Friday, June 27, 2008






Introduction

Water Fools, an opening event of the Singapore Arts Festival 2008 is performed by a group of French performers. It is brought by an acclaimed French street theatre company IIotpie. The event happens at Boat Quay on the 23, 24 and 25th May. The event starts off with a man traveling on a floated yellow taxi to Singapore’s popular waterfront, Boat Quay. But the taxi sputtered and broke down so he gets off the taxi and reads a newspaper. Fireworks were displayed now and then throughout the whole event.

Singapore Arts Festival is a festival organized by the National Arts Council. It was established in 1977 as a national arts festival celebrating local arts activity of Singapore’s diverse communities.


This festival played as a symbiotic and catalytic role in the development of the artistic and cultural life of Singapore. It generates a growing public demand for the arts, spawning new platforms, events, and movements that help underpin the lively cultural scene in Singapore.

The Festival also features an extensive programme of free outdoor performances island-wide, bringing the arts to the doorsteps of Singaporeans.

The background of the organiser

The event’s organizer is the National Arts Council. The National Arts Council (NAC) was set up as a Statutory Board in September 1991 to spearhead the development of the arts in Singapore. Its mission is to nurture the arts and make it an integral part of people’s lives in Singapore. Anchored on the twin strategies of excellence and engagement in the arts, the Council aims to build a vibrant arts sector by creating a conducive environment where the arts is accessible to all and artistic talents have the necessary resources and capabilities to excel and achieve sustainability in the long term.


There are currently eight divisions in the NAC: Performing Arts, Visual Arts, Literary Internationalisation & Enhance Global Connectivity and AdvocaArts, Resource Development, Audience Development, Planning, Market Development and Corporate Communications, and Corporate Services. These eight divisions work with each other to implement strategies and programme to better the art scene in Singapore.

There are five key strategic thrusts to realise the vision of developing Singapore into a distinctive global city for the arts. They are: Nurture & Develop the Arts, Develop Capabilities & Resources, Stimulate Broader & More Sophisticated Demand for the Arts, Facilitate te the Importance of the Arts.

Arts Cluster Development

The Council adopted an arts cluster development approach on 15 April 2004 with dedicated teams of officers championing the performing, visual and literary art forms. This approach enables the Council to develop the various art forms in a holistic manner by working through the entire value chain - from seeding arts start-ups, nurturing and developing artists, arts groups and arts businesses, to providing international platforms and exposure for our artists to showcase their talents - so as to build a robust arts ecosystem.

It enhances the relationship with the arts community, where artists and arts groups become our partners in embracing and implementing the cluster development plan.
With this new approach towards cultivating new areas for growth and long-term sustainability, we are well-placed to develop a vibrant arts community, where the arts is accessible to everyone and artists and arts groups have the necessary funds and resources to excel.

The role of events to the organizer

The role of the Singapore Arts Festival has contributed to the National Arts Council greatly. Singapore Arts Festival has been promoting arts appreciation in Singapore over the past years and has helped the National Arts Council to maintain the level of arts appreciation.

As the Singapore Arts Festival comprise of many performances, locally or overseas, the programs the Singapore Arts Festival exhibited during the month has act as an attraction in Singapore. It has aid the National Arts Council in promoting Singapore as a premium destination for arts appreciation.

The stakeholders in the event

The stakeholders in this Singapore Arts Festival are: Mediacorp- arts central as the official TV station, radio station Gold 90 FM as the official radio station, Yahoo Singapore as the official online media.

The premium partners are: PUB, tote board, Singapore turf club and Singapore Tourism Board (STB). Hong Leong Foundation, Lee Foundation, Raffles City Shopping Centre and Lush 99.5FM is the major sponsors for the Singapore Arts Festival.

Other sponsors includes:
Japanese Chamber of Commerce, Singapore, Suntec Singapore International Convention & Exhibition Centre, and VITAGEN LESS SUGAR.

The festival supporters includes:
Clarke Quay, Embassy of the Kingdom of Spain, Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Focus Media Singapore (Pte) Limited, French Embassy in Singapore, Italian Cultural Institute, Jurong Point Shopping Centre, LEGO Singapore Pte Ltd, National Environment Agency, SMRT Corporation Ltd, Tan Chin Tuan Foundation, The Heeren Shops, VivoCity and Wotif.com.

Esplanade - Theatres On The Bay, Housing and Development Board and United Overseas Bank Group are the venue partners for this festival.

The target market

The target market of this festival is families and people who appreciate art. The Singapore Arts Festival is suitable for all ages, from young to old. As some of the performance does not have any dialogue and only visuals, it is easy to understand. Furthermore, various performances are free admission so this attracts many families to watch.

The marketing strategies employed by the organiser

The Singapore Arts Festival has used the partnership, promotion, people and price component.

Partnership: the Singapore Arts Festival has partnership with Singapore’s local popular TV and radio station as well as online media Yahoo Singapore. The other partners involved in the Singapore Arts Festival are like the Lee Foundation, PUB and STB. STB’s role was to develop and champion tourism, so STB is able to promote Singapore Arts Festival if tourists come over to Singapore for holiday and resulting in the tourists having more reason and purpose for them to have a longer stay in Singapore as they have more events to participate in.

Promotion: the Arts Festival has collaborated with the channel arts central to promote art in Singapore. The arts central channel is to promote art performance in Singapore, meaning that the Arts Festival is advertised through Medias.

People: the performers come from all over the world to perform in Singapore and also including Singapore performers. The audiences are mostly Singaporeans and minority group of foreigners. Audiences are able to watch the performance within close distance.

Price: various performances are free admission like the Water Fools which require no admission fee at all while some performance performed in theatres requires entrance fee.

Rating the organisation of the event

The organization of the Water Fools can be evaluated through the controlling of crowd, the attitudes of the volunteers, accessibility of the place, staging and shelter.

In terms of crowd control, the security has done a good job. They are able to ensure the audiences’ safety and disperse the crowds congested on the side of roads. The volunteers were approachable and enthusiastic about explaining the event information to the audience.

As Water Fools is performed at Boat Quay, which is located at the central of Singapore, is very accessible as the Raffles MRT station is located near the river.

However, for staging wise, Water Fools is constrained by its nature of performing on water. Therefore, only those people sitting at the front can have a full view of the performance.

Furthermore, there is no shelter for the people attending the event so the organizer should take note of this issue in case it rains.

The potential of the event by the organiser to meet tourist demand

As Singapore Arts Festival is an annual event organized by the National Arts Council, it is considered a hallmark event. A hallmark event is whereby it is a recurring events of limited duration, developed primarily to enhance awareness, appeal and profitability of a tourist destination in the short term or long term.
Hallmark events rely their success on uniqueness, status, or timely significance to create interest and attract attention. Therefore, as a hallmark event only happens once annually, it results in high tourist demand and high value.

As a result, the Singapore Arts Festival attracts large amount of tourists and Singaporeans to join in the events and performances, as well as enhancing arts appreciation in Singapore.

Therefore, this event has high potential to meet tourist demand.

Value of the event be raised to be aligned with the tourism mission of Singapore

As Singapore is mostly dependent on the tourism sector, it is important to maintain the flow of tourists coming to Singapore. To maintain the amount of tourists, one of the ways is to have such festivals like the Singapore Arts Festival to attract more visitors and prolong their stay in Singapore as they have more activities to participate in. It not only attracts the locals, but also allows the foreigners in Singapore to join in too.

For example, Water Fools is an event presented by the French and therefore, it will attract French nationality to this event. Therefore, by having international events organized in Singapore, the value of the event can easily be aligned with the tourism mission of Singapore, which is to build the tourism sector into a key driver of economic growth for Singapore.


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