Marina Mandarin Singapore

Harry's Bar

Marrakesh - Moroccan Lounge & Bar
The Rupee Room
Mirchi - Taste of India

The Heeren Shops

Dôme

Rendezvous Hotel Singapore

Hot Stones Clarke Quay
Al Dente Trattoria Esplanade
Barossa Esplanade

Business Traveller Asia-Pacific (BTAP)

Others such as OCBC and NLB also tried to promote the event.

More promotions can be seen under ticketing:

Buy tickets to 4 or more shows and enjoy discounts of up to 15%!

Full-Time Students, NSFs and Senior Citizens (60 years old and above)

From 9 March 2009 onwards, purchase 15 tickets or more to any one production and enjoy 15% discount!

Heavily discounted student tickets, arts appreciation workshops and talks catered specially to schools are now available for booking. With so much promotions going on, there is no doubt that the Singapore Arts Festival would not be simply overlooked by people.

As for Iowa Arts Festival, they too have posters, banners, radio broadcasting, website and most probably, television advertising. They also have advertisements in newspaper and magazines. For the communication tools, they too make use of Twitter and Facebook. In addition to those, they also use Flickr and MySpace. The possible reason behind why the Singapore Arts Festival marketing management did not make use of MySpace would be because it is not used commonly. Only a number of Singaporeans have a MySpace account, mainly for checking out music from other countries.

There are not any discounts for Iowa Arts Festival as it is free for all.

To satisfy more visitors, there must be a linkage among the type of event, the venue of the event, as well as additional services such as food and beverages, customer service and more.

Having events situated at The National Library makes it quite easy to get to the place simply because there are signs that show one how to get there; buses and cabs can get one there too. Since The National Library is seen as an attraction, more people would know about it, thus even if one does not know how to get there, there will definitely be people that are able to show one how to get there.

There are booths for one to take a look into, as well as get more information on the festival itself, and other related plays too.

Along the way to The National Library, there is a 7-11 shop, as well as some other shops. It is quite near to Bugis, so it is rather easy to get some other services as well.

One of the main intermediaries is Sistic. They allow bookings through the net, phone and by shops located all over Singapore. Sistic too has outlets in other countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia.

As for Iowa Arts Festival, the packaging and distribution components differ. Some of the events were hosted at the park, which might not provide as much additional services. But they too have indoor events, like in the mall itself, which is similar to Singapore Arts Festival. Some destinations might not be easy to locate as the website of the Iowa Arts Festival website seems to be more specific in the location compared to Singapore Arts Festival. Compared to the website of Singapore Arts Festival, the website of Iowa Arts Festival gives more specific details about the locations of the venues; it can be inferred, therefore, that those destinations are difficult to locate due to the need to be more precise with the locations.

(Singapore Arts Festival)


(Iowa Arts Festival)

Since Iowa Arts Festival is free to the general public, there is not any intermediary for the distribution of tickets.

Programming

Singapore Arts Festival provides a huge range of activities under the various categories mentioned. Since the Singapore Arts Festival lasts longer than the Iowa Arts Festival, there is no doubt that the Singapore Arts Festival provides a larger range of activities.

The Iowa Arts Festival has a more organized setting, wherein for the whole duration of the event, there is only one venue; on the other hand, the Singapore Arts Festival has its different events diffused around different areas. Also, the Iowa Arts Festival links together all the events, unlike the Singapore Arts Festival, which does not.

Singapore Arts Festival provides six main categories, while Iowa Arts Festival only offers two of them; they are: Arts and Music. But other than that, they have ‘Global Village’ which shows the various languages, music and culture from all over the world, which is quite interesting.

The Singapore Arts Festival brings in performers from all over the world. On the other hand, the Iowa Arts Festival only has local performers performing on stage. Having performers from all over the world will definitely be more tempting than just having local artists. Thus most people will be more attracted to Singapore Arts Festival.

But in my opinion, I would rather go for Iowa Arts Festival. In that way, I would be supporting everything my country has, and it would have a more ‘homely’ feeling. I would be more willing to enjoy a festival for one whole day, rather than enjoy it as two to three hours.
For Iowa Arts Festival, program schedules can also be viewed in its website. The only difference is that some of the events come in a day-by-day schedule. Meaning, they are actually being linked together, unlike Singapore Arts Festival.

People

Interactions constitute a very large role in an event, regardless of whether is it human to human or human to artifact. As stated in the lecture notes, hospitality received by visitors directly shapes their experience.

The interaction between artists and audiences actually brings the audiences closer to the performance that they are patronizing.

Walking through the entrance of the National Library, one cannot miss out the fantastic services of the ushers there. No matter how busy they might be, they tend to notice and go up to every visitor that needs help with locating the auditorium. The people in the service counter not only provided us with all kinds of related brochures but were also able to satisfactorily answer our questions.

During the day of the play, one of my friends notified that she might arrive late for the play. We could not wait as we would not be allowed to enter the auditorium if we, as well, would be late. The people at the service counter offered to help us hold on to her ticket, so that we could enter the auditorium first and be assured that if she were to reach before the play started, then she would be allowed to enter the auditorium when they hand over her ticket to her.

The events provided are similar to what the Singapore Arts Festival has to offer. Thus, to some level, the engagement between audiences and performers are almost of the same level.

Since I have not participated in the Iowa Arts Festival, I did not have a chance to interact with the servers and performers over there.

Price
No doubt that for any event that one were to attend, there is certainly some opportunity forgone. Though the event one would participate might be free, there is still a price to lose. Bus fare, time, plans for the day and many more are all prices that one would have to pay to participate in the event. To be able to allow audiences to be willing to pay those prices, events must be appealing, exciting and be able to satisfy their needs.

In my opinion, the Singapore Arts Festival definitely increases one’s knowledge and understanding on various categories of art. Moreover, it changes those biased notions about art that people have in mind. For students, the tickets are actually largely discounted, making it affordable for them and thus they would not really feel the pinch. For other audiences, there are so many promotions and discounts going on that actually make the whole event available for all. Even if one could not afford the ticket for a theatre play or a musical, the opening of the festival is free for all.

As for Iowa Arts Festival, since it is free to all of the public, the price of attending the event would be lesser than that of the Singapore Arts Festival’s. With no pricing of tickets involved, it would probably attract much more visitors, while enriching their sense of culture and entertaining them with various activities.