Jack Morton's New Year cheer

As 2007 drew to a close, several hundred thousand people witnessed the New Year's Eve fireworks over the River Thames. Millions more tuned in to the live coverage on BBC1. The celebration, which introduced the year of the Beijing Olympic Games and of the handover to London as the next host city was produced by Jack Morton Worldwide. Yesterday, the agency famed for its high profile Opening and Closing Ceremonies at major sporting events gave the live events industry something else to celebrate as it published the results of its global survey conducted amongst 277 brand marketers. The report reveals widespread plans to increase usage of and spending on experiential marketing in 2008. Here is a summary of the findings:

75% of marketers surveyed in the UK, Europe, the US, China and Australia affirm they will increase spending on experiential marketing in 2008.

Of those planning an increase, half plan to spend 5-10% more than in previous years, 12% will increase spend by 11-25% and almost one in ten pledge to increase spend by over 25%.

70% of brand marketers state that experiential marketing is extremely or very important to their organizations, and 71% report that experiential marketing will become increasingly important in the year to come.

Experiential marketing’s unique ability to reach, engage and make relevant connections with audiences has contributed to its growth. Highlighting this point, 93% of respondents agree that experiential marketing generates advocacy and word of mouth recommendations—the ultimate “user generated content” in an era of increased consumer control and hunger for authenticity. 92% agree that experiential marketing builds both brand awareness and brand relationships. 77% also state that it generates sales and leads.

The survey also reinforces the need for brands to “do” more and “talk” less. 98% of respondents agree that “brand experiences that deliver on brand promises are central to building commitment and loyalty”. 99% concur that “what a brand does is as important as what a brand says”.
To receive a copy of the report click here

River's memory lives on in Ledger

As news broke on Tuesday about the untimely death of Heath Ledger, flash-backs stirred the memories of another talented actor, taken before his time on 31 October 1993. So will Heath Ledger be remembered as a 21st Century River Phoenix? The similarities are as sad as they are striking. Both Oscar nominated actors were considered among the brightest stars of their generations. And both had dark and lonely sides to their characters that, seemingly only drugs could ease.

I was a student in Liverpool when River Phoenix collapsed outside Johnny Depp's Los Angeles club, the Viper Rooms. Looking back, I shared the sense of loss, felt not only by his legions of fans but also from within the acting world. An indicator of how far his star could have risen comes from his contemporaries such as Keanu Reeves, Christian Slater and Johnny Depp, all still A-list movie and theatre stars commanding big money deals.

Phoenix was 23 years old. He had taken a fatal mix of drugs after being told by Chili Peppers bassist Flea, that there was no room on the stage for his promised jam with Depp and his band. His young age and the circumstances of his death ensured River Phoenix's last moments went down in movie folklore, often overshadowing his talents and his already accomplished body of work.

Heath Ledger was 28. Alone in bed, he was found by a housekeeper. Prescription sleeping pills and anti anxiety drugs were at his bedside. It seems that he too, accidentally consumed a narcotic mix that has taken his short life and will ensure he stays forever young like James Dean and Phoenix before him.

Intense roles became Ledger's trademark soon after he got his break in teen movies such as 10 Things I Hate About You. He'd downplayed his leading-man looks as a drug addict in Candy, an incarnation of Bob Dylan in I'm Not There and a sexually confused cowboy in Brokeback Mountain. Phoenix had risked his heart-throb status by playing a narcoleptic rent boy alongside Keanu Reeves in My Own Private Idaho (a film that still ranks highly amongst my all-time greats).

Now, like Phoenix before him, the tributes following Ledger's death and the sorrow of what could have been have flooded in from Hollywood's elite. But it was Jack Nicholson's initial reaction 'I told him', that had the most impact. Nicholson has since clarified that he had warned Ledger to stop taking prescription pills to stave off insomnia. Nicholson himself almost drove off a cliff 50 yards from his house after taking the drug Ambien. In one of his last interviews Heath confessed to taking one Ambien pill after another while filming the upcoming Batman movie The Dark Knight - only to wake an hour later. He said: "My body was exhausted and my mind was still racing."

It may be that he had spoken to Nicholson about the role of the Joker and confessed his dark secret. By then voicing it to the press, it may also have been a cry for further help that fell on deaf ears. His character in The Dark Knight is, by all accounts, the scariest and darkest interpretation of the gothic villain ever imagined. It is Ledger's final finished performance. I anticipate it may also prove to be his best.

Word of mouth: The Scrabulous way

With every craze, there comes a moment when the magic starts to fades. Facebook is no different. The social networking site still handles 600 million searches and more than 30 billion page views a month but has received an increased amount of negative press recently. Fears are growing amongst its users that their privacy is no longer their own and the possibility of identity theft is all around them. Now, the site's most addictive application Scrabulous is under threat from a take down order issued by Mattel, which owns Scrabble in the United States and Canada, and Hasbro, which holds the rights for the rest of the world. The loss of Scrabulous due to trademark infringement would chip away a further edge from Facebook's appeal and set a benchmark for future disputes. But has Mattel completely missed the point? And more importantly, is it giving up an opportunity to tap into the advocacy an online platform is creating for its brand?

Facebook hasn't really got a leg to stand on. The Scrabulous application is after-all a complete rip-off from the board game. But for physical companies to thrive in a world dominated by new media, they should focus on the opportunity before reacting to the threat. At this point there are more than 600,000 active users of Scrabulous. Dozens of Facebook groups have been created to “save Scrabulous.” The biggest had more than 23,000 members.

The board game prospered in the 1980s. But with advances in computer game technology and the growth of the internet, many board games now only come out for Christmas. Surely, Mattel should first look at sales of Scrabble in the past 12 months and decide if Scrabulous has reinvigorated interest in the game. The marketing boys should then seek to buy the application. If they can't buy it, then sponsor it as the official Scrabble game on Facebook. Failing that, allow the scrabble brand a new lease of life as the game of choice amongst online communities. Then, seek out the next branded content opportunity. Brand reach across online platforms is limitless. And word of mouth advocacy has seen the scrabble brand back in everyone's vocabulary.

The one and only Evelyne

10pm, Saturday, 19 January and Evelyne’s road to Vegas has come to an end. After she’d pleaded for Papa not to preach, she soon found herself in trouble deep. Act after act received the public vote and for a second week running, she faced the dreaded sing-off.

The show’s fatally flawed format meant that Eve knew she was heading home long before Britney came forward to show her support for Diana Ross. Forced to face the cameras one last time, our Madge vowed she’d return to the stage - it just won’t be this one. And nor should it be.

Evelyne out-performed and out sung many of her rival competitors but always had the smaller fan base. Her mum’s arrival in the UK to support her daughter saw them share the spotlight and she will be rightly proud of everything that Evelyne has achieved. But this was not Eve’s time. The One and Only was initial exposure for a talented singer, songwriter. It’s given her valuable experience working with two of the best vocal coaches around whilst providing an insight into the fickle workings of reality television.

Evelyne Brink will be back. She will take the positives from this experience, learn its lessons and the next time we see her on-stage or on our TVs, it’s likely to be the girl behind the Madonna mask. We’re proud of you Diva Eve. You’re a talented Madonna, you’re an even more talented you.
Check out Diva Eve, singer songwriter

Afrika! Afrika! An opening night review

I joined Kate Middleton at the premier of Afrika! Afrika! on Thursday. To infer i was actually by her side would be wrong. But the intimacy of the O2 tented structure in the round meant that sight-lines of the princess-in-waiting were, unfortunately as clear as the view of a whooping Vanessa Feltz. At least the set-up made you feel like you were right on top of some of the most gasp inducing circus i have ever witnessed.

I had only a limited number of expectations from a two-hour celebration of African culture and dance. I correctly anticipated traditional tribal dancing, my fears were realized by a couple of Lion King-type moments of performers dressed as jungle animals and I smiled a knowing smile at the hypnotic bowl, plate and even table spinning, which brought to life the vibrancy and colour of African life.

What i didn't expect was an phenomenal choreographed basket-ball scene on unicycles that steals the second half of the show, a juggler who juggles, but with the balls bouncing back off the floor and two contortionists that actually caused my fellow audience members to hide behind their fingers. The male version eases the audience into his dislocated discipline by squeezing himself through a tennis racket. His female counterpart however proves that if your spine is actually formed from rubber, you can bend into the most stomach churning shapes and still wave to the fans. My host voiced what everyone else was thinking: "What would happen if she got stuck?". My reply must have been one that was echoing around the auditorium: "How do you even discover you can do that?!"

There were a minority of moments during the show that were designed to appeal to the more populist Afro-American interest. The basketball routines and the dance-school Fame induced acrobatic break-dancing left me impressed and in awe. The Broadway tap-dancer on the back of a pink Chevvy performing to a group of building site workers just left me confused and bewildered. But the majority of the 100 performers from 20 African nations brought delirium, gasps and rapturous applause from all tiers including the royal box. If you enjoy the unexpected to wow you, this is a must see. It's Cirque de Africa on the Greenwich peninsula.

Will cabbies make good brand advocates?

As brands look to events and word of mouth to create advocates out of media savvy and often cynical consumers, the idea of sending cabbies off on holiday, courtesy of tourist offices made me chuckle. London's Hackney Cab drivers are being offered free trips to places like Bangkok and the Caribbean in the hope that they'll wax lyrical to unsuspecting passengers about their amazing experience, sending them packing their bags and booking flights.

One Evening Standard columnist responded today by saying that if there was a chance she'd be stuck in the same resort as a London cabbie for two weeks, she would rather spend her hols in Bognor. Anyone that's spent a 15-minute cab ride rolling their eyes at right wing views or being forced to endure what's wrong with bendy buses will no doubt empathize.

The problem is, that for advocates to cast their spell we need to believe in them and hang off their every word, not fake a phone call. That's why, when a friend tells you how they received priority booking and VIP treatment before a gig at the O2, we seriously consider changing mobile networks. And it's why advertisers are queuing up to reach Facebookers, safe in the knowledge that word of mouth between friends is a powerful marketing tool and the more friends you have, the greater the prize.

The hotel concierge is a trusted advocate. The cabbie, you trust to deliver front door keys to a flat-mate sat on the doorstep or navigate you around the gridlock. As soon you step out of the taxi and bid your farewell, the likelihood is that you've already forgotten whatever it was he was banging on about.

The last time i got into an discussion of note with a Black Cab driver, i'd innocently suggested that London needed to follow the example of New York and get more licensed taxis out on the street. I'd just walked for 20 minutes through Soho, down to Trafalgar Square and out towards Embankment on a rainy Wednesday night looking for a cab with its light on. I thought i'd have the support of my driver, after-all there's no shortage of demand, or so i thought. Judging by his response, i'd inadvertently threatened his livelihood. Apparently, according to him, taxis can drive around London all day without so much of a sniff of a fare and pushing more people through the Knowledge will result in New York's situation of having only a minority of English speaking drivers.

A Mori survey published this week states that the daytime wait in Inner London for a taxi is 24 seconds and 22 seconds in central London. Piccadilly Circus is apparently the best place to find a cab, with the average wait being just 10 seconds. So, there is no shortage of Black Taxis, London doesn't need more qualified, licensed and regulated drivers and I'm just about to book a holiday that was recommended to me by Ron from Chingford who's just dropped me off.

Material Girl

Evelyne Brink debuted on live TV last night as the Material Girl herself and discovered first-hand what reality television is all about. She glided her way through the MTV video routine to the 80's Madge classic in one perfect take. And she sang through her secret heart-ache of loosing her 98 year-old Pappy just 24 hours earlier.

She was the sixth performer to take to the stage and found that judges David and Carrie Grant had just been warming up. Carrie had warned Britney tribute act Tara that the competition would be split into those that sing and sound like their idols and those that have to dance and sing. When Eve came face-to-face with the vocal coaches, Carrie took the opportunity to stress her point again by giving our Material girl a dressing down. Whilst Graham Norton made the equivalent of a goalkeeping howler by stating that Madonna herself isn't a very good singer.

The first few acts on last night's The One and Only had been show openers, easing the licence payer into their Saturday night entertainment and receiving faint praise (lord only knows what Simon Cowell would have had to say about Ed's Elton or Tony's Robbie if X-Factor had been pulling the strings). Once Beeb viewers were settled-in, David and Carrie took it in turns to stick the knife in to Rod, Kylie and Tom Jones and push for ratings.

Our Material girl has a great voice, is a true entertainer and should not have been in the bottom two last night. She survived because her fellow contestants voted to keep the greater of the two remaining talents. As the competition hots up, how long will it be before they start to vote strategically?

Evelyne needs the public's vote to go far in this competition. She is battling against larger fan bases, local community backing and school children support from different parts of the country. In today's reality TV, it is no coincidence that the X-Factor final was England versus Scotland, versus Wales. Evelyne needs the support of those that believe she's the more talented. She needs votes from Madonna fans that wish to see her perform a back-catalogue of classics every Saturday night. And most of all she needs votes from anyone and everyone that knows her.
I spoke to Eve on Wednesday as she was being put through a full dress rehearsal of Material Girl. She is so excited to have been given this opportunity. Lets help her to achieve her dream.
Check out Evelyne's performances as Madonna

The One and Only Madonna is... Diva Eve!

Whenever the tabloids publish mugshots of wannabes that have been plucked from obscurity, about to be thrust into the fickle spotlight of fame by appearing on the latest reality TV show, I always scan the profiles to see if I know any of them. I never expect to, I'm sure that I'd know if a friend of mine was locked up in a hotel somewhere, being prepared for their fifteen minutes of media frenzy. But I still check, I think we all do.
On Saturday, 5 January, The One and Only, the BBC's search for a tribute act to spend three months performing in Las Vegas began with the pre-recorded auditions that will see 12 successful impersonators battle it out every Saturday night in a live X-Factor style show.
Evelyne Brink, friend and Madonna tribute act had warned me she would make her television debut in 2008. She'd emailed me that Saturday afternoon to say that she was appearing on The One and Only. And she'd even hinted that she was staying in a hotel. But still it didn't register that she'd won her audition and soon, I'd be cheering on someone I know as she swims with sharks in the reality TV fishbowl. Evelyne (Diva Eve as she's better known) will win a lot of fans by competing on the BBC 1 talent show. Her feisty confidence mixed with raw talent and a great voice should see her emerge as a strong contender for the main prize. Good luck to you Diva Eve, the UK is watching and we'll be voting for you!
Check out Evelyne's performances as Madonna

Live music venues come of age

While millions were watching England lose the Rugby World Cup final on 20 October, another performance spectacle – live music – was proving it could be a massive draw too as The Police played their last European tour date to a sold-out, 12,000-capacity Wembley Arena. According to a report published by Mintel in July 2007, the live entertainment market is worth an estimated £743m, up 8% on 2006. Half of the adults it surveyed agreed that you ‘can’t beat the atmosphere of a live performance’ and 41% said that a live music performance was more exciting and entertaining than watching it on TV.
In such a climate, the time seemed ripe for another live music venue – so when The O2 opened on the Greenwich peninsula in London, it was seen by the venue sector as an opportunity to benchmark service levels and evaluate hospitality offers and in-house technology.

NEC Arena and National Indoor Arena (NIA) general manager Guy Dunstan says: “The O2 represents a new generation of music facilities and raises the bar to a level that other venues should benchmark against. We are currently carrying out our own feasibility study on the NEC Arena, which was built in 1980, so that we can compete better and meet the demands of the future.”
The NEC Arena is a 12,300 all-seater facility with two large hospitality suites for 400 standing or 120 banquet-style. The NIA can accommodate 7,870 standing but can also create more intimate settings for 2,000-plus via its Eclipse format. “We use a draping system to reduce the capacity for both sporting and music,” Dunstan says. “The Chemical Brothers were the first act to use the new format and it’s been a great success.”

Academy Music Group
The renaissance in live music has also seen Academy Music Group (AMG) continue to open new regional sites. AMG owns and operates the Shepherds Bush Empire, Carling Academy Brixton and Carling Academy Islington, as well as venues in Birmingham, Bristol, Glasgow, Liverpool, Newcastle and most recently Oxford. In February it announced the acquisition of The Hippodrome in Brighton for development by February 2008.
AMG group operations manager Richard Maides says: “I started out in this industry 18 years ago when concertgoers didn’t care about the customer experience. These days it’s not only about developing the strength of the brand but also delivering service to both the customer and the artistes. Therefore we invest a capital sum into each of our sites each year to improve the standards of dressing room and production facilities, quality of staff and the overall visitor experience.
“We position ourselves perfectly to create a regional touring backbone for this resurgence in live music and while the bar is being raised by the national venues, we aim to meet those expectations by involving local people from the beginning.”
Customers have reported their experiences at The O2 to be overwhelmingly positive and its general manager, Mike Potter, puts this down to the venue’s hardware and software. “It’s the software that’s the biggest challenge to get right,” he says. “We decided to employ two security companies six months before opening to provide all front-of-house staff so that they could instill the attitude in their staff of being able to look the customer or venue staff in the eye and call them by their name. Too many venues treat service providers as contractors but we regard them as employees. Everyone needs to feel like they work for The O2 and AEG so that they can communicate the brand.”

In-house technology
From a hardware perspective, The O2 gained inspiration from the high standards in the US. Its bars have fast-pull beer systems and each seat has acoustic panels underneath so that when the sound engineer is doing soundchecks in an empty venue before a show, he can set the levels as if it were full of people. Wembley Arena general manager Peter Tudor believes the venue will always get the blame if an artiste’s sound engineer is having a bad day, so upping the ante on in-house technology can only benefit the touring circuit. The north London venue, sitting in the shadow of Wembley Stadium, has had more than 1.8 million visitors since its redevelopment 18 months ago and this year has played host to 135 shows. “We and The O2 complement each other with our locations and both give the whole of the south of England access to some great performers,” Tudor says.

Ticketing
Since the smoking ban came into force in England, Wembley Arena has taken advantage of improvements in technology to introduce bar coding that allows visitors to leave the venue for a cigarette and then gain re-admittance by having their ticket swiped. There are other examples of how ticketing technology is being put to good use. In the live entertainment study by Mintel, a pilot scheme to rid the industry of ticket touts by providing visitors to a Guns N’ Roses concert in Hammersmith saw visitors turn up with mobile phone barcodes – and at the NEC Arena and NIA, a rebranding of the NEC Group box office to become The Ticket Factory on 1 October has already resulted in bar-coded print-at-home e-tickets. The next step, due soon, is for tickets to be delivered to the customer’s mobile phone. “It is a massive step forward for us,” says the NEC’s Dunstan. “Not only do we hope that it will stamp out ticket touts, but it also provides much-needed live data about who is in the building for each event and what visitor trends can be capitalised upon.”

Nottingham Arena works with See Tickets to improve its ticketing service and has recently spent £90,000 on its dressing room facilities. The venue’s sales and marketing director, Julie Warren, thinks everyone should be keeping a close eye on other venue developments so that the experience of both customers and promoters keeps getting better. She says: “Promoters these days want their shows to sell fast and be installed quickly and efficiently. We have a big marketing team for a venue of our size and our ice rink is covered with a special floor, called an ice shield cover, by our in-house team. It goes down in under two hours.”
By removing all the seats and transforming the ice rink into an all-standing space, the venue now has a capacity of 10,000 for concerts. Justin Timberlake benefited from this recently when 9,899 fans attended his performance in the round. “Audiences have varied hugely with the live performance resurgence, so a venue’s offer has to be able to continuously vary with it,” says Warren.

Look back at 2007 Russia's elite come to London

On the eve of the 2007 London Marathon, when runners from all over the UK were having an early night, another group of people visiting the capital were drinking Moët & Chandon and Hennessy and dancing the night away to Muscovite bands, Sophie Ellis Bextor and Mika. Russia’s business tycoons and fashionistas were in town for four days to support their resident supermodel Natalia Vodianova’s children’s charity - the Naked Heart Foundation, to attend an exhibition and conference on Understanding Luxury and, following the party, to wake up and attend the Russian Economic Forum.

The four events, including the Moscow Motion party on Saturday 21 April, were organised by UK and Russia-based Eventica and produced consecutively by Event Concept in a timeframe that would have left even the most hardened Muscovite aghast.
At 6am on Thursday 19 April, Event Concept producer Jane Dillon and her team arrived at Old Billingsgate to begin the set-up for the Global Luxury Forum. An opulently dressed conference room for 500 delegates plus an exhibition comprising 27 stands and a lunch area was created against the venue’s blank canvas ready for the opening at 8.30am the following day. Eventica spokesman Sergei Kolushev says: “We wanted to add a new dimension to our conference. We needed a production company that could not only deliver a high-profile forum but one that could also help delegates really experience what it is that makes luxury brands so desirable.”
Following five sessions on subjects such as ‘the democratisation of luxury’ and ‘talking the luxury language’, plus speeches by, among others, Vodianonva, Vogue Russia’s editor-in-chief and owners of worldwide luxury brands, Billingsgate then had to be transformed overnight into the Russian Economic Forum’s launch party, Moscow Motion. Around 1,500 guests, largely made up of Russia’s most wealthy elite, rubbed shoulders with British fashion designers, chief executives and celebrities until 4am in an environment that was split between a decadent drinks reception and a Russian nightclub.
Dillon says: “The creative saw a reception with a Marie Antoinette feel but with a modern reference that used oversized candelabras and flower-holders to balance out the venue’s sheer size and form centerpieces against antique furniture, a circular bar and huge chandeliers.
“Together with caterer Alison Price, we looked at strong graphical ways for standalone food stations which resulted in huge Fabergé eggs containing savory straws, oversized porcelain swans holding crisps and pyramids pierced with filled profiteroles. When the main room was revealed, guests were greeted with a Colourweb LED wall spelling out Moscow Motion and a nightclub with stage, moving lights and huge mirror balls.”

The next day, delegates moved on to the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in Westminster for the 10th annual three-day Russian Economic Forum. The forum, which ran from 22-24 April, attracted almost 2,000 delegates. As they stood in silence for Boris Yeltsin, the first President of the Russian Federation, who had died on the Monday before, Dillon was not only helping to produce the forum but was also in the throes of transforming Billingsgate for a third time in as many days in preparation for the Russian Rhapsody charity fundraising gala dinner on Monday 23 April.

Military precision
Event Concept managing director Mark Beaver says: “We do a lot of work in Billingsgate and know the venue exceptionally well, so the logistical challenges of access and vehicles not being able to stop on the road outside can easily be overcome, providing each supplier knows their time slot and the build-up and break-down is managed with military precision.
“The roads were closed on the Sunday for the marathon so we’d planned to reuse much of the staging from the Global Luxury Forum and use the venue’s basement and mezzanine level for storage. But the venue’s floor space needed to be re-carpeted with each event, and the sheer scale of trying to get the bands in and set up is complicated.”
The Russian Rhapsody charity black-tie gala dinner attracted 800 wealthy Russians and used the same shell as the Moscow Motion party. Dillon worked with London’s luxury toy designer, Dragons, to create oversized models of rocking horses, teddy bears, balloons and other children’s toys, which dressed the room and encapsulated the theme of the auction. In the end, it raised almost £500,000 for the Naked Heart Foundation.

Haute couture
A pair of rocking horses designed by Valentino and Jean-Paul Gaultier, an antique musical box customized by Giorgio Armani, a Japanese Bearbrick doll dressed in Chanel by Karl Lagerfeld and a children’s puppet theatre styled by John Galliano were among the haute couture toys that were sold to the highest bidders as they enjoyed a dinner by French chef Joel Robuchon and continued the consumption of Moët & Chandon champagne and Hennessy cognac.
“The reception felt like an adults’ playground but in keeping with the luxurious feel and putting guests in the mood for the unique auction that followed,” says Dillon.
Naked Heart Foundation executive director international, Valerie-Anne Creps, says: “It was the most stunning decoration of all the Eventica-organised events I have seen so far.”
At 9am the following day, Tuesday 24 April, Event Concept finally handed the keys back to Billingsgate after returning the venue to its blank-canvas state. The Russians sampled the final sessions of the Economic Forum and embraced a wide variety of topics, some focusing on specific sectors such as oil and gas, construction or telecommunications, others featuring discussions that reflected on the path Russia has taken in the 10 years since the forum began, and expectations for how the presidential elections scheduled for 2008 will impact on the investment climate.
Once it was all over, the Russians slipped away, as unnoticed by the majority of Londoners as they had been since their arrival. For Event Concept, however, the presence of the world’s new elite – where the average age of a millionaire is 32 – left a lasting impression, and it’s certain that the same impression of awe will have been shared by visitors who witnessed the creative transformations and event production during those gruelling four days.

Bringing brands to life The Tiger Beer Singapore Chilli Crab Festival

In 2006, almost 490,000 Britons travelled to a country whose two most celebrated exports are its beer and its food.
Tiger Beer has been brewed in Singapore since 1932 and its roots are so firmly planted in Asian culture that it is currently brewed in seven countries across Asia. Chilli Crab is widely recognized as the unofficial national dish of Singapore. Together, they formed the ingredients for a unique festival in the heart of London’s East End in 2007, designed to increase awareness of the destination and expose the beer brand to its target audience of ‘early adopters’.
The Tiger Beer Singapore Chilli Crab Festival ran across the weekend of 1-2 September. Managed by RPM on behalf of the Singapore Tourism Board and Tiger Beer’s UK marketing department, the celebration occupied three venues in Brick Lane: the Boiler House, Vibe Bar and 93 Feet East.

Busy thoroughfare
The festival was piloted in 2006 at just the Vibe Bar and attracted 7,000 people across the weekend. A year ago the food ingredients were mixed with paste because organisers were unsure how popular the concept would be, but resources still ran out by the second afternoon. This time around, agency RPM was drafted in to manage the process and expand the concept, resulting in all culinary dishes being prepared fresh on site.
RPM specialist events director Alex Webb says: “Queues of people were something we were not going to avoid in such a busy thoroughfare so we decided that if people were prepared to wait in line then they would be guaranteed that the food would be fresh and not cooked with paste.
“The chefs began preparing at 11pm the night before and then came on site at 3am each morning. On the first day alone we sold out of Chilli Crab dead on our 6pm close and served in the region of 9,000 people. Our brief was to double the amount of visitors from last year and it looks like we’ve far exceeded that.”
By expanding the festival into Brick Lane’s neighbouring 93 Feet East bar and the Boiler Room space within Old Truman Breweries’ Boiler House, RPM could introduce more experiential elements. While the two bars focused on selling food and Tiger Beer, the Boiler Room acted as a window on to Singapore art, culture and entertainment.
Market stalls in the Boiler Room sold Singaporean products and Tiger Beer merchandise, around which visitors could experience traditional calligraphy demonstrations, henna tattoos and Singaporean art. On a main stage, lion dancing, martial arts, acrobatic tumbling and dragon dancing took place three times a day.
In the venue’s outdoor space, RPM created a traditional Singaporean garden which featured celebrated chef Terry Tan conducting cooking demonstrations, also three times daily.
Singapore Tourism Board’s area director for northern and western Europe, Divya Panickar, says: “The three venues in close proximity were perfect for creating an authentic environment that could reach young trendy consumers. For those who haven’t had the opportunity to travel to Singapore, we are providing a touch of what they can expect and maybe they will then consider it as a future holiday destination. This is not about selling holidays, however. It is about branding and education. It’s the longer-term benefits of this activity that will see increased travel to the region.”
Tiger Beer is a brand that regularly embraces experiential activity such as kickboxing in disused car parks or celebrations of Asian grindhouse cinema, but UK marketing manager Steven Greaves is none the less grateful for an agency capable of managing the swelling crowds and sometimes hour-long queues for food.
He says: “Tiger Beer is looking to consolidate its activity so we’re doing fewer small events and instead of focusing on a couple of larger events that attract greater numbers of ‘early mass market’ consumers. When I saw the food queues I was intimidated, but RPM has experience of this type of crowd management and it is important for us to have an agency of this type on board.”

Origami displays
RPM’s Webb redirected table magicians and origami displays from the bar tables to the growing food queues and ensured promotional girls in tiger dresses were interacting with the crowds and handing out competition cards to win a holiday. “The main thing for us was that everyone was being communicated to,” she says. “When told that they had a 40-minute wait, they were then happy to remain in line.”
Panickar echoes the sentiment and adds: “Looking at the response we’ve had this year, there is no way we cannot make this an annual festival. We will just need to find a bigger space.”

Look back at 2007 The 30th anniversary of Star Wars

On the same day David Beckham began his quest to popularise the UK’s national sport at a Galaxy far, far away, a US export was making its debut at Excel London. A generation of Star Wars fans descended on docklands for a convention to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the original trilogy.
Cards Inc, the largest licensee of Star Wars merchandise in Europe, had in mind Star Wars Celebration – a convention staged in the US every four years – when it bought the rights to host Celebration Europe and approached IMIE, organiser of the British International Motor Show, to manage it.

Huge following
“At first I was sceptical,” admits IMIE director Tim Etchells. “I just couldn’t get my head around staging a US-style convention for a UK audience. But when I delved into the range of characters, the heritage and the huge following Star Wars has built up, it became obvious we had something to offer.”
That ‘something’ resulted in the advance sale of 23,000 tickets. On 13 July the first visitors began arriving at 4am. By 6am there were more than 100 queuing to ensure they’d be among the first to buy limited-edition Darth Vader helmets made especially for the 30th anniversary celebrations. Targeted marketing at fan clubs and online forums resulted in an international audience – dressed in character, each armed with their own lightsaber – while a small £150,000 marketing budget reached families looking for a day out and saw visitor numbers swell to around 30,000 with no complimentary ticket handouts.
Jonathan Sands, director of Weird & Wonderful, which built the sets and provided costume actors for the three-day convention, believes it was always going to attract more than just the hardcore fans. He says: “Thirty years ago a film was made that blew the imagination. The majority of the thirty-somethings that witnessed the phenomena now have children of their own, so it’s only natural they would want their kids to experience what they went through in 1977.”
On the show floor, Sands created a Jedi training school on the swamp planet Dagobah that was packed with children. Other Weird & Wonderful-designed feature areas included Tantive IV, where visitors could be photographed with the Stormtroopers who raided Princess Leia’s spacecraft during the opening scenes of Episode IV: A New Hope. Weird & Wonderful also provided the official props, including an X-Wing fighter and models of Jabba the Hutt and the Death Star.

Interactive content
“We’ve been an official licensee of Lucasfilm since the late 1990s so this was one of those events where it was important to have Star Wars running through the veins,” adds Sands. “Rich interactive content was vital to bring the show to life. I manage the sister exhibition in County Hall which is now permanent so I knew the convention would draw the crowds.”
Licensees such as Lego and Toys R Us sold merchandise at the event, while actors and production staff talked about filming the trilogy during lectures and personal appearances in the main hall. In Excel’s Platinum Suite, an exhibition of painted Darth Vader helmets ran alongside more technical lectures that included a glimpse into the keenly awaited Star Wars animated TV series.
IMIE’s Etchells says: “We worked so closely with Lucasfilm since naturally it is protective of its brand. Each and every stand, piece of merchandise and set has had to be approved by them, but they’ve done it many times in the US, the process was straightforward.
“In the evening we staged an outdoor screening of Episode IV. We did look at other ideas such as a fancy dress ball but it became too complicated. Most of the European fan clubs are here on three-day tickets so the hotels are full in July and the clubs are organising their own evening entertainment.”
One of the main draws of the show was the autograph area, where fans could buy tokens and swap them for the autographs of voiceover actors or minor players in the films. The star attraction was Luke Skywalker himself, actor Mark Hamill who signed 400 autographs a day for £85 each. Judging by the queue to secure his signature, the force is still strong with the Star Wars brand.