Comparisons

2. Comparison

I will be comparing the Singapore Arts Festival 2009 with the Hong Kong Arts Festival 2009. The Hong Kong Arts Festival has existed for the past 37 years, where it is conducted yearly. Similarly to SAF, the Hong Kong Arts Festival provides a wide array of dance, arts and music events for one month. This year, the festival was commenced from the 6th of February 2009 to 8th March 2009. Being a successful event, there is indeed a lot of marketing strategies that the organizers have to effectively implement.

i. Products

Both festivals has the main core product products where they provide visitors and guests with a magnificent festival experience that they will get from the different events they attended, be it events for the arts, dance, music or theatre. For the both festivals, there are some facilitating products such as souvenir shops at the locations (marina barrage) of events that are being held and small drink and food booths. During the opening event (SAF), Helios II La Compagnie Malabar (France) Asian Premiere, which is held in Marina Barrage, there is a Coca Cola booth where they gave out free bottle drinks to the visitors. Therefore, this will further enhance the guests experience during the event itself, since the event is being outdoor, free drinks would be a help to most of them.

ii. Place

Since the whole event is related to Arts, Dance, Music and theatre, the locations and venues are places that can hold these types of events and have to have the proper facilities, equipments and services to cater to the performers of different events. This includes proper staging, availability of dressing rooms, sizes of the venue to fit the audiences and the suitability with the performances, lighting and many other technical details. Hence, for Singapore Arts Festival, since there are mini- events throughout the one month, there are several venues for different kinds of events such as the Esplanade, DBS Art Centre, Red Dot Museum, Victoria Theatre and Concert Hall, Marina Barrage, LASALLE College of the Arts Flexible and many more art centres. As we can see, most of the venues are either theatres or an art and cultural centres such as Esplanade where there are a few theatres, concert halls and studios. Similarly with the Hong Kong Arts Festival, the venues that are being held are art and cultural centres and locations such as Drama Theatre, HK Academy for Performing Arts, Studio Theatre, HK Cultural Centre, Fringe Theatre, Fringe Club, Lyric Theatre, HK Academy for Performing Arts and many more. These venues are very similar to the concept of the Esplanade where they have several kinds of theatres, concert hall and studios. Hence, the organization can afford to do most of their events and performances at these different locations.

However, since the government in Singapore is trying to open up arts to more Singaporeans by bringing it to the heartland neighbourhoods and also places where the public will come across to different forms of arts easily, they have performances that are held in non- art and cultural places such as Marina Barrage and train stations (Raffles MRT station). For instance, the performance held in Marina Barrage, was for the opening ceremony, and it was held for 3 days. The reason they held in Marina Barrage and not the theatre is because, the performance itself needs a lot of room and space, and they indeed utilized the whole foyer compound as there are different circus acts, a lot of smoke- effect and great lighting needed. And also, since it is the opening ceremony, there are display of the fireworks, after the whole performances has ended, hence, it is important to have a huge place to enhance these features, to prevent less distraction and interference.




iii. Programming

After observing the way they construct their performances and events for the Singapore Arts Festival, they normally would start off with dance performances that will be held from the 22nd of May till the 7th of June. Following after, would be the theatre performances, and music performances which until the last day of the festival, 14th of June 2009. Therefore, there is a slight chance that each category clashes with one another and so that audiences who want to watch a dance performance can also watch a music performance while knowing that the dates will not coincide with each other. All the performances last at least 3 days long, to ensure that people have more dates that are more suitable for them. Lastly, for the visual arts, there might be exhibitions that will launch during the arts festival period but might last in July or even October. Singapore Arts Festivals also offer workshops i.e. Cullberg Ballet Dance Workshop by Jane Hopper, festival chats i.e. Of Memories and Poetry and appreciation of visual arts. The timings for these events and performances are mostly after school hours.

For the Hong Kong Arts Festival, lengths of days are also the same for the Singapore Context, where each performance last at least for 3 days. However, for some of their performances such as Black Swan which is a theatre performance last for 5 days but are not consecutive i.e. 20 - 22 Feb, 7 - 8 Mar. The reason is perhaps, this theatre piece is popular and it has high demand for it. There are also more than one venues to hold this performance.

Unlike the way the way Singapore Arts Festival designed their programs and performances, the performances for the Hong Kong Arts Festival are a mix and they do not follow in a specific order. Hence, there might be clashes of dates and timings; this will result to some people not being able to attend due to busy schedules or personal reasons. Hong Kong Arts Festival do not exhibit any visual arts exhibitions, which I think is subjective to different organizations, but would it would be lovely if they were to have it for those who are interested in visual arts, as it is still a form of arts.

However, they do provide behind the scenes and backstage guided tour where audience are allowed to be exposed with things that they have never seen before. There are also meet the artist session as part of the post- program. They also have membership specially for the youths in hoping to get the youths interested in arts and this program showed a success as they managed to gain attention from close approximately 6000 students from secondary school to tertiary.

I have also realised that for both countries, performances are at least 90 minutes will not have intermission and those performances that last more than 100 minutes will have intermissions. Hence, audience have to understand the way the performances are structured in order to prepare themselves in future and they will also include if there are intermissions for each and every performances.

iv. Price

Singapore Arts Festival • Student price: They are entitled to 20% on any Festival ticked purchase and limited to one ticket per identification. • Early Bird Booking: Booking from the 9th of March till 12th of April 2009 There will be more discounts for more shows purchased. Single performance could also be purchased. • There will be general sales where the public could enjoy discounts for the purchase for 2 or more shows. • There are group and school bookings. 1. Group bookings: Purchase 15 tickets or more and they are able to enjoy 15% discounts 2. School Bookings: They are limited for student priced tickets, workshops, arts appreciations and talks. • Keppel Nights Ticket Subsidy Scheme: Shows that are eligible will be marked with a Keppel Nights logo.

Hong Kong Arts Festival • Student Price: They are entitled to half-price concessionary student tickets and are limited to local, full-time students only. Each student is also entitled to a maximum of 2 tickets for each performance. • Advance Booking: 16 October - 28 November 2008. There will be more discounts for more shows purchased but there are no discounts for the purchase of one or two performance/s. There are also some free performances for the Singapore Arts Festival such as the opening and closing ceremony which is held in Marina Barrage and heartland neighbourhood residential area such as Yishun. Although both countries have the same kinds of pricings such as advance booking or early bird discounts, they each have their own way in promoting and having discounts for their ticket sales. For example, the dates for the advance booking sale for Hong Kong is much earlier (16 October - 28 November 2008) from the start of the festival which is on the 6 February 2009, whereas the early bird booking for Singapore’s context is at least a month before the start of the festival. As listed, Singapore Arts Festival also has more kinds of discounts which might appeal more to the public.

v. Partnerships
Both countries are greatly joined and supported by government agencies. In Singapore’s context, it would be the Singapore Tourism Board as well as the National Arts Council. As for Hong Kong’s context it would be, Hong Kong Tourism Board and the Leisure and Cultural Service Departments. However, there are some partnerships with private companies such as with banks and beverage brands i.e. Coca Cola. For the Hong Kong Arts Festival, they collaborate with Wing Hang Bank Credit Card, where they allow the public to sign up for “Hong Kong Arts Festival MasterCard” and those who apply for this card will be entitled to different discounts and privileges such as rebates and interest free instalments. As for the Singapore Arts Festival, they provide free drinks for the opening ceremony. Therefore, through these the public would be more aware of the partnerships’ brand and if they are launching new products or services.













Hong Kong Arts Festivals has partnerships with music, book/ magazines, Salons and jewellery shops such as Parsons Music Ltd, Salon Go, Emphasis Jewellery and many more stores ahead whereby members of the festival are entitled to special discounts. Singapore Arts Festivals have managed to do partnerships with restaurants, bars and hotels such as Marina Mandarin Singapore where members could get special room rates, and discounts in their food and beverage outlets, spa services and more.

vi. Promotion
One of the ways to promote the festival is through media as the public are more engaged with the media and get most of their information through media advertisements. One of the channels is through the newspaper and appropriate magazines. It is important to keep them informed of the upcoming events or statistics. For example, different newspaper sections might want different story such as Life section in the newspaper might cover the upcoming performances and events whereas the Home Section might include things like how this event is benefiting Singapore. Hong Kong has made one of their online new website; news.gov.hk, as their official media sponsor. As for Singapore Arts Festival, Channel 5 is their official TV station. Arts Festival in both countries has created a membership club where the public can sign up and enjoy a whole lot of benefits that they can attain from this membership. For the Singapore Arts Festival, the club is called ArtsFest Club and the membership fee is free whereas for the Hong Kong Arts Festival, the public have to at least buy 7 or more performances to be able to enjoy the listed benefits and discounts. As I have mentioned under partnership, where they have partnerships with book stores, salons and even hotels, Singapore Arts Festivals have more promotions for the members but at the same time there are promotions for ticket holder whereas the promotions for Hong Kong Arts Festivals are solely for the members. This means that these promotions are specially made for the members and not the public. Members will also be entitled to get the best seats, direct mailing for early bird prices, preview and first hand information of performances and of course, the a wide variety of discounts. There are also advertisements on some taxis regarding this Singapore Arts Festival. Not only that, Singapore Arts Festival has also worked with overseas newspaper such as Jakarta Posts has an article regarding this festival. Therefore, this festival has more exposure overseas too. They are also promoting their festival and events through their very own Facebook, twitter and blog. This is to keep the interested public of their happenings.

vii. Packaging and Distribution
For Singapore Arts Festival, one of the intermediaries to sell their tickets is through the SISTIC outlets locally and overseas such as in Malaysia and Indonesia. For the Hong Kong Arts Festival, there are counter bookings at their own version of SISTIC; URBTIX Outlets and other specific locations such as their performing arts centres and such. There are also postal and fax booking for Hong Kong Arts Festival. Other than that, both of the countries provide internet, telephone bookings which is more ideal and preferred. Those who attended the opening ceremony will be given brochures and pamphlets where there will be a list of programs and performances and this could help the public informed of these performances if they are interested in coming. For Singapore Arts Festival, there are special discounts and special redeems for ArtsFest ticket holders at restaurants and shopping malls such as Mirchi- Taste of India and the Heeren Shops, upon presenting their tickets.

viii. People
People in this case are not only the performers and artists, but also the audience, guests and the staffs. For Hong Kong Festival, there are special programs where they enable audience to have meet ups with the artists involved for certain performances. Hence, this will enhance the audience’s experience as not only will they be able to watch their favourite performance, but they manage to meet up and chat with the artists too. There need to be staffs that are hospitable so that audience and guests will have an awesome experience. They need to be able to understand and cater to the needs of the customers and at the same time taking care of their safety and security. As customers are the boss, they need to always serve with the right attitude as they are the “cast” and represent the whole organization. Hence, they are one of the important variable for good ratings and success of the festival.