a) Event or Festival chosen

The event I chose is the Singapore Arts Festival which was a month long festival from 15may to 14june of the year 2009. During the period of time, I headed down to the opening ceremony of Singapore Arts Festival which is named ‘Helios II’ held from 15 may to 17 May.

‘Helios II’ is an eye-opener for me as I participated in the Arts Festival for the first time. It helped me to appreciate arts better, when before, arts to me were just forms of paintings, pictures, and music. After being part at the ‘Helios II’, I understood that arts also come in many different forms, for examples, acrobatic stunts, synchronization of movements to the music, cultures, dances etc. Or in short, art is something that can satisfy our visual and aural sensory needs.

b) Comparison of marketing strategy

In comparison of the marketing strategy, I have chosen the Melbourne International Arts Festival to be compared with the marketing strategy of Singapore Arts Festival.

Target Segment

Melbourne International Arts Festival committee targets their market through the demographic and psychographic segmentation. In demographic, they targeted the rich to provide funding for the festival by introducing the Patrons Circle. To be in the Patrons Circle, people or organization will have to donate an amount ranges from $250 to $25000 and above for the different types of recognition. In addition, they target students by having education resource packs and schools booking to attract more students.
In psychographic segmentation, they targeted the lifestyle of the various artists and interested personnel that includes the different types of arts which are theatre, dance, moving image, visual arts & design, music, and local (Australian) impression.

Singapore Arts Festival committee targets their market through Demographic segmentation, and Psychographic segmentation.
In demographic segmentation, the committee targets families; the whole of the life-cycle stage with the existing ‘Family Funfest’ during the festival.
In psychographic segmentation, they targeted the lifestyle of the local and foreign artist by introducing the ‘Arts on the move’ so to allow those artists to display their masterpieces for the public to see. And also by integrating workshops for the public who have the interest in learning dances or theatre as part of their lifestyle. In contrast, people without the arts lifestyle were being targeted as well by introducing the ‘Outreach’ segment which they can enjoy the beauty of arts without a fee and which to cultivate their interest for arts.

The Marketing tools, 8 P’s

Melbourne International Arts Festival

Product: Performances offered by the various world artists and in collaboration with Australia artist.

Place: The performances are held all around Melbourne, for example at the Federation Square, The CUB Malthouse, Spiegeltent, and the Arts Centre.
Festival Ticketing & Information Booth in Melbourne Federation Square or any other ticketmaster outlet in Melbourne for the purchase of tickets.

Partnerships: Arts Victoria, City of Melbourne, Tourism Victoria, The Age, Channel nine, JCDecaux, ABC Radio, SBS, AICE, Besen Family Foundation, British Council, Goethe-Institut Australia, The Israeli Government, Robert Salzer Foundation, Embassy of USA, Anna Schwartz Gallery, The Arts Centre, Arts House, ACMI, CCP, Malthouse Theatre, The Famous Spiegeltent, Gertrude contemporary art spaces, Murray White Room, National Gallery of Victoria, and Sophie Gannon Gallery.

Promotion (Communications): Promotion includes advertising throughout National Television channel 9, the Age newspaper, Australia broadcasting corporation Radio, and JCDecaux street furniture. Sales promotion includes discount packages, and gift vouchers. Public relation includes working with Tourism Victoria to bring in more tourists for the festival.

Programming: Programs of Melbourne International Arts Festival will be held from 9 Oct 09 to 25 Oct 09. Festival programs will be schedule during the 2 weeks of October. Program such as London Philharmonic Orchestra with Principal Conductor Vladimir Jurowski will be schedule in the program list.

People: Performers, Audiences, staffs, and artists.

Packaging & Distribution: 3 tickets and above discount packages, double up discount, Matinee package. Education Resource Packs.

Price: Performances have different tiers of prices for the participants with different incomes with the lowest at $25 to the highest of $250 or above. There are also free performances.

Singapore Arts Festival

Product: Performances offered by the various world artists and in collaboration with Singapore artist.

Place: The performances are held all around Singapore, for example at the Marina Barrage, Esplanade, and Victoria Concert Hall.
As for the purchasing of tickets, consumers can purchase it at the door of most performance venue or any Sistic outlet in Singapore.

Partnerships: Channel 5, Okto channel, CocaCola light, Singapore Tourism Board, Singapore turf club, Shaw Foundation, the University of Western Australia, Psb academy, Dome Marina Square, Lasalle College of the Arts, National Parks Board, Housing & Development Board, and SBS Transit.

Promotion (Communications): Promotion includes advertising with National television Channel 5 and Okto channel, Starhub cable vision, and GameAxis magazine. Sales promotion includes sales discount. Public relation includes working with Singapore Tourism Board to bring in more tourists for the festival.

Programming: Programs of Singapore Arts Festival were held from 15 May 09 to 14 June 09. Festival programs were held during the month-long period. Programs such as Sutra, Joanna MacGregor, and The Cherry Orchard were held during the festival.

People: Performers, audiences, staffs, and artists.

Packaging & Distribution: General Sales Discount package, group booking package, school booking package, and Full-time student, NSFs and Senior Citizens discount packages. Tickets were also packaged outside Singapore with Sistic agents.

Price: Performances have different tiers of prices for the participants with different incomes with the lowest at $20 to the highest of $100 or above.

c) Best Practices

During the Singapore Arts Festival, I have observed that there is section, named ‘Family Funfest’ that allows the families to experience the festival as a whole. This certainly brings family members together for the festival so to encourage family bonding as well as to cultivate Singaporean to be artistic.

Another practice is that the festival has a segment, named ‘Outreach’ that gives amateur artist or people who are never interested in arts to participate in the festival. This segment provides programs with free entries which allow commoners to gain interest in the magnificent view of arts. Such events are ‘Helios II’ as the opening ceremony and the ‘Crackers?’ for the closing ceremony.

d) Stakeholders

In Singapore Arts Festival, the stakeholders are:

Organizers
National Arts Council – They are the ones in-charge of bringing Singapore Arts Festival. With the purpose to nurture the arts and make it an integral part of people’s lives in Singapore, they introduced the Arts Festival into Singapore.

Performers
They formed up the programs that were held during the period of the Arts Festival. With the purpose of attracting more viewership and profit, they took part in the Singapore Arts Festival. Performers for the Singapore Arts Festival are categorized into four segments:

Audiences
They made up the group which the organizer wants to attract for the Singapore Arts Festival. Without the audiences, the festival is a waste without any participants.

Schools
They are made up of the students and teachers/ instructors which will be the seed of the future for the Arts. With more understanding of arts, students will sustain arts for the future and continue to introduce art.

Government
They are the in-charge for the legislation for the Arts Festival to take place. They are to make sure that the festival will not break any laws in Singapore as to make sure the country is safe and sound.

Society
They are in concern for the cultural and antic issues that the festival might bring in. As long as there aren’t any issues, the society will be pleased with the festival going on.

Sponsors
They made up the group of organizations that provide funding and in-kind support for the festival. Without the sponsors, the festival might not be as large scaled and can be impossible to be held. In the purpose of gaining recognition and advertising, they provide in-kind services and funding for the festival to go on.

Ticketing
They are the in-charge of selling or giving off the tickets for the performances to the public audience, both local and overseas. Without ticketing, the festival would not be able to handle logistic issues as well as the sales of performance seats.

e) Main Purpose of Singapore Arts Festival

After taking part in the opening ceremony of the Singapore Arts Festival, ‘Helios II’, and researching over some various website, I have come to enlighten myself of the main purpose of Singapore Arts Festival. The main purpose of the Singapore Arts Festival follows the 7 strategy guideline of the National Art Council of Singapore, which are:

- Driving Content Creation and Distribution

-Facilitating Internationalization and Enhancing Global Connectivity Nurturing Talent, Developing Capabilities

- Developing Arts and Information Resources Engaging Communities

- Enthusing Children, Empowering Youth

- Advocating the Arts

Based on these 7 strategy guidelines, National Arts Council of Singapore planned the Singapore Arts Festival in such a way which it could help to achieve its aim. These 7 strategy guidelines can be found integrated in the programs of the festival.

To drive content creation and distribution, the Singapore Arts Festival has this segment which local artist displayed their own creation onto the stage which was viewed by the millions of Singaporeans as well as the tourists. This encourages local artists to create more masterpieces and showcasing more of them.

To facilitate internationalization and enhance global connectivity, the Singapore Arts Festival integrated performances by foreign talents to perform in the festival.

To nature talents and develop capabilities, the Singapore Arts Festival introduced workshops for the public to participate in. Workshops include dances and musicals lessons for those who signed up.

To develop arts and information resources, the Singapore Arts Festival helps to transform the Singapore city into a space of arts exhibition which players in the arts can present their masterpieces for the greater audiences to view and admire.

To engage the communities, the Singapore Arts Festival has this segment which is call the Outreach, it was planned to create a common platform where both arts and the communities can come together and allow the communities to engage in arts activities.

To enthusiast children and empower youth, the Singapore Arts Festival have a ticketing discount for all school participants which encouraged Singapore schools to bring students for the art performances.

To advocate the arts, the Singapore Arts Festival has an ArtsFest Club membership for the public so as this will help to cultivates more people who appreciate arts and spread arts.

In conclusion, the Singapore Arts Festival wants to create a better city with the art impression that helps to cultivate the future stance of Singapore artist. In addition, to make Singapore world-known as an arts location despite being a small dot on the world map.

f) Tourism Benefits

The Singapore Arts Festival certainly brought in many foreign world-known talents into Singapore as well as the local talents who have great capabilities to perform world-class acts. All these world-class acts attracted many fans and art lovers from countries around Singapore to travel to Singapore to participate in the performances. With the large number of fans and art lovers, they made up a large number tourism arrival and receipts for Singapore.

During their stay for the Singapore Arts Festival, this created spillovers from the ticketing sales of the art performances. The spillovers resulted in higher hotels occupancy rates, higher profits for the food and beverage industry, increased in usage of transportation around the country and more visitors for the attractions and entertainments in the country.

With the statistic of the April09 tourism factsheet, the visitor arrivals were recorded at 780000. As the factsheet for May09 has not be posted for the public, we can only predict the numbers for whether if there is any tourism benefits or not for the period of Singapore Arts Festival. If the May09 tourism factsheet presents the visitor arrivals number greater than 780000, this will shows that Singapore Arts Festival actually brought in tourism benefits.