Let's Fest!

1 Introduction
I chose to compare BeerFest Asia 2009 with the Belgrade Beer Festival.

1.1 BeerFest Asia 2009

Organised by BeerFest Pte Ltd, The Beerfest Asia 2009 is held at the Singapore Flyer, 29th April (Wednesday) to May 3rd (Sunday) 2009. Over 14,000 people attended the Beerfest Asia 2009 to taste over 100 different kinds of beers under one roof from all over the world over the May Day weekend while catching exciting performances by world-famous, all-female AC/DC tribute band Hells Belles and double platinum selling act Vertical Horizon, making their only stop in Asia.

1.2 Belgrade Beer Festival

Organised by The Belgrade Cultural Network Music&More (BCN), the Belgrade Beer Festival was held at the capital of Serbia, Belgrade, annually in the month of August. In its fifth year, the Belgrade Beer Fest became a major festival with the largest turnout in Serbia and Montenegro - over 40 beer brands, 120 gigs, and over two million spectators overall.

2 Marketing Strategies Comparison

2.1 Product

In this instance, both Beer Fest Asia and Belgrade Beer Festival have similar man product – Beer. Other products both festivals offer would be live concerts by bands, merchandize, food and beverages, seats and atmosphere, experience, games and activities, security, washrooms and first-aid.

Both festivals offer a long list of different types of beers by different breweries. One of the special beers available at the Beer Fest Asia is the one-and-only Singapore Sling. As compared to Belgrade Beer Festival, the Beer Fest Asia may not be as big. However, both festivals offer almost the same types of products.

The major difference between Beer Fest Asia and Belgrade Beer Festival is the fact that Belgrade Beer Festival also focuses on bringing forth messages regarding social responsibility. Hence, non-profitable organizations are actually invited to present environmental protection activities to the public at a designated area. This is something the Beer Fest Asia did not have.

2.2 Place

BeerFest Asia 2009

BeerFest Asia 2009 is located at on the F1 tracks (behind the Singapore Flyer), facing Marina Barrage. During the day time, the atmosphere is a little more simple, relaxed, and peaceful. The event looks like a normal funfair suitable even for the children. Once night befalls, atmosphere still remained relaxed. However, it turned into a slightly wilder place with people dancing and drinking, colourful lightings and music played by the bands. Beer counters of different distributors and breweries are all located in one big marquee. Even the stage for performances is situated inside the marquee.

Belgrade Beer Festival

The Belgrade Beer Festival is located at Ušće, an urban neighborhood of Belgrade. Ušće is a vast grassy and forested area along the river banks. As Beer festivals are usually more of a night-time event, atmosphere is similar to BeerFest Asia – slightly changes when night falls. As Belgrade Beer Festival has a much bigger holding ground, more rock bands to bring up the atmosphere and a lot more visitors, the event is not only wilder, more exciting and fun compared to BeerFest Asia, there are also less restrictions.The stage is out in the open space and is vulnerable to bad weather. Unlike BeerFest Asia, each brewery and distributor has their own marquee.

2.3 Partnerships

Gig

The BeerFest Asia 2009 has two bands, Hell’s Belles and Vertical Horizon, from the USA and several other local bands invited to stage performances.

The Belgrade Beer Festival has invited many musicians, bands and performers to stage their performances. They include: RHCP Real tribute, Shank rock, Iron Maiden real tribute, Train Box, Big Foot Mama, etc.

Sponsors

The BeerFest Asia 2009 is being sponsored by Citibank Card, Absolute Vodka, Singapore Flyer, Grand Park, B-YOND, NLX Event Services, D.A.S, CSP, DMC, food & beverage logistics, Bio-Air , Lowe Refrigeration.

The Belgrade Beer Festival is being sponsored by YellowCab, Beoskop, Region, Serbian café.com, ALO!.

2.4 Promotion (Communications)

Both festivals are featured in famous magazines. For instance, Beer Fest Asia is featured in FHM, with a readership base of 56,000 readers, while the Belgrade Beer Festival is being featured in the famous Italian Magazine read by 100,000 people daily. The core readers of the FHM magazines are men of age 25 to 35 who are actually potential visitors to the Beer Fest Asia. Interestingly, Timeout magazine has generously sponsored both events.

Not forgetting the multi-media, both festivals have engaged the local radio stations. Beer Fest Asia has power 98FM, which consists mainly of working adults, to promote its event. And Belgrade Beer Fest has radio9 helping it publicize itself.

Unlike Beer Fest Asia, Belgrade Beer Festival is also on facebook which is currently the world’s most extensive networking place online. The facebook is a very powerful tool for the promotion of events and the Beer Fest Asia has certainly overlooked this area to create more awareness of its existence.

The website is also another powerful tool to promote and create potential visitors. The information available at Beer Fest Asia website is much simpler, understandable and reader-friendly as compared to Belgrade Beer Festival which is overloaded with too much information which some are a little redundant and slows down the loading of the webpage. Information such as the pricing and purchasing of beer is not provided which leaves visitors clueless of the methods of purchase.

2.5 Packaging & Distribution

Hospitality ticket of the BeerFest Asia 2009 includes a Singapore Flyer ride, beer runner service, a $20 F & B voucher and a reserved seat within the main marquee whereas since the admission to Belgrade Beer Festival is free of charge, there is no packaging required.

Judging at the long list of sponsors of both festivals, it could be deduced that the distribution channels are extensive. It could be the distributing of information regarding the festivals whereby through official sponsors and partnerships, information and promotion could be disseminated vastly.

It could be the methods of purchasing of the admission tickets. The purchasing of admission tickets for Beer Fest Asia could be purchased via http://www.bytes.sg/ while since Belgrade Beer Festival does not charge an entrance fee; there is no sale of admission ticket online. Not only can people purchase tickets online, a physical store is also open for sale of tickets and a hotline could be dialed to purchase tickets.

2.6 Programming

BeerFest Asia 2009
There is a limited variety of programmes and entertainment in this event. Other than the common live bands performances which many beer festivals will have, BeerFest Asia 2009 also has virtual F1-racing machines and hosting Victoria Bitter National Arm Wresting Championship. The Sports Bar is equipped with pool table, air hockey, foosball, pinball machines.

The Belgrade Beer Festival
Compared to BeerFest Asia, The Belgrade Beer Festival is a bigger event and is being held at a bigger venue. More varieties of entertainment are therefore available such as drinking competition, live band performances, DJ tuborg night, fireworks, mugs holding contests. Patrons could also visit the streets of arts. Teenagers and children could also visit the fun park to keep themselves busy with the rides available there.

2.7 People

Roles of beer runner, customer service, beer promoters, security guards, ticketing officers, contractors, brewers, merchandize sale assistants, servers are examples of people involved in the BeerFest Asia 2009. Role such as the staffs tending the rides and attractions at Belgrade Beer Festival is something that the BeerFest Asia 2009 does not have.

2.8 Price

Ticketing
Beer Fest Asia uses segmented pricing, whereby prices range from day-to-day and from age-to-age. Example is the concession ticket available at a cheaper price of ten-dollar for senior citizens, tertiary students, NSF and safra members. (Please refer to appendix A for more information regarding pricing of BeerFest Asia 2009)

Whereas for Belgrade Beer Festival, admission is free of charge.

Purchasing of Beers
Beer Fest Asia uses bundled vouchers as a means to boost sales. Beer vouchers could be purchased at $10 or $50 for the purchasing of beers. Prices of beer ranges from S$3 onwards and are clearly stated on the booklet.

The Belgrade Beer Festival also offers a variety of beers at a very low price of 1-euro (about S$2).

Others
Beer Booth rentals and merchandize stalls are other consideration for price. Brewers and distributors could contact the BeerFest Pte Ltd for beer booth rentals at the lowest fee of $3,500 for a 10-ft by 10-ft booth. The merchandize such as the event t-shirts are sold at around $35 per piece.

3 Best practices

3.1 Packaging & Distribution
In terms of packaging and distribution, the BeerFest Asia 2009 would have done a better job as they have devised packages that would also facilitate the sale of other attractions around the area such as the Singapore Flyer. The Belgrade Beer Festival whereas only focuses on the festival and is a self-contained and thus regional attraction would not benefit from it.

3.2 Products & Programming
Products available at the BeerFest Asia 2009 are not catered for different groups of people. As compared to the Belgrade Beer Festival which has a Fun Park for the children, BeerFest Asia might have allowed kids to enter but there were no activities available for them. Belgrade Beer Festival, in this case, has been able to provide a range of programmes and activities for the different groups. The street of art and fun park for the kids are examples of activities patrons can engaged themselves with and is one of the special points of the festival.

3.3 Promotion
Even though the BeerFest Asia 2009 successfully attracted 14,000 people, the result could be better if more effective promotional tools are used. Taking the Belgrade Beer Festival as an example, it is always actively involved in public relations activities, press release, attending tourism fairs, and setting up a page at facebook, etc. This has successfully raised the awareness of the event and thus explains the high turnout of over 2 million guests. The BeerFest Asia 2009, whereas, did not fully-utilized what is available and is not as active as the Belgrade Beer Festival. Spreading information of the event is mostly through words-of-mouth and thus, resources, time and money spent on the promotions were all wasted as a result.

3.4 Price
I would also like to mention about price even though there is no comparison between the two beer festivals as the admission to Belgrade Beer Festival is free of charge. It is a really good tactic to use price segmentation so as to effectively target on different groups of people. The BeerFest Asia had priced their tickets according to the different groups of people so as to maximise the sales of tickets and profits.

4 Stakeholders

BeerFest Asia 2009
Host Organization Ublues Group, Timbre Music
Host Community Singapore Flyer, Singapore Exhibition and Convention Bureau, Australia Government – Australian Trade commission
Participants and spectators Public
Co-workers Student volunteers, Staff working with the organisers
Media Power98FM, Timeout Singapore, Straits Time, Life!, Business Times, FHM, hungrygowhere.com
Sponsor Citibank Card, Absolute Vodka, Singapore Flyer, Grand Park, B-YOND, NLX Event Services, D.A.S, CSP, DMC, food & beverage logistics, Bio-Air , Lowe Refrigeration

Belgrade Beer Festival
Host Organization Ball Packaging Europe, Colliers International, JatAirways, Holiday Inn – Belgrade, Grafix, Pomodoro, aero camera, Jazas
Host Community Beograd , Waste Utility, Belgrade Waterworks and Sewer Utility, Landscaping Utility, Belgrade Electricity Distribution, City Transport Secretariat, Interior Ministry, Belgrade Energy Directorate
Participants and spectators Public
Co-workers Student volunteers, Staff working with the organisers
Media Pink, StudioB, Blic, Blic Plus, 24 sata, Vreme, StudioB - Radio, Tv Metropolis, Music Tv Station, Radio Index, TimeOut Beograd
Sponsor YellowCab, Beoskop, Region, Serbian café.com, ALO!

5 Reflection on main purpose of BeerFest Asia 2009

Being located at the town area of Singapore, charging different prices for different groups of people, the main purpose of the Singapore Beer Festival is simple – allow visitors to sample a great variety of beers from different parts of the world and networking purposes for the corporate.

6 Amount of tourism benefits received by Singapore

6.1 Political impacts
Positions such as beer runners, promoters, merchandise sales assistants, server, security and counter staffs would be needed for the operation of BeerFest Asia 2009. Hence, this event actually creates economic benefits and jobs. Locals, foreigners, corporate and brewers from different parts of the world will gather together at this event, promoting social cohesion.

6.2 Tourism and economic impacts
BeerFest Asia 2009 will be able to serve as another attraction which would then lead to extending visitors length of stay and visiting other regional tourism destinations and attractions such as the Singapore Flyer. This would in turn boost tourism revenue. When the distributors and breweries gather at this event, and attracting corporate and working adults, business opportunities would emerged. The BeerFest Asia 2009 therefore act as a platform for host communities (such as the Uniquely Singapore) to showcase their expertise, hosting potential investors and promoting new business opportunities and boost commercial activities. This would result in increase of tax revenue and, again, employment creation.

7 Conclusion

In conclusion, the Promotional strategies adopted by the BeerFest Pte Ltd are not effective in creating awareness and boosting ticket sales. Not many are aware of the event and if not for this project, I would not even know that such event actually existed. Most of the people who attended the event knew through their friends. I would suggest participating more actively in online-marketing. Spreading it through networking website like the Facebook could have been a much effective and efficient promotional tool which is also low in cost. In addition, BeerFest could also set up a blog to introduce the happenings of the event in a person’s point of view and publicize through online journalism. E-marketing has become very crucial and powerful promotional tool that must not be overlooked or neglected.

Ying Ying stomped at 1:23 PM.

Journal

2nd May 2008, Saturday

BeerFest Asia 2009 will be held at the Singapore Flyer from 29th April to 3rd May 2009. Initially, i was a little reluctant to go as it is held at the far-away-from-tampines Singapore Flyer and although i've been there before, i wasn't familiar with the way. However, after much thinking through and peer pressure (friends' aggressive persuasion), i gave in.

I took quite some times to doll up myself a little, thinking that wearing smart-casual attire will be more appropriate for the event. My friends and i were suppose to meet at Doby Ghaut Mrt Station but as i was late in meeting them, it was decided to meet directly at Singapore Flyer instead. I made a blunder by thinking Singapore Flyer is situated at Dody Ghaut. And after much trouble asking passerbys, i realised i should stop at Cityhall Mrt Station instead.

It took me a great deal of effort to make myself to the Singapore Flyer. I wasn't familiar with the roads so i walked along the road and managed to find Singapore Flyer after asking the security guards outside the shopping malls. By then, i was already soaked in my own perspiration. This could be my very first visit to the inside of the Singapore Flyer as the whole place looked very alien to me. Luckily, i bumped into my friends, Xin ru and Joe, and they led me to the meeting place which was POPEYE, a fast food restaurant.

It was quite late when we decided to make our way to the ticket booth to purchase the tickets. If i'm not wrong, it was around 7pm and fortunately, the ticket price was $22 instead of $38. Kudos to Hilda! Thanks to her, we were entitled to early bird discount.

Each of us took a copy of the event booklet, thinking that it would be a great help to us for our projects and indeed, the booklet was very helpful. As a patron, it provides me with the directions to the food and beverages, washrooms, merchandise store, chill-out places. Beers from different countries and by different breweries and prices they are sold at are also clearly stated as well.

The place was surprisingly quiet and a little different from what i've expected. Perhaps it was the second last day of the event hence explain the reason for the poor turnout. However, you could still hear and see a few people singing loudly while they stumbled past you.

Above is the photo taken at the main entrance of the event. Actually, i was a little disappointed upon seeing the marquees. I always thought Beer Festivals are held indoor and the place is usually air-conditioned. This was totally not what i've expected, certainly.

I walked towards the mraquee with curiosity. I didn't know what to expect from a Beer Festival after realising that it is totally different from what i've imagined or thought to be. Beer prices range from $3 and i thought it was a very reasonable and affordable price especially to the working adults who made up the majority patrons.

As you can see from the photo above, the board states that it cost only $5 for a glass of beer. As compared to a pub or club, this amount could only get you a glass of orange juice at most.

Inside the marquee, you could see F1 booth promoting the F1 grand prix coming September. Patrons could experience the thrill of virtually riding the F1 racing cars with the machines and purchase the tickets to watch the F1 race in Singapore. It was actually quite interesting and attracted quite a number of people gathering around to see the person "driving" on the track.

One thing that really caught my attention, or you can say... it caught ALL OF OUR ATTENTION, was this (please refer to the photo below).

Two men were happily holding a funnel and a long tube, walking around, searching and daring patrons to take up the challenge - drinking 3 or 4 cans of beer with the tube! This was certainly an eye-opener! I was greatly amused by the challenge. It looks really fun and i-think it can be consider as part of the entertainment as it was really fun to see people drinking in such a weird way.

I ain't sure if they clean the tube after each 'victim' completed the challenge... I wouldn't dare to try it out because i doubt they clean the tube and you'll really get drunk drinking four cans of beer at one shot.

There were also booths selling shirts that will light up with the music. I don't know what they call it but the shirts were all so cool, crazily "jumping" away on the shirts, when the live bands were playing and singing away. You can't wear it out in broad daylight. You can only wear it when visiting a club or pub whereby it is dark and loud music is being played. I was pretty tempted to buy one but it was sold at $50 a piece? Or was it $50 for two pieces?

I couldn't remember but a friend told me that other places sell them, too, but at a much higher price! I kind of regretted not buying it after leaving the place.

Further inspection of the venue reveals a stage in the centre of the macquee surrounded by many beer booths. At the end of the macquee was a massage corner whereby unique services were provided. And i'll touch on it as we look at the photos...

The stage - in the middle of the macquee. As it was already night time, it was dark from a far despite the lights. x)

Something which amused me a lot was actually the massage corner. There was an old angel providing massaging services to patrons. Just look at the photo above and spot the white wings! A little research on youtube.com actually reveals that the uncle can dance to entertain the guest while massaging the patron. I don't understand the purpose of wearing the angel wings. Is it part of publicity? To gain attention? Boost business? Or that the uncle is just a little eccentric and hoping to bring entertainment to his customers? I'm clueless, totally.

Beer booths offer special promotion and packages examples like the packet of potato chips go with two beer mugs at a discounted price as shown on the picture above. Yeah, they've used the opportunity to upsell their products with other products and earned much higher profits. Smart move!

And just for fun, i borrowed a bottle of beer from a friend and took a picture with Gui Gui. So i actually look as though i'm happily drinking and chilling! Pretendence~

Performance on stage was awesome! They were live and incredibly impressive! It was a pity that there was not much crowds on the second last day to appreciate the performance. Hilda and i each took a separate video with our camera though the rule of the festival states no video recording is allowed. And how do we know about this despite not reading through the rules and regulations? A very kind patron approached us and teased us about it! It was meant to be a joke but it's the truth as well!

People who attended the festival were funky so they won't be bothered if you approach them out of the blue for photo-taking! HA HA! By the way, the lady in yellow in the photo above was in the VIP area which means that she actually bought the Hospitality ticket which entitles her to the Singapore Flyer and other privileges. And how do i know? Just look at the yellow barricade that separated her and Hilda (my friend in red).

Boards with information of beers were provided and being hung around to faciliate promotion and selling of beers.