1) Introduction
/ Part (a)
Representing Marina Bay Sands hotel, I am
currently their Events project manager, overseeing most of Marina Bay Sands
hotel events. There had been a past few events which I would like to
specifically raise and talk about which help in benefitting the hotel.
Some of the events previously being hold by
Marina Bay Sands are International corporate Events like ITB Asia, Building
Envelopes Asia 2012 and Shared Services & Outsourcing Network 2011. These
events, exhibitions and conference are often of high prestige and also of high
quality standards. Therefore by organising all these prestigious events, the
hotel is able to raise its Brand Value and raise it’s international profile of
the Hotel since most of the visitors visiting the event are international
visitors.
However, Marina Bay Sands does not just stop
at holding international exhibitions and conferences; it also held concerts and
art exhibitions like an permanent Singapore International Photography Festival
and Eason Chan concerts. Therefore all these events also help to give Marina
Bay Sand an different perspective, which means there is a side of artistic and
entertainment value to Marina Bay Sands as well.
Marina Bay Sands had also been sponsoring the
SAAP Singapore, an art exhibition for aspiring young artist to showcase their
artwork. This would help Marina Bay Sands to actually build on their PR
relationships with the community, having positive views about Marina Bay Sands
and therefore doing their part on social corporate responsibility.
Therefore by holding these events, it would
be able to bring in substantial visitors to Marina Bay Sands as well. They
would therefore consume merchandises and dine in the restaurants at Marina Bay
Sands, providing and boosting extra form of revenue for them. The rooms are
also be able to fill up as well with incoming visitor ship, as they might want
to be close to the events they are participating and therefore staying at
Marina Bay Sands hotel, further increasing their room revenue.
2) About
Anime Festival Asia
 |
| Poster of AFA outside Expo Hall |
Anime festival Asia Singapore is an event
which showcases unique Japanese latest anime trends and content, as well as
Japanese pop culture. It was an anime convention that is organized by Sozo and
Dentsu, which was originally organized in 2008. This festival aims to attract
both regional and locals who are anime enthusiasts, music lovers, or to anyone
who is interested in Japanese popular culture.
Some highlights and Signature offerings of
the event includes ‘I Love Anisong’
concerts, featuring 10 international J-Pop artistes, from heavy-weight artistes
making their Singapore debut to returning favourites delivering over 10 hours
of anime enthusiast favourite anime songs on a world class concert stage.
| People queuing for Maid and Butler Cafe |
A maid and butler temporary cafes (a form of
cosplay theme cafe) ‘Moe Moe Kyun maid’ and
‘Atelier Royale butler’ Cafes will
also be temporarily constructed inside the exhibition hall. There will be
service staff dress as elegant cosplayers serving the guest, providing them
with highly personalized experience. A Regional Cosplay Championship will also
be held where top cosplayers from Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and
the Philippines rival against each other to win the coveted championship.
Assembled by a team of high-profiled judges, including some of Japan’s top
cosplayers, the competition is sure to fascinate anime fans alike. A platform
for visitors and businesses with keen to
explore collaboration opportunities called Japan Future Entertainment Zone will
also be staged where top Japanese artiste management companies and record
labels will gather resources to showcase some of their latest artist, dramas
and movies.
 |
| Cosplay Championship |
| Maid and Butler Artistes |
  |
| Artists at Artist Alley showcasing their artwork |
4) Event
Marketing Mix
4.1)
Product: Product of an event can be differentiate into
core service/core products, tangible product and augmented product. For this
Anime Festival, the core service would be experiencing the Japanese Anime
culture experience and the live song performances. Therefore in order to bring
out the core product experience, there is a need for the tangible products to
be present. For instance, the tangible products for Anime Festival Asia event
would be the venue of the event which is the Singapore Expo Exhibition halls
and Max pavilion for the ‘Anisongs’ concert. The toilets facilities which are
located inside the halls, the programmes and brochures which include the floor
plan and event time schedule. All these ‘expected’ products which is of
necessary and highly indispensable in order for the event to carry on and take
place. The products like the brochure which include and provides customers with
the relevant information about the event, prove to be effective in allowing the
visitors where and when to go to their respective venue for their desired
activities or performance. This contributes to minimize confusion and thus
adding on to customer satisfaction which information is clear to everyone.
 Toilet Facilities  |
| Brochure with Information Inside |
For the augmented products of the Anime
Festival would be the different concert artistes, the different types of anime
figurines which are on displayed, the different unique anime themed
merchandises and the different visitors including cosplayers with their unique
Cosplay costumes due to the cosplay competition. These entire additional
features would therefore distinguish why this Anime Festival is largely
different and unique in its own way. And all these different elements further
differentiate the Anime Festival with other festivals, further elevating it to
another level on its own with its rich ‘anime feel’.
| Figurines |
 |
| Figurines |
 |
| Autograph Session |
The product life cycle of AFA is actually on
the matured stage. As according to (Yong, 2012) , “ Last year's edition, held at Suntec City,
drew some 82,000 visitors. The convention is on track to meet its target of
85,000 visitors this year.” And therefore this proves that the growth in
attendance is slowing down. Therefore I felt that AFA is therefore putting in more
activities and longer time schedule in their programmes for AFA 2012. The event
schedule is of longer period from 9am to 9pm fully filled with activities
whereas compared to previous year, the event schedule was starting on 10am and
ended on 7pm. There is also a hall exclusively for the concert itself as well
this time round as compared to the previous years when a main stage had to be
closed at the noon to make way for the concert. Therefore this arrangement is
actually beneficial for visitors which did not bought the concert tickets as
the main stage could continue having activities till night.
All these improvements on the event itself
may have to do with the maturing stage of AFA since it do need to continue to
improve and innovate the event itself in order to continue seek growth in its
attendance.
4.3)
Packaging and Distribution: The type of package being
utilised by AFA is pretty much similar to what it had been using for its
previous AFA events. There are basically tickets with just festival event
access or a ticket with both festival event and main stage access. Whereas for
the concert tickets it is split into three categories, VIP, standard or basic
seating. The package comes in where you can actually bought it for one or three
day for each different seating category, with the three days being of more
value as compared to a single day with if you had decided to go for all three
days of the concert. However, this year AFA did not consist of the ‘upgrade
access’ where one could just top up an amount and upgrade to both festival
event and main stage access if they want to. This may be a wrong move as for
visitors who had just bought the festival tickets may want to visit the main
stage access, cannot actually just top up and get into the main stage. Therefore
this might be another revenue loss for AFA.
 |
| Long queue for getting tickets |
There are both distribution channels in this
case for AFA. One being the ticketing booth situated outside the exhibition
halls and another which is the online platform, through a ticketing agency
called ‘Event Clique’. However only the concert tickets are able to be book
over online and the collection of the tickets still had to be made over at the
booth. Having less distribution channels means more people have to be at a same
place queuing for the tickets and I had already experience the long queuing of
tickets. Therefore they may need to improve on this area.
However compared to previous years,
especially AFA 2010 there are different distribution channels for the tickets. They
are being spread around different retail outlets like ‘KKnM’, ‘Toy Coin’ ‘Kurocha!’ ‘Rapid Culture’ and ‘La Tendo’etc.
Customers are able to purchase and collect the tickets at these shops directly.
4.4)
People and Partnerships: The types of people prove
to be a very important aspect of the event itself, with the interactions of the
different personnel hugely influential in the experience of a visitor.
Therefore for AFA, the cosplayers dressing up in different Anime characters for
the Cosplay Competiton enhances and build on the atmosphere of this event for
any visitors visiting this event. This is a strategic move by AFA as firstly
this allows cosplayers a platform for them to showcase their dressing as it is
hard to find a common ground during normal times to cosplay. Secondly, they can
attract visitors which came over just to look at the different cosplayers,
which proves to be true as most of the visitors were busy shooting on these
people.
The partners of AFA are therefore the
sponsors, support, logistics partner, travel partner as well as the official
regional media. Most of the partners of
AFA have been relatively the same over the years, except for a few changes in
sponsors, logistics partners and regional media. For instance, Pico is being replaced by
Alliance 21 Pte Ltd as the logistics partners for AFA 2012.
( Sponsors can be found at the bottom of the Website on ticketing Information)
I felt that the effect of these changes for
all these partners is pretty negligible, and it did not changes the composition
of the events too much since most of the core event partners are always there.
These partners are Canon, Bandai and ANA. For instance, Canon is always the
sponsor of the Annual Cosplay Championship. Therefore they are part of main
sponsors. And another thing which may
have contributed to the visitor rate may be the partnering with the regional
media like Animax etc. Because this channels are being watch by anime fanatic,
and therefore they might be able to convey the relative events information to
these target markets easily.
4.5)
Pricing: The tickets of AFA 2012 is being priced
according to different packages and access to different exhibitions halls. With
access to the festival exhibition grounds tickets being priced at 8 dollars.
While festival plus stage access being priced at 20 dollars. Stage access
grants full access to exclusive main stage activities and content, such as
Special Guest Appearances, Anime Presentations, AFA Regional Cosplay
Championships etc.
As for the price of Anisongs Concert, it is a
whole different package from the above mention. It is much more expensive and
like being mention at the packaging segment, for VIP three days concert is price
at 408 dollars while a day costing 148 dollars. The standard ticket costing 238
dollars for three days while a day costing 88 dollars. While the basic ticket
costing 148 dollars for three days and costing 58 dollars for a day.
The merchandises inside the event ranges from
as cheap as 2 dollars to as expensive as a few hundred dollars. Due to the
nature of certain items which are more exquisite like swords and cheaper items
like key chains and notebook etc.
And as compared to past years AFA, there had
been an increase in the ticket prices for both festival and stage access. The
amount has an steady increase from 15 dollars in AFA 2010 to 18 dollars in AFA
2011 and then 20 dollars in AFA 2012.
However, even though there is increase in the
ticket prices, I felt that both the stage access and festival access is still
affordable to their targeted markets, which are teenagers and I feel that they
still can afford it. Furthermore since this event is only once a year, the
price being charges I felt would definitely not deterred those Anime craze fan
of coming down. Therefore the price I feel is just right and it would
definitely bring in substantial revenue for the organisers.
4.6)
Place: The venue for this year AFA was being
organised at Singapore Expo hall 7, 8 and the Max Pavilion. The overall
location of this venue is rather excellent as there is an Expo MRT station
nearby, which would bring huge convenience to anyone travelling here not by
cars and buses. While if travelling by cars, Expo also provides huge amount of
carpark spaces. Therefore there is no fear of having not enough parking spaces.
In addition, there is also a Changi City Point mall being located nearby, thus
providing all the amount of choices of F&B choices and leisure shopping if
there is a need to take a break from the event. With the location being spot
on, the atmosphere inside the exhibition was really great as well. From the
design of the booths to the different figurines and cosplayers, it really
brought out the Anime feel of the festival. The huge amount of space from the
exhibition hall also provide everybody with sufficient walking space and also
space to actually browse the figurines and merchandises without blocking one
another.
 |
| Sufficient walking Space |
As compared to previous AFA which were all
being held on Suntec city, this year space had largely increase from the past
Suntec City of an area of 6110 sqm and 8110 sqm respectively to this year’s 20
000sqm excluding Max Pavilion. Therefore the significant increase in the amount
of space would largely contribute to the bigger booths and larger space for
walking. As for decorations of the booths and overall design, there is not much
changes. The facilities being provided are also much the same as Expo.
4.7)
Promotion: The only channel
of advertisement that AFA have made are mainly through internet like their
webpages, social media like facebook and twitter, as well as Animax channel
which is one of their official regional media partner There seems to be no television advertisement
being shown on newspaper and radio station as well. This might be due to the
fact that most of the target markets are Anime craze fans, which are mostly
teenagers and therefore they are usually tech savvy and would get most of their
information directly from the internet or watching the Animax channels.
Therefore using the social media as the platform for interacting with the
target market are actually cost savings, as well as effective. Most of the diehard
anime craze fan should also already found out when this event is around and
they should be following closely to these social media. And having Animax as
the official partner would largely reduce the cost of advertising as well,
while conveying information to the target markets easily.
5) Recommendations for Conjunction of Special Events
After considering
certain limitations and also the different benefits the festivals and Marina
Bay Sand Hotels can stand to gain, I would like to propose a Mega Japanese
Cultural Festival.
This festival would
therefore be a fusion of the Japanese cultures, where visitors would be able to
take a look at the different era of Japanese cultures, from the traditional
Japanese cultures like calligraphy, Japanese Kimono, sculptures, calligraphy and
paintings etc. to popular Japanese pop culture and anime trend. This fusion of
different eras of Japanese culture would definitely be one of its kinds, giving
people with different perception and different views on Japanese Manga to
actually change their view about Japanese Anime, where it is actually also an
art which others may not know, and the amount of effort and hard work being put
into in coming up with excellent Japanese Anime story and pictures. This
concept of changing the perception can also be applied on the Japanese
traditional culture, where I hope young people which are interested in Japanese
Anime can open up to another form of art which is the traditional Japanese
culture. Therefore in order to create excitement and lessen boredom, more hands
on activities and live demonstrations of different artist shall be largely the
makeup of the event program. With artist drawing comics characters to a
traditional Japanese artist doing calligraphy and a dressing competition of
Kimono and Cosplay, all these activities would definitely be interesting and
definitely bring out certain kind of novelty.
This event would
therefore further broaden the audiences of Anime, thus it may further improve
the attendance of AFA. While for Marina
Bay Sand Hotel it would continue build on its profile of supporting the
different cultural forms and art, and therefore improving its Brand name to
overseas tourist.
References & Appendices
More Pictures at AFA
 |
| Brochure of AFA |
 |
| Poster of Anime Character |
 |
| Anime Theme Sports Car |
 |
| Cosplayers |
 |
| Merchandises |
 |
| More Merchandises |
 |
| Interactive karaok game installed inside the car |
 |
| Picture with security guard previously worked together with |
Our Facilities,
Summary of our facilities. (2008, January 12). Retrieved November 22, 2012,
from Summary of our facilities:
http://www.suntecsingapore.com/facilities/summary.htm
asia/afax/ticketing. (2010, June 4).
Retrieved November 22, 2012, from /www.animefestival.asia/afax:
http://www.animefestival.asia/afax/ticketing.html
afa11/ticketing. (2011, June 4).
Retrieved November 22, 2012, from http://www.animefestival.asia:
http://www.animefestival.asia/afa11/ticketing.html
Local artists to
take center stage at Sovereign Asian Art Prize 2012. (2012 , January 11).
Retrieved November 23, 2012, from http://www.mynewsdesk.com/sg:
http://www.mynewsdesk.com/sg/pressroom/marina-bay-sands-singapore/pressrelease/view/local-artists-to-take-center-stage-at-sovereign-asian-art-prize-2012-722932
AFA 2012. (2012, June 23).
Retrieved November 22, 2012, from www.animefestival.asia/afa12:
http://www.animefestival.asia/afa12/ticketing.html
afa12/about_. (2012, June 4).
Retrieved November 12, 2012, from www.animefestival.asia/afa12:
http://www.animefestival.asia/afa12/about_afa.html
afa12/img/schedule. (2012, june 4).
Retrieved November 22, 2012, from www.animefestival.asia/afa12:
http://www.animefestival.asia/afa12/img/schedule.jpg
Events calendar. (2012, November
1). Retrieved november 22, 2012, from marinabaysands.com: https://entertainment.marinabaysands.com/EventCalendar.aspx
Yong, N. (2012,
November 11). Anime Festival Asia sees tens of thousands of fans attend .
Retrieved November 15, 2012, from Straitstime.com:
http://stcommunities.straitstimes.com/tv/2012/11/11/anime-festival-asia-sees-tens-thousands-fans-attend
