.ticketsolve.com/shows/upcoming/tags/free)

In this area, I would say Singapore Arts Festival are better than Galway Arts Festival in terms of pricing.

There were many promotion prices for Singapore Arts Festival. For example, full time students are entitiled to 20% discount for any ticket purchase. Isn't that great for student like us? Discounts is not just entitled to students only, there is general sales discounts open to public when they buy 2 or more shows. When one joins the ArtsFest Club members, he can enjoy 10% discount for every single ticket purchase. Membership is free somemore! Despite all these, there are still SISTIC charges ($1 for every ticket price $20 and below, $3 for every ticket priced $20 and above).

(credits to http://www.singaporeartsfest.com/ticketing/)

Sadly, there were no discounts for anything regarding Galway Arts Festival. Tickets bought online are subject to a service fee of €1.50/€2 for Festival Big Top events. However, there are no booking charges for Children's events. How awesome is that, kids?! They also do not offer concessions prices online. Perhaps, this is to prevent people for giving false profile such as age.

I think in this area, both got their pros and cons. It all depends on what kind of markets are they targetting and what kind of audience are watching the performances.

Conclusion
In conclusion, I think there are some ways which both festivals work in a very different manners. This could be because that both festivals are from different country thus explaining the different cultures. There are always things that we can learn from others and improve ourselves. In the case of Galway Arts Festival marketing mix, they are much simpler compared to Singapore Arts Festival. However, simple marketing doesn't meant that they can't attract people. If they can't attract people, they would not be able to hold this festival for so many years. If given an opportunity, I would not mind going to Galway Arts Festival as Ireland is after all a place full of events and celebrations.

Labels: singapore versus ireland

Each of their actions, be it singing or hand gestures are all in unison.

One of the cameraman even stand up to take photo, indeed he was very amazed by it.
The man in blue who is sitting down plays the drum-like instrument and sing the song.

Labels: saman traditional dance

You can watch stuntman even at Orchard Road! The Glittering Bestiary is put up also by the La Compagnie Malabar who started the Festival Opening. This act that is put up by La Compagnie Malabar attracts many people at Orchard Road. These "circus acrobatics" are dressed in all white except for one who dressed up in grey and black. The first thing that caught my attention was the all-white costumes and make-ups.

These performances was about a circus acrobat who is in search of their phantasmagorical creatures that have seem to escape! All of them were is stilt-walking. Can you imagine these tall and white-dressing people trying to cover you with their big cloth? It is really a fun experience as these artists will do funny actions and trying to follow you around outside Ngee Ann City.

Behind this performances, the artists actually been through a lot. They got to go through practices and wear such a thick costumes and performance under such a hot climatic weather like Singapore. Despite the cooling feel after the rain, the perfomers still sweat a lot. I actually saw some of the artists stop behind a pillar and catch a breathe. He drank mineral water that was provided by their staffs.

Labels: glittering beads

The drummers beating the huge drums to welcome the Guest-of-Honour during the official opening of the Singapore Arts Festival 2009 at the Marina Barrage.
(credit to flickr.com)

(credit to flickr.com)










Arts Fest stretches from 15th May to 14 June. The three-day Festival Open put up by Hélios II is a free event staged at the Marina Barrage. It features a titanic grasshopper that is twenty-four metres long and nine metres high surrounded by circus artists in aerial acts and live musicians, putting together against a backdrop of shadows and lights. It could have been better than I thought but still a round of applause for these artists. It was held at the Marina Barrage. Choosing that place to hold the opening is a excellent choice as it promotes our first reservoir in town- Marina Barrage. Be it art lovers, family or students like us, everyone is interested in the opening at Marina Barrage. After all, it could be most of their first time to be there. During the performances, there were slight faults. One of them actually almost fell down upon standing on the stilt walks. I really do enjoy the firework at the end.

Labels: theopening

Balloon Festival in Switzerland

Alright I have a created a blog for my Festival and Events Individual Project!
I have decided to go to the Arts Festival for this project!

By the way, Happy Labour Day!

Labels: artsy