BANGKOK, 5 June 2020: Despite the Covid-19 pandemic, Thailand keeps its events business top-of-mind by launching online events that derive inspiration from successful festivals.
“The Harmony World Puppet Channel” and “Bangkok Music City” demonstrated that resilience and innovation are well and truly present in the Thai events industry with an in-depth understanding of global audience behaviour of Thailand’s festival organisers, when they both took place recently.
In taking their event business online and adopting temporary digital measures, the organisers of both events showed how festivals could go on but in virtual space.
The “Harmony World Puppet Channel” (aka Harmony of World Puppet Festival) engages its audience by addressing social issues through the art of storytelling. It attracted 6,164 members of its audience from Thailand, Japan, India, Bangladesh and Lao PDR to stay engaged remotely, clocking up 201.5 total watching hours for four days in April and three days in May.
Harmony World Puppet Festival launched with an impressive music video collaboration created by artists in 15 countries across Asia and Europe.
Fungjai and Nylon Thailand, the co-founders of The Bangkok Music City, also invited its audience to stay entertained while at home, providing artist content online. Renamed the At Home Festival, the event reached a domestic audience of 120,757, as well as 1,828 people from 45 countries across the globe via Facebook and YouTube.
Another event, Thailand Toy Expo 2020, offered a new type of online experience through Virtual Tour 360 and Live Stream with strong support from the Thailand Convention and Exhibition Bureau, 28 to 31 May. More than 50 international and local artists used the online platform to present their latest collections, enabling the fans to get in touch with their favourite toy brands and designers. A mass participation mobility event Move Asia is planned with a virtual experience called the Home Marathon 10 KM.
TCEB has played a supporting role in more online mega-events. It has been working closely with event organisers in the country since the early signs of the outbreak, providing tools such as the TCEB MICE Intelligence Centre’s ‘Virtual Meeting Space’; a platform that accommodates up to 10,000 online participants in a single session.
TCEB’s senior vice president – business, Nichapa Yoswee, said: “TCEB is on hand to provide continuous support as events make the temporary transition from physical to online. The support includes a virtual platform for webinars as well as one-to-one engagement for exhibitions so that attendees and audience can stay engaged, stay active, and also stay entertained with business events and world festivals.”
(Source: Thailand Convention and Exhibition Bureau).
