Marketing Strategy

Both festivals are successfully held and have been an ongoing event ever since the 1970s. Thus using the 8Ps, we can analyse how well the two countries have done in marketing their events to the people.

Marketing events is the process of employing the marketing mix to attain organisational goals through creating value for the customers and other stakeholders. The 8Ps is divided into 2 categories- experiential components and facilitating components.

1. Product

It is anything that can be offered to a market for attention, acquisition, use or consumption that might satisfy a want or need.

For the two festivals, the product is intangible and thus do not result in the ownership of anything. This would be the performances and services rendered at the festival. The experience with the staffs and the interaction they get with the performers is what the consumers are buying when they arrived at the festival. They have also provided more than 400 activities for the consumers to choose from, leaving them spoiled for choices.

2. Place

The physical place and how it is created through design and programming. Singapore Arts Festival is held at several parts in Singapore which includes Marina Barrage, Vivo City, Esplanade, Singapore Art Museum, Tampines and Yishun Open Field and many more. These places are easily accessible due to the advanced infrastructure thus getting from place to place would not be that time consuming.

Galway Festival is held in Galway, approximately 130 miles West of Dublin. This site http://www.galwayartsfestival.com/dpages.php?page=119&title=How%20To%20Get%20Here stated the possible ways of getting to Galway. They have also included different forms of transportation services we can get when we get into Ireland. Adding on to that, they have also included Google maps to show the exact venues of the festival where it’s being held.

3. Programming

Both festivals have properly listed out the different events and venues happening all around town, be it indoor or outdoor. There are also several timing and dates to some of the show as to accommodate to those who might be interested in but clashes on the timing.

4. People

The interaction between customers, the setting and the staff/volunteers constitute a large part of the event experience.

For both sites, they have provided a contacts page for enquiries and facebook which connects to all the people that are interested in the event. For Singapore Art Festival they have a blog which enables people to follow up on the latest happenings regarding the programmes. Nevertheless, the event planners, performers themselves and the audiences too are equally important, without the support of the audiences these two festivals wouldn’t be a success.

5. Partnerships

In order to make the festival successful, we need different partners to work together towards the objectives. For example, Singapore Tourism Board to promote this event to the foreign countries and TV station to advertise the event to Singaporeans. Sponsors are very important too, they are the ones who fund the event making sure that the event runs smoothly without many setbacks.

6. Promotion

It refers to the full range of ‘communication mix’ which includes, advertising, personal selling, sales promotion, and public relations and direct marketing.

I believe many would have already seen or heard about the Singapore Arts Festival as Channel 5 is the official TV Station for the event. As for direct selling, you can choose to book your tickets online or head down to any Sistic outlets in town. They also have different kinds of promotions for different groups of people. For example ArtsFest Club members are entitled to 10% discount for any tickets purchased. Discount for school, group bookings and early birds are also available. http://tualobang.blogspot.com/2009/03/singapore-arts-festival-2009-early-bird.html

On the other hand, Galway Arts Festival has another way of promoting its festival. For example they encourage people to join their mailing list and give them a choice to receive email and special offers regarding to the festival. http://www.galwayartsfestival.com/mailing.php They also have bookings from online, by phone and in person.

7. Packaging & Distribution

The destination can package events with other attractions and other services, or events can offer their own.

There are package discounts available for people purchasing for more than 2 shows, discount rates up to 15%. Adding on to that, they are working together with Marina Mandarin Singapore, Rendezvous Hotel Singapore, Dome, giving special privileges to those ArtsFest Club members. Ticket Holders could enjoy these benefits too, simply by presenting the tickets stub to the following restaurants. http://www.singaporeartsfest.com/promotions/

Galway Arts Festival did not really provide packages for consumers to choose from, but instead they have looked into the needs of those who travel just for the festival. They have list down several hotels for travellers to choose from so they would be able to find a place to rest.

8. Price

It is the sum of all the values that consumers exchange for the benefits of having or using the product or service.

Tickets are sold according to the types of events and the seats chosen by a range of prices. Prices of the tickets are listed on the sites, thus the consumers can choose the price which they think are more appropriate or more affordable. Despite paid performances, they also have free outdoor performances too. And also they have tried to make it easy by providing online bookings for the people.

As for Galway, they have merchandise shop which Singapore Arts Festival does not offer. This is another thing we can add to our festival.

Best Practices

I think Singapore Arts Festival did well in terms of their promotion strategies, as we can often see the promoting of the Festival through Channel 5. Not only that, the event was held all around Singapore from the streets to theatre hall and to open fields. I believe this have indeed attracted a lot of attention from the locals. Plus they have worked together with several hotels and dining places. Upon presenting their tickets stub, they would be entitled to the discount stated. Thus, Singaporeans definitely would not miss out on that!

While for the Galway Arts Festival, I think they did well on the programmes. Every programme was well organised and planned. On the site itself, they have also painstakingly design the page making it easy to read and with all the necessary information included. Flipping through the ‘online magazine’ would definitely make you want to be in a part of the festival itself! http://issuu.com/galwayartsfestival/docs/web/5?mode=embed&layout=documentview

Stakeholders

This event wouldn’t be a success without the help of the different stakeholders.

Host Organisation - National Arts Council, ArtsFest Club

Host Community - Singapore Tourism Board, LASALLE College of the Arts, National Parks Board, Housing & Development Board

Sponsor - Lee Foundation, Vivo City, PUB, WingTai Asia, Raffles City, Suntec Singapore, SMART

Media - Official TV Station channel 5, Supporting TV station okto

Co-Worker - Staffs working for the events, volunteers, Sistics personnel,

Participants and Spectators - Performers locally and overseas, audience,

Main Purpose

I think the main purpose of the festival is not only to bring the arty farty fans together but also to create greater awareness to the general public and start to cultivate a love for art from this group of people. Showcasing a variety of local and international arts, encouraging them to participate actively in events like these. Upon my visit to the outdoor performances held around the Esplanade, I saw quite a number of tourists as well as locals surrounding the performers. I believe this is a great start for most Singaporeans, as they have slowly started to accept this kind of lifestyle. I think the performers did a really great job in making this event a huge success by interacting with the audiences and bringing smiles to their faces.

Tourism Benefits

I believe this event has brought about quite an amount of tourism benefits to Singapore as the event itself has invited artists from over 20 countries and adding on with the ability to attract an attendance of 500,000 people. Their accommodation and expenses spend within the country would definitely generate more revenue for Singapore. Not only that, many performances were held all around Singapore, thus the tourists would also get a chance to visit popular Singapore sites like Esplanade, National Museum of Singapore, Victoria Theatre, Merlion Park and etc. This would also be a great opportunity to promote Singapore to more foreigners, portraying our very own culture and traditions which make us stand out from other countries.

Place Marketing
The event would help Singapore create a positive imagine and Singaporean would get to know more about the arts and spending their leisure time doing stuffs relate to that. This can attract more investors or make Singapore into Arts Hub.

Tourist Attraction
For people who enjoy the arts, we might be able to attract the tourists to come to Singapore. Being a yearly event, they might also come back or spread through the word of mouth if they enjoy their short stay here.

Image Maker
It creates a different image for Singapore, and also gets tourists to come to our attractions, be it temporary, man-made or natural.

Catalyst
This event can also be a catalyst to improve certain infrastructure in certain places and stimulate business in our country.

Animator
By giving them a good first impression/ service, we might get them to come back again, this time maybe for a longer period of stay or visiting another attraction that they didn’t get to visit the last time here.

Overall, i felt that the organisers from both the festivals had done a great job by making the event successful and on going every year. Not only did they manage to attract over hundred thousands people every year, they have help create a greater awareness to the people overseas. Both of them have created a platform to allow artists to exhibit their talents and for the audiences to share the experience they had, through the showcasing of their arts.

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Appendices

http://www.singaporeartsfest.com/

http://www.galwayartsfestival.com/index.php

http://tualobang.blogspot.com/2009/03/singapore-arts-festival-2009-early-bird.html

http://www.singaporeartsfest.com/festivalbloggers/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galway_Arts_Festival

http://issuu.com/galwayartsfestival/docs/web/5?mode=embed&layout=documentview

http://singaporeartsfest.wordpress.com/page/2/

http://www.galwaybayhotel.net/galway-festivals

Introduction

The event I have chosen was Singapore Arts Festivals 2009. A little history about Singapore Arts Festivals, it started out as early as 1977 as a National Arts Festival portraying the local talents and activities of Singapore. As cited from http://www.singaporeartsfest.com/aboutus/, ‘it has helped to transform the city's cultural landscape, turning it into one of Asia's major cultural capitals today’. This year Arts Festivals was held from 15th May to 14th June in various locations featuring dance, music, theatre and outdoor performances. This time they have also engage artists from over 20 countries with more than 400 activities and performance available.

I have chosen to compare the Singapore Arts Festivals with the Galway Arts Festival held in Galway, Ireland. The Galway Festival, founded in 1978 is one of the most successful and leading art festival held in Ireland. It connects with all the artists and performers from the local and overseas together showcasing both the Irish and International arts. It is stated that ‘Over 100,000 people attend Festival annually with hundreds of writers, artists, performers and musicians creating theatre, spectacle, street art, music, comedy, literature and music producing a wonderful fortnight of cultural activity and celebration’. With its 31 years of history, this festival usually takes place every year during the last two weeks of July. And this year, the event takes place from the 13^th to 26^th July 2009.