Beerfest Asia 2009 took place between 29th April and 3rd May 2009. It is the largest beer festival in South East Asia showcasing more than 100 different kinds of beer from around the world. Being located on the F1 tracks behind the Singapore Flyer, it was all under one roof at the main festival marquee. The festival was made more lively with performances by bands like Vertical Horizon, Hell’s Belles. Singapore bands, comedy acts and games, the festival has it all. Further complementing the festival experience is the range of food and merchandise stalls and games challenges available on site to make the event a well-rounded affair.
The main purpose of this festival is to let people know more about uniquely Singapore through the beer. Different beer brands get to promote its new products out into the market. Besides this, it wants to gain more brand awareness in the international market.
Having sales promotions of the different kinds of beer in the festival, it will help gain economic benefits from the revenue received. Adding on to the economic benefits sought by the organizer, ticket revenue is also a key element.
Lastly, this festival was created in order to give a platform to all beer lovers to gather and mingle with other beer lovers. In addition, it is when stakeholders in the beer firms get to exchange words which each other and see whether any business opportunities can arise from this.
People behind the story of success
Stakeholders consist of 6 main sections which is host organisation, host community, participants and spectators, co-workers, media and sponsors. Beside the host organisation, supports from the host community are essential. Host community for Beerfest Asia 2009 includes STB, Singapore Exhibition & Convention Bureau and Australian Trade Commission. In this festival, the participants and spectators will be the different beer exhibitors and guests. Co-workers includes volunteers, part timers, cleaners, Medics and etc. They help out but supporting the participants and spectators sections to ensure a smooth flow in the festival. Media will include FHM being the official Magazine for advertising, Power 98FM as official radio station, Time Out Singapore as event magazine and etc. These media tools help in promoting and advertising the festival to the market. Lastly sponsors include Citibank, Singapore Flyer, Grand Park city hall and many more others. Sponsors provide great benefits to the organiser as well as themselves. It’s a two way benefits as sponsors is view as working partners to the organiser.
Beerfest Asia 2009 V.S Munich Oktoberfest
Oktoberfest is a sixteen-day festival held each year in Munich. It is one of the most famous events in Germany and the world's largest fair, with some six million people attending every year, and is an enjoyable event with an important part of Bavarian culture.
Comparing Beerfest Asia and Munich Oktoberfest, both festivals have two different ways of attracting people with their product. For Beerfest Asia, they offer different kinds of beer that are found all over the world. By having many different selections of drinks, they are able to cater and satisfy different guests’ needs. As for Munich Oktoberfest, the festival offers special Wlesn beer of Munich breweries. Other soda drinks and water is also available for the people who do not drink. Besides beers, both festivals also have food catering to compliment with their products to reach their guest expectation.
Beerfest Asia is held under a marquee located behind the Singapore Flyer. Having located near one of Singapore national attractions, it allows guests to be part of uniquely Singapore’s event. Besides having all the excitement under one roof, food and merchandise are available outdoor to cater to the guests. The destination allows easy accessibility to the festival. To cater to overwhelming crowds, an outdoor tables and chairs has been set up for the guests to enjoy the drinks with their friends and etc.
Photo by kurtw2007 from flickr
Live bands are also part of the elements that is keeping the festival active and creating excitement in people. In Beerfest Asia, the stage lightings complimenting with the music sang by Singapore bands was a good crowd pleaser which hyped up the whole event. The timing for performance was also excellent as it bands was able to bring the excitement to its peak when more and more people gather in front of the stage.
Photo: Festring Muenchen e.V
The opening parade of the Munich Oktoberfest is one of the grand events that is happening throughout the city. With more than 1000 participants being involved in it, the whole city would be able to feel the festival atmosphere coming their way. The Open-Air Oktoberfest Music allows everyone in the city to get involved in the festival. Timing for such opening event is held over some days in a week. This way, the atmosphere of the festival will continue and people will look forward to seeing more exciting things happening later on.
The “cast”, audience, hosts, guests of these festivals plays a major role in shaping the customer’s experience. The interaction between each other and the hospitality received will determine whether they are satisfied with the festival. Therefore, both Beerfest Asia 2009 and Oktoberfest share the marketing strategy in terms of people as each of us have our own perception in looking at how things goes and whether we are having a good experience in the festival.
Partnership such as Sponsors is important in it shaping the quality of these festivals. Sponsors for both Beerfest Asia 2009 and Oktoberfest are usually big corporate with well known names. With further support from the governmental agencies, the festival would then be able to carry in a much larger scale to reach their customers’ expectation. With their perceive perception being reach, going to the festival will not be a “no” to them.
Promotion (communication) such as advertising, public relations, sales promotions, event image/destination are important aspect of the festival in reaching out to their target audience. Knowing your target audience is important in order for them to be reached. Each and every “communication mix” must work hand in hand to maximize its potential in reaching the target audiences. However, what is important is the message being transmitted to each of their guest. It is important to make sure that at all contacts points with their audience, the message delivered through advertising, promotions, PR and etc is standardize and reflecting on what the festival really asking for. Beerfest Asia 2009 wanted to use this opportunity not only to promote different kinds of beers from all over the world to their guest, but also promote Singapore Flyer as Uniquely Singapore attraction. It can be seen that most of its promotions and advertising goes hand in hand with the Singapore Flyer.
Packaging of tickets with other services and attractions is a good way to market the festival. Beerfest Asia 2009 and Oktoberfest both uses this strategy. For Beerfest Asia 2009, they have package the tickets together with Singapore Flyer and a beer runner service. By purchasing the selected package ticket, guest get to enjoy a free ride at the Singapore flyers and having a free beer runner service provided to him or her. This greatly benefited those tourists as they will be able to enjoy the uniquely Singapore special attractions and festival with the purchase of a single ticket.
However, Oktoberfest uses a different approach. Instead of offering an attraction to visit, the ticket comes with a two nights stay in a hotel category of your choice and other benefits. This way, they could keep their guest in the city to allow them to visit more attractions in the city itself.
Pricing is a key factor that people take into consideration when making a decision. Travelling time, cost, lost opportunity and etc are part of the factors they consider when making a decision. Only by having the right range of pricing, these obstacles will then be removed, making the maximum number of visitors going to the festival possible. Beerfest Asia 2009 has set a different category of admission tickets with different prices to cater to different market groups. The concession ticket costing $10 will be catering for mostly tertiary students, NSF and senior citizen while the early-bird ticket is to cater for adults. Early-bird pricing is extremely crucial as it helps the festival to get a minimum number of people to the festival. Foods catering and merchandise at the festival were also at street price to cater to all age group of the market. Booth rental for exhibitors were of different pricing to attract different kinds of applications. Upgrading for the booth is also available by topping up more value. Oktoberfest has also priced their ticket at affordable amount for tourist so as to attract guest from international countries to the festival. Beside the admission price of the festival, accommodation, transport, F&B pricing are also taken into consideration by them. Therefore, the ticket price must be right to make the tourist stay on and enjoy the festival.
Best practices done by Beerfest Asia 2009 include programming and place. For programming, Beerfest Asia 2009 has done a great job at the program line up during the festival. Bands were performing live at the right timing to hype up the whole atmosphere in the marquee. Lightings on the stage were excellent to make the live performance lively for the guests to enjoy. Special program during the festival such as the beauty contest brings the excitement to another level. Knowing that their main target audience is male adults, a beauty contest would satisfy the audience’s perceive expectation. Moreover, having beauty contest makes the festival feel more unique and differentiate Beerfest Asia 2009 from other beer festival in the world. It also shows that festival held in “Uniquely Singapore”.
As for place, Beerfest Asia 2009 has been held under Singapore Flyer. Placing their location near to Singapore main attraction, it gives not only the local a state of being, but at the same time giving the non-locals a feeling of “you are in Uniquely Singapore”. Having located so near the Singapore Flyer, people going to the beer festival would be able to enjoy the night scenery of the Singapore Flyer. Unlike Oktoberfest, Beerfest Asia 2009 is easily accessible by car or public transport which removes some factors that are preventing potential customers to the festival.
Tourism Benefits
Singapore received many different tourism benefits by being the host of Beerfest Asia 2009. Beerfest Asia 2009 attracts beer lovers not locally but also internationally. With them coming to Singapore for the festival, there will be an increase tourist receipts in Singapore. Tourists will not only want to go to the festival only, they may want to visit other Singapore attractions as well while they are in Singapore. Moreover, if their experience in Singapore is great with due to the Beerfest, these international tourists may help to promote Singapore through word of mouth thus more visitors will arrived to Singapore and repeat visit may also be possible for some of them. All in All, I feel that the tourism benefits receive will depend on the marketing efforts being made to promote and advertise the festival globally. If the marketing is not strong enough and very few people get to know about the festival, tourism benefits received will be affected.
Farewell
To sum up everything, Beerfest Asia 2009 was a success. Not only does the guest get to enjoy the different kinds of beer found in the festival, they get to share their joy with people around them. Whether you know them or you don’t, they are most willing to welcome you with joy and excitement. The festival showcase a whole range of the uniquely Singapore programs which differentiate it from other beer festival in the world. I believe that everyone who has come to the festival would enjoy themselves like they never did before. I believe that they would revisit the beer festival next year as well. Lastly, three cheers to all the beer lovers in the world!
