Festival and Event Management

Introduction

The objective of this report is to evaluate the effectiveness of my chosen event in terms of using the market mix. After evaluating, I should be able to come up with suggestions if the market mix is not effective. Methodology of research I will be using is from - Festival and Special Event Management” (3rd Ed.), Chapter 7: “Strategic Marketing of Events.

My chosen event for this project is the Singapore Biennale. Let me introduce you to my event’s profile and background.

Biennale is an Italian word for ‘every two years’. This event is an art exhibition which happens every two years. This year, 5 countries are having their Biennale which is around the same period. The Art Compass, collaboration between Asia-Pacific’s five leading contemporary art events allows travellers to go around the five countries exhibiting their Biennales. This is named as the Asia’s Grand Tour. The five cities are Sydney, Gwangju, Shanghai, Singapore and Yokohama.

The Singapore Biennale is happening here for the second time now. The first Biennale was held back in 2006. It was then being called the Adults’ Biennale with the theme, “Belief”. More than 883,000 people saw the event and it generated 1000 press articles. Because of this, they are including Singapore in this year’s Biennale. This year we are holding the visual arts Kids’ Biennale here with the theme of “Wonder”. This event creates opportunities for the art-base market here and also facilitates collaboration with the global arts community around the world. Same as the year 2006, this year, we are having the same artist to head this exhibition, Fumio Nanjo along with his fellow curators, Joselina Cruz and Matthew Ngui. This exhibition would include 66 artist works from 35 different countries around the world, with each work being tightly curated for this event. So you would expect to be exhibiting the cream-of-the-crop art pieces in this event.
Evaluation of effective use of Market Mix

Product

In the Singapore Biennale 2008, the core services that their customer’s experiences is the visual art exhibitions. Tours will be provided at the venues. There would be three forms of tours. Namely the tour with a guide from the place, an audio tour (you will be given headphones with recorded tour), you can also download the artist audio tour provided on the net to upload it on your music player. That is a very innovative way of giving a tour.

Other than the normal visual art exhibition that they hold, this year they also have the first Kids’ Biennale. The Kids’ Biennale has an exciting and interesting plan of activities. From kids art exhibitions, art and craft classes, The Amazing Kids Race, doodling walls for the kids to on the spot art competitions and a windmills-of-wonder making day.

Also, they also have Parallel events being held, where by the visitors can interact with each other to talk about art. Other non-profit exhibitions like the Singapore showcase and the AGA Art Walk 2008.

I feel that they have been successful in providing this service, as there is more than one venue providing the visual art experience. If a person were to go and appreciate the exhibition at the different venues, he is sure to spend more than a day’s time to finish his journey. They also provide visual arts from all over the world, including locals, so the customers can experience a diversity of art work. Also, they featured 9 more parallel art exhibition events that are available and in line with their visual arts exhibition. Singapore Biennale 2008 has provided their customers with an exciting and large array of art exhibitions.

Programming

To provide a good program, the event has got to have a distinguished core concept in the program, marrying the event program with its physical environment/site, good role of the producer/director and lastly, an established criterion for the program content. The director of this event, Fumio Nanjo and his team of curators Joselina Crus and Matthew Ngui are world renowned had carefully chosen art pieces to be showcased in the exhibition portrayed the exact feelings, emotions they wanted the audiences to have.

I felt that the Programming for this even has been a success has it shows great planning in terms of placing of the exhibitions and what to be included in the exhibition. By coming up with a theme, they have already given the event a core concept and following it closely through choosing the art works. The program as a whole with its surrounding is a success as planning well done by the team. The event has gelled with the venues well, appropriate places were used for the exhibition. The way the art works are being placed around the building is good, big walkways for visitors enables them to appreciate the art from afar and all around.

Packaging

As this event is an exhibition, it does not include much of any service bundle. The only products they are selling are the entry tickets to the places of exhibition and group tours. One-day Admission tickets are sold for $10 per person. The admission ticket would include a copy of the exhibition short guide book and entry to all other venues except the Singapore Flyer. 30% discount for all PAssion Card holders, 50% discount for Senior Citizens (60years and above) and students with valid ID. The Singapore Flyer and Singapore Biennale promotion is - $31 for adults, $25.65 for children under 12 and students, $23.60 for Senior Citizens. Guide books will only be provided to the Adults. There is also a 1 hour-long School Tours are available and it would cost $5 per student.

Singapore Flyer is already a Singapore main attraction; it already has its own value of attraction. Packaging the Singapore Biennale would entice people to take a look the Biennale. The entry tickets are also packaged into one pricing for the One-day admission. Visitors can get entry to City hall and South Beach Development. If they were to sell these two places separately it would decrease the rate of people going to both the places. In my point of view, I would only go to one of the places if they are not grouped together. But on the other hand, they might do better if there were different themes to the different places, as it would create a sense of freshness and visitors will never bound to get bored. They have done a good packaging for their event.

People

Singapore Biennale has this event called the “Unconference”. It comes in the form of speed dating format, letting people meet new people, discuss and talk about controversial art topics and interact. This would really create a sense of good will for visual art lovers, creating this sense of belonging in them.

This group also includes the artists who created the art pieces for the event. They have this event called the “Drawing out Conversations” allows the various artist to talk about their art work and relationships with their varied practices. This would allow the public to get to know the artist and also get an up-close-and-personal time with them too.

The Kids’ Biennale also brings families close to the event by having the kids to participate and enjoy the event as exhibitions normally do not include much of the children crowd.

From these events, we can see and feel that Biennale is drawing all groups of people towards them, creating relationships and goodwill to dedicated group of people also the residential people (Singaporeans) not forgetting the artist themselves. They are effective in using this market mix in their event.

Partnership

An example of partnership in Singapore Biennale is them collaborating with Laselle Collage of Arts (Singapore’s art school). They invited the students to react and respond to their own humorous ways to the theme, Wonder. They named their theme No Wonder. Through this partnership, Biennale can promote their art festival to the art students. Targeting this group of partners would be a very marketable move as they can spread word of mouth to their friends.

They have also a volunteer’s column where people who are interested can help out behind the scene at the Biennale, which is a great opportunity for them to establish this close relationships with people who are “fans”. Singapore Biennale also partners with Jet Airways. They even created the first Kids’ Biennale hand in hand. They are also in partnership with IKEA, furniture from IKEA can be found spotted around the exhibitions too.

Singapore Biennale has done a great job in creating partnerships with all the varieties of companies. This is good as they would benefit from the sponsoring that they are going to have from the partners. It would cut cost for them, for example the furniture sponsored by IKEA.

Pricing

The entrance tickets are priced at $10 per entry for two places (City Hall and South Beach Development). The other places other than the Singapore Flyer are for free.
The promotion for for Singapore Flyer and Singapore Biennale is $31 for adults, $25.65 for children under 12 and students, $23.60 for Senior Citizens.

The pricing of the entrance fee is very low and attractive; to top it up, student and senior citizens pays half the price. I think they have priced the Singapore Flyer and Singapore Biennale’s package very attractively, as the Singapore Flyer ride would cost up to $29.50 per person. This would attract people to buy the package.

Singapore Biennale has done a good job at pricing their tickets to affordable prices. This is effective as Singapore Biennale strive to encourage our locals to be exposing to the arts world. If it were to be priced higher, it would just reduce the number of people visiting it.

Place

Singapore Biennale takes place at nine main places. Namely, Clifford Pier, Esplanade Drive, Central Promontory Site, Connaught Drive, City Hall, Singapore Flyer, South Beach Development, Suntec City and Raffles City Shopping Centre. Customers would expect the exhibitions venues to be of walking distances away from each other.

Singapore Biennale sells their tickets at the entrance of City Hall and South Beach Development as these are the only locations which require an entrance fee. They also sell their group tours tickets online.

The main venues like the City hall and South Beach Development was well-chosen. From my point of view, I really felt that the place for the exhibition was perfect. The places really add on the extra magic to the art pieces. This event has an established theme, Wonder. Their purpose is to create this wow factor, and a sense of illusion, mystery in their customers. They used this theme and married them to the venues for example, City Hall for its glamorous outlook, South Beach Development for its dilapidated buildings and also the sense of illusion inside the different buildings.

The idea of selling the group tour tickets online really saves the hassle of bringing down the whole group of people and only to find out that the tour for that day has been fully booked. It is also a fast and up-to-date option to use the net. But the down part to this is that the payment would be through mail. To makes things easier and safer, payment should be through online banking. The mailing option would be very inefficient.

The sale of tickets outside at the entrance of the places is a good idea. As there isn’t a need of booking places and the entrance fee is not a lot, online booking or online sale of tickets is redundant.

Overall, I think Singapore Biennale has made good use of the places. But they could have improved on the online booking mode of payment to save hassle and time of mailing over the cash or cheque.

Promotion

Singapore Biennale has had outdoor events other than the exhibitions. Some examples would be the fog show underneath the Esplanade Bridge, the big painting outside Raffles Place Shopping Centre. They also have big banners of Singapore Biennale at the venues of exhibitions. Along the roads to the venues there are also big posters on the lamp posts stating the duration and venues of the exhibitions.

There is also advertisement of Singapore Biennale on the National Arts Council of Singapore. (website: http://www.nac.gov.sg/eve/eve03.asp ) On the website, it states the purpose, happenings and aims of the event.

Even so, Singapore Biennale has not done enough in terms of promotion, advertising. I have asked around the different age groups of people around me whether they know of this event, little seems to have any knowledge about this event. The people who know of this event are either art students or designers. Their event is not even stated in the Singapore Tourism Board website. I find that their ways of advertising is very confined to a certain group of people, for example, people who appreciates or follows the Biennale events. Not much advertising work is done. Therefore, I think Singapore Biennale did not use this market mix well. It might be also because of the cost constraints that they might have to bear for advertising. They could have at least post it up on the Singapore Tourism Board to make it known to people about this international event happening. This would really bring them more profit and inflow of visitors.
Tourism roles and Economic value

PLACE MARKETING

In place marketing, the Singapore Biennale has helped Singapore to create a more relaxed and refined country exposed to arts, instead of the old ever developing, competitive image. It shows that Singapore is a place to play and work. By exposing Singapore to arts festival, our quality of life would change and advance to a higher level. As when people appreciate art they tend to be of a higher level. They take time to appreciate the finer things in life other than work. Through creating a positive image for Singapore, we would attract foreigners in considering to mirage to Singapore for a fast pace environment of both work and play. With foreign talents, comes foreign investors in our local businesses, this would in turn bring income to Singapore. Back to looking at the event, Singapore Biennale has been such a success; people want to bring it back again. This would attract investors to invest in this event, bringing in higher economic influx.

This Biennale event has only been here for the second time in Singapore. I think the tourism role of this event is to make Singapore a more “Artsy” nation. As the organizers have stated, Singapore Biennale aims to position Singapore prominently as an international centre and regional thought leader in the field of visual art. It wants to encourage locals to be engaged in arts events, at the same time enhancing her image of being a vibrant city to live, work and play. But being said, I still feel that this event is not a known event among most of the locals. But in terms of bringing people in to Singapore, I can say it does bring and attract people here just for the exhibition. On the Singapore Biennale website itself, it has a page especially for the foreigners. They include sections on how to book tours to the Singapore Biennale, getting here to Singapore, including quick facts and insights of Singapore. Some examples would be food, accommodation, religions, visas, safety, health services, weather and even currency. This makes the travelling easier and the website already provide you with the basics that you should know before coming down to a foreign country. Singapore Biennale is targeting the foreigners and enticing them to come, at the same time, giving them the convenience of providing them with ample information. The Biennale itself is a worldwide event. This year, 5 countries are holding it together, at different periods. This enables people to go on the Asia’s grand tour. Which covers covers the closing week of the Biennale of Sydney, Gwangju Biennale, Shanghai Biennale, Singapore Biennale and Yokohama Triennale.

TOURIST ATTRACTION

In terms of tourist attraction, I feel that Singapore Biennale would attract quality tourists who would consider coming back again for the event. As this is an Arts Biennale, it happens once every two years, bringing in new themes for each year; it would be a very good attraction for the followers of this event. It would spread the demand of having it to repeat itself similar to a tradition if the travelers enjoyed the event. But this would not increase the visitors spending, as the tickets sold are fixed. Even the length of stay would not be affected as people usually take quite fast to complete their art exhibition journey. The pricing is very low in relation to the size of this event, it should be charged at a higher price. Having to hold such a big event over a period of 2 months would be a quite costly. But being able to attract people from overseas, it would be much better; as people come they would spend more on the other aspects during their trip, for example, their accommodation, flight ticket, food expenses and shopping. All these would create a higher tourist receipt in our country. Besides, we are charging more money to the foreigners who come and visit us. The entrance fee is with discount if locals were to flash their PAssion card. PAssion cards are only entitled to locals and Permanent Residents. It would be a good tourist attraction, but it would not be ideal in terms of making the tourist stay longer and spend more here unless we are to use other concurrent events on the tourists to make it happen.

IMAGE MAKER

Singapore Biennale would be an image maker for Singapore, creating this positive image of being the region’s leader in the field of art. It would combat negative imagery of Singapore being a forward looking country which is always focusing on the economy. In our country, we are also exposed to the arts.

ANIMATOR

As the name of the event itself has suggest, this event would be held once every two years. It has already shown evidence of repetition already. The first ever Singapore Biennale was held here in the year 2006. Plans of having the third Biennale has been set, the theme of it would be Animal Biennale as stated in the National Arts Council of Singapore’s website. As it is an Art exhibition itself, it requires site visits by visitors. Being an art exhibition event, it has a nature of being an Animator.
Conclusion

This project has been an eye opener and has allowed me to see in-depth the market mix being used in events. I have come to realize the constraints and the means of being able to balance all the market mix together to hold up a successful event, to reach the aims of the event. An example of a major constraint that would hold a company back from doing intensive marketing is money issue. Singapore Biennale being such a big event is charging minimal fee for the entrance and even providing some free exhibitions; although showcasing some exhibition to the public will create some awareness to the public, it would still be costly. The risk of it not even attracting enough people to cover the cost of putting up a public exhibition might occur. From this, I learnt that in business, you have to take risk, if not, do intensive market research to know what might entice your customers in to coming your event just by viewing some exhibitions.

I learnt of this Singapore Biennale event through school, through this event, I come to know of the arts market and got to experience the event. As a customer myself, I found that how way the market mix is planned really affects the way the customer would react. One good example would be price. As a student, I would mind paying a high price to go for an exhibition; after all, what you get at the end of the day is the intangible product of experience. Normally customers would not find it worthwhile to be spending too much on something that is intangible. Singapore Biennale has added a tangible product to its exhibition, the guide book. Inside, it includes all the exhibitions that I have admired at. It would act as a form of memory to me.

I feel that if we want to make this event a bigger success we have got to market on our own people too, cultivating it in us besides only focusing on attracting people from abroad. If we do not start from our own nation, how else can we project the image of being an art-refined country?

I really enjoyed myself at the Singapore Biennale 2008 and would love to visit it again at year 2010.

Festival and Event Management

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

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