Festival and Events Individual Report - Singapore Arts Festival
0 comments Posted by Abigail at 9:27 PMThe Singapore Arts Festival began in 1977 with the purpose of celebrating the local art activities of Singapore’s community. With the help of the National Arts Council over the last 30 years, Singapore Arts Festival has turned into one of Asia’s major cultural capitals of today.
In 2004, Singapore Arts Festival championed and co-founded the association of Asian performing Arts Fest and oversees members from Asia, Europe, America and Australasia.
Today, the festival is committed to commissioning new art works by local, regional and international artists in works that bridge boundaries in terms of language, culture or distance. This hallmark event is the single largest event on Singapore’s arts calendar, offering more than 400 activities in 4 weeks.
1.1 La Compagnie Malabar (France)
La Compagnie Malabar is a parade revolving around the mythological tale of the creation of Helios (Helios is Greek for the God of the Sun). The 70 minute parade showcased the 24 meter long, 9 meter high praying mantis insect, with lively music and pyrotechnic displays surrounding it.
The parade was made possible through the hard work of the performers (acrobats, musicians, stilt walkers) and those behind the scene (pyrotechnicians, technicians).
As the event was held in central Singapore (Marina Barrage), it was easily accessible to the public. Furthermore, shuttle bus service was provided from outside International Plaza and Marina Bay MRT station.
2. Similar Festival overseas – Adelaide Festival of the Art 2008
Adelaide Festival of the Art began in 1960 and was held in the autumnal month of March every even-numbered year. Its main purpose is simply to bring Adelaide together as a community. Today, the festival is still held biennially in Adelaide and is one of the world’s greatest celebrations of the arts.
2.1.1 Similiarities
Marketing Mix
A marketing mix is generally accepted as the use of specification of the Ps describing strategic positions of the production in the marketplace. It is a set of controllable, tactical marketing tools that work together to achieve a corporation’s objective.
Product: The core product is what the visitor is really buying and is often intangible. The core product of both the Singapore’s Arts Festival and Adelaide’s Festival of the Arts would be entertainment.
A facilitating product is the entity customers can buy to satisfy their needs. This includes the attraction’s features, styling, quality, packaging and brand name. The facilitating product for both festivals would be the countless events hosted around the country.
Augmented products are the total product bundle that should solve all customers’ problems and even those not experienced yet. They are additional benefits and services the customers receive, both tangible and intangible. The augmented product in this case would be the discounts given for selected events. These discounts will be further explained in the report.
Partnership: Singapore Arts Festivals Premier partners would be Singapore Tourism Board, Shaw Foundation, Singapore Turf Club and more. Its venue partners would be Dome Marina Square, One Fullerton, SBS Transit and many more.
Adelaide Festival of Arts main partner is Adelaide Bank, government partner is the Government of Southern Australia and Adelaide City Council. It has several media partners such as Adshell and APN outdoor.
Both Singapore’s Arts Festival and Adelaide’s Festival of Arts were heavily sponsored. Singapore’s Arts Festival was sponsored by Marina Mandarin Singapore, Starhub Cable Vision, Yahoo! and many more companies. Adelaide’s Festival of Arts was sponsored by Adelaide Bank, ABC radio, Adelaide City Council, Coca-cola and many more companies.
Promotions: Integrated Marketing Strategy Communications (IMC) is the management of all contact points through an integrated audience-driven strategy.
In terms of IMC, both festivals used posters, brochures and their official websites to market themselves.
Singapore Arts Festival poster (below)
Singapore Arts Festival brochure (below)
Adelaide Festival of the Arts brochure (below)
Singapore Arts Festival website
http://www.singaporeartsfest.com/
Adelaide Festival of the Arts website
http://www.adelaidefestival.com.au/
Singapore Arts Festival offers several different packages such as the Arts Fest Club, member’s discounts, general sales discounts, ‘Full time student & NSF, senior citizens discounts’ and group booking discount. Adelaide Festival of arts offers ticket vouchers, commission prices, Fringe benefits and group booking benefits. They also offer VIP Hospitality packages.
Programming: Adelaide Festival of Arts hosted 280 performances over 17 days while Singapore Arts Festival hosted 400 performances over 31 days. This shows that both Festivals averaged to hosting roughly 14 to 16 performances per day.
As shows can be held in the morning or at night, there is a wide range of timings for both the Singapore Arts Festival and Adelaide Festival of the Arts. For the Singapore Arts Festival, shows can be held as early as 11am for Etiquette Rotozaza (Uk) and as late as 8pm for Sutra. As for the Adelaide festival of the arts, shows can start at 10am for Ngurrara – The Great Sandy Dessert Canvas or as late as 10pm for Northern Lights.
People: Singapore Arts Festival and Adelaide Festival of Arts are managed by a similar council. Both councils are made up of simply one Chairman and several other members.
Both festivals have recruited both local and international performers. For example, Singapore Arts Festival has the theater performance LIV (Singapore) and the theater performance RUHE (Belgium). Adelaide Festival of the Arts has the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra and Persian Garden.
Price: The price of tickets varies from event to event for both festivals. For the Singapore Arts Festival, a ticket could be as cheap as S$16 for the Brazilian dance performance by H3 to a ticket as expensive as S$120 for Finnish Ballet performance by Anna Karenina. Similarly for the Adelaide Festival of Arts, a ticket could be as cheap as AUD20 per adult for The Angel and the Red Priest to
AUD179 for Ainadamar (Fountain of tears).Place: Place includes the location, setting, atmosphere and destination features of the festival.
Both Singapore Arts Festival and Adelaide Festival of Arts have indoor, outdoor, day and night programs too. The night programs made use of special lighting (Singapore Arts Festival – La Compagnie Malabar and Adelaides Festival of Arts – Ignition!).
Packaging and Distribution: The Adelaide Festival Friends, Angels and Patrons patron was created in order to maintain loyal customers. On a Friend and Angel level, customers or visitors enjoy priority booking, receive a Membership Card, enjoy 15% discount on tickets to selected performances and enjoy many more privileges. On the Patrons level, visitors will enjoy unrivalled access to performances and special events.
For the Singapore Arts Festival, ArtsFest Club Members and ArtsFest Ticket Holders enjoy discounts for Food and Beverage and rooms for various hotels(Marina Mandarin Singapore and Rendezvous Hotel Singapore) and F&B outlets(Hot Stones Clark Quay, Dôme, Mirchi - Taste of India)
2.1.2 Differences 3. Best practices
Singapore Arts Festival has an official blog which viewers can visit to stay updated with the latest information and write ups on the events taking place. This blog is updated often and almost every post is accompanied by a series of photographs of the event or the people involved directly and indirectly with the event.
http://www.singaporeartsfest.com/festivalbloggers/
Singapore Arts Festival also advertised itself on public transportation. Moove media is one of their creative ways of advertising themselves. Singapore Arts Festival has made use of glow in the dark wordings on their taxis so that they can continue to promote themselves through the night.
Singapore Arts Festival also has its own Facebook account. As Facebook is one of the most used social networking sites and most visited sites of today, they have created an attractive image for themselves by appearing “hip” and in return, secured a very large market to promote themselves to.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Singapore-Arts-Festival/13493009561?v=feed&story_fbid=82418117415&ref=mf
In conclusion, I feel that Singapore Arts Festival has done a better job in marketing themselves as they have marketed themselves in ways Adelaide Festival of the Arts has not.
By promoting via blog and Facebook, they have created a more appealing and up to date image of themselves to the public. They have also put up information about themselves on different channels on the internet making information easily accessible to the market. By promoting themselves on public transportation and through creative ways such as glow in the dark wordings, they will be able to reach out to most of Singapore and attract and interest a new market by advertising themselves in such a unique manner.
In my opinion, Singapore’s Arts Festival’s best marketing practices would be promoting itself via its official website, blog and Facebook.
Another benefit is that unlike the brochure and posters, this form of promotion is easily accessible to those international visitors.
4. Singapore Arts Festival stakeholder
Singapore Arts Festival stakeholders are the host organization (National Arts Council), sponsors (Starhub cable vision and Yahoo!), co workers (volunteers), and performers (local, regional and international), media and the host community (Singapore).
Adelaide Festival of Art stakeholders are the host organization (), sponsors (), co workers (volunteers), and performers (local, regional and international), media and the host community (Adelaide).
5. Main purpose of Singapore Arts Festival
Singapore Arts Festival played and important role in developing the artistic life of Singapore by transforming it into one of Asia’s major cultural capitals. It has influenced the works of local and international artists and generated great demand for their works. Through the festival, promising artists have been and will be discovered and recognized and artistic exchanges can be made both regionally and internationally.
6. Tourism benefits
6.1 Political
· Singapore has changed its image from lacking culture to being one of Asia’s hippest destinations.
6.2 Economic
· Earned revenue from ticket sales.
· The spending on local goods and services by the event-tourists will have a direct economic impact on local businesses and pass this benefit more widely on to the local community (By increasing the growth of infrastructure).
· Increased employability by supporting additional jobs.
6.3 Social/cultural
· Brought people together. From artists who have learnt from one another to volunteers who have been helping out from day one.
· Through the exchange of art work both locally and internationally, people have begun to appreciate art work from other countries.
· More exposure for Singapore in term history, culture, heritage, artistic talent.
· Attracted tourists from all over the world which will result to promote a culture exchange between tourist and local resident.
· Singapore Arts Festival draws thousands of visitors to Singapore yearly.
7. Conclusion
In my opinion, Singapore Art Festival will last in the long run as art has no boundaries. It can be appreciated by people from all walks of life. As Singapore Arts Festival offers a wide range of events, it caters to people who appreciate every form of art, from huge parades to fine art work.
Another reason is that the younger generation is being exposed to the arts yearly. The more the younger generation are exposed to it, the more they’ll appreciate it. And the more they appreciate it, the more they’ll support it, making each year a bigger success than the previous one.
Bibliography
1.http://www.singaporeartsfest.com/event/view/name/festival_opening/
2. http://www.adelaidefestival.com.au/servlet/Web?s=2290869&action=changePage&pageID=294303217
3.http://www.singaporeartsfest.com/festivalbloggers/?p=47
4.http://www.singaporeartsfest.com/sponsor/
5.http://www.adelaidefestival.com.au/
6.http://www.nac.gov.sg/abo/abo02.asp
7.http://www.sagebusiness.com.au/pg-artsfestival.seo
8.http://fuse.fusion.com.au/MagazineIssue.aspx?article=79
9.http://www.adelaidefestival.com.au/
10.http://www.singaporeartsfest.com/
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12.http://www.bass.net.au/events/database/AFC09-CONSTRUCT/
13.http://www.singaporesights.com/sight/singapore-arts-festival-2009
14.www.nottingham.ac.uk/ttri/pdf/conference/raj%20razaq.pdf
15.http://www.nac.gov.sg/abo/abo0401.asp
16.http://www.adelaidefestival.com.au/servlet/Web?s=2290869&p=Corporate_WhyJoin
17. http://www.singaporeartsfest.com/promotions/
18. http://www.hotstones.com.sg/index.htm
19. http://www.meritus-hotels.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=164&menu_id=159&timed=1228895402
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21. http://www.dome.sg
