Introduction
It was my first time visiting an event as an audience during the Singapore Arts festival. With little knowledge on the Arts Festival, I started to do my research on the events available. Due to money issues, I decided to attend a free event call Ojarus.

Ojarus are a group of four Japanese clowns with long heads, painted faces and had worn their traditional garb suites during their performance. This event had helped to appreciate more of the arts performance in Singapore and had provided an experiential learning experience.

The background of the organizer
Ojarus is part of an event in Flipside which was organized by Esplanade in conjunction with Singapore Arts Festival. Esplanade was officially opened in 12 October 2002. It is strategically located by Marina Bay, which is near the Singapore River. With the latest technological equipment and the finest acoustics within its halls, Esplanade brings Singapore to the forefront of the international arts scene.

Role of events to the organizer
Flipside consist of 12 programmes available, ticketed and non-ticketed event which were held at different venues of Esplanade. Some were held indoors, while others were held outdoors. This allows the audience to enjoy more views of the Esplanade which was spread out over 6-hectares of prime land.

The events were able to create hype among art lovers and also those who find the event interesting. With the enjoyment felt when visiting the current events, it helps to encourage repeat visits to Esplanade and thus spread the demand. Therefore, the events held in Esplanade are a vital step in the development of the city's nascent cultural identity.

The events helps to promote local and foreign cultural show, and thus able to attract quality tourists. The spread of demand for these events will help to bring an increase visitor spending in Esplanade. With this, it will create positive images in the country and internationally of Singapore’s very own national arts centre.

Stakeholders in the event
In this event, the performers, Ojarus are one of the stakeholders. Ojarus helps to promote the objective of Esplanade, for being an arts scene for all different culture.

The organizer, Esplanade is another stakeholder for providing a venue for the event. The organizer also helps to promote the event to the audience.

Staffs that were assembled to implement the event represent another of the key stakeholders. With staffs present, the event would be able to run smoothly.

The event was a non-free ticketed event, therefore, it rely on passers-by as their audience. The music and their funny actions were able to captivate audience to stop and watch the show.

In association with the Esplanade partner, Nokia is the sponsor for the event. Sponsorship is an effective marketing and communication tool used by Esplanade to increase funds and to provide benefits to the sponsors in publicity.

Target Market
Ojarus event was a free ticketed event, so the target market for the event is the general public. Furthermore, it was held at the Waterfront Canopy/roving Esplanade, the audiences were the people who would stop by to enjoy the show. During the event, I have observed that most who stopped by were young adults, parents with young children and a few groups of tourist.

Marketing Objectives
Product
The product is the end result of the event, Ojarus and the entertainment provided in the performance. However, there is not much attention given to other product mix elements like food and beverage, queuing time and decoration.

Place
Holding the event at Esplanade enables to promote the art culture. Furthermore, the venue facilities in Esplanade are attractive and clean to create a quality image. Sign-posting available at the Esplanade create a positive first impression to make the arrival of visitors a pleasurable experience.

Partnership
Partnership with sponsor, Nokia and organization, Singapore Arts Council which organized the Singapore Arts Festival is crucial in terms of funding or other ways of support. Singapore Arts Council is one of the government agencies and the involvement with them will influence the way various health and safety regulations are interpreted and met.

Price
The event was held for free as the event was held outdoors and no seats were available for the audience. Moreover, the event is only thirty minutes. The main objective of the event is to provide value to the customer with quality experience and entertainment.

Packaging
In this event, the performers, Ojarus, are part of the main packaging presented. Another packaging way was the joint promotion with Singapore Arts Festival, which would help to reduce the overall marketing costs for organizer.

Programming
The development of the event programme is attractive as it had made use of the site to create a spectacular performance. To promote the energy and diversity of arts festival, different performers from different countries were picked according to the compatibility of performers to the festival’s market.

People
The people of interest are not just event staff, performers and attendees, but also the wider residential community. Staffs are a crucial factor in delivering a good event, but were not being implemented in this event. Since it has been held yearly over the years, it had created strong links with loyal supporters. Thus, it pervades the atmosphere with a loose alliance between the people who run and those enjoying it.

Promotion
A reference point for the event is created by the promotion for the audience. Esplanade had provided brochures for Flipside free programmes. A big-sized poster of the flipside programmes is available at the Esplanade and the colorful images are able to attract people from afar. Another way is through the Esplanade website. The website, brochures and posters provides the programmes available at a glance and the venue, date and time.

Rate of the organization
In my opinion, I felt that the organization of the event was excellent. Esplanade had made use of Singapore Arts Festival to promote the event. Since it is the arts period in Singapore, Esplanade is able to generate more attention from the public on these events.

The local and foreign programmes available were able to captivate people of all ages. With events held at three different venues in the Esplanade, it helps the audience to know more about the facilities of Esplanade and these places have high flow of movement of the people.

However, Esplanade is not successful in promoting the event with the use of media such as television and radio advertisements, if the promotion of the event were help through media it would be able to attract more people.

Handouts of the certain event should be given before and during the event so that the public may know what the programme is all about. Audience would then be able to pay more attention to the event and face less difficulty in understanding.

Potential of event to meet tourist demand
The event is able to focus on providing first-hand active experience of a performance and also able to provide educational experience that develop understanding and appreciation of the arts culture. The event can be considered to attract a small percentage of market of culturally motivated tourist. Hence, it is able to motivate tourist who desires to see or experience cultural attractions to organize travel to the cultural activities place, Esplanade to enjoy the art culture entertainment.

Value of event
Most of the promotions were done locally to promote the event. Therefore, Singapore Arts council should have a joint partnership with other arts council in other countries to increase the exposure of the events to people. This would have the interested people to visit, and would lead “to key driver of economic growth for Singapore.”
Picture taken with one of the Ojarus Performer:


Books

B. Glenn, A. Johnny, O. William, H. Rob, M. Ian (2006) Events Management, 2nd Edition. Great Britain: Elsevier

Websites

(2003) Esplanade Theatres on the Bay, Singapore. Available:
http://www.esplanade.com/SOPApp/espsop/portal_proxy?uri=ZA14BIx5!CGUclT8_ykuJWpJDZImDdkxcNM_sJFM Last accessed: 20 June 2008

(2005)The chartered Institute of Marketing . Avaialable: http://www.cim.co.uk/MediaStore/FactFiles/Factifile7ps.pdf Last accessed: 26 June 2008

(2008) Singapore Arts Festival. Flipside@ Esplanade. Available: http://www.singaporeartsfest.com/flipside.asp Last accessed: 21 June 2008

Gore,V. M.(2003, March 30) Esplanade. Press Coverage on Esplanade. Available: http://www.esplanadesing.com/Esplanade/press_coverage.htm Last accessed: 20 June 2008.

Event Marketing. Available:http://web.ukonline.co.uk/festivals/8marke.html Last accessed: 26 June 2008

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