Singapore Night Festival 2016 is in town

SingaporeNight Festival 2016 is in town

The first weekend of Singapore Night Festival 2016 is already behind us. But … there’s one more weekend to come: august 26 and 27.

Plus there are some events every night this week.

Taking welfies in the funny-mirrors at House of Curiosities.

For the complete program and all the info, visit their website.

What is there to see and do at #SGNightFest?

We went both evenings of the first weekend and saw:

• The Wheelhouse by Acrojou (UK)
  Two acrobats, ‘living’ in a wheel, dressed up as a house. Nice concept. If only I could have seen this performance;-). Tried to catch them twice, but impossible to see much, really.
• KeyFrames by Groupe Labs (FR)
  
  I quite liked these moving stickmen on the facade of the NMS. Together with the sounds they look funny and almost a bit naughty, if that makes any sense.
  Click here to watch the stickmen move!
• Singapore Night Festival at Singapore Philatelic Museum
  We used this ‘free entry’ opportunity to visit this quirky museum for the first time in our 7 years in Singapore;-).
• performances on Armenian Street
  
  

  This side-street of Armenian Street was dressed up nicely. But I was not impressed by the acts on Armenian street itself.

• House of Curiosities by Sweet Tooth by Cake (SG)
  

  The show is set in a steampunk-isn decor.

  

  Audience participation at House of Curiosities: make your own clock aka time machine.

• Les AquamenS by Machtiern Company (FR)
  

  Yes, those fish are real!

• :Samara by Max Pagel & Jonathan Hwang (SG)
  A poetic light tree at the Armenian Church.
  
  Click here to see how the tree transforms.
• Into Pulsar by Ryf Zaini (SG)
  

  Into Pulsar. This installation looked impressive. It was supposed to be interactive, but while I was there, no action seemed allowed/possible. Disappointing.

• Journey by NOVAK (UK)
  

  Underwater world projections on the SAM.

  Watch the fish glide along the walls of the Singapore Art Museum

  You can still catch the following shows on august 26 and 27:

• Keyframes - recommended
• Singapore Night Festival at Singapore Philatelic Museum - recommended; why not; it’s free now!
• House of Curiosities - recommended?? Not sure; playful and creative yes, but also a bit childish. My husband was bored after 2 minutes;-).
• Journey - the projections on the building are quite pretty, so yes: recommended

Further more you can see the following acts:

• Being Dutch, of course I’m gonna check out the two acts by Close-Act. Especially since they are this year’s main acts!!! Yay for Holland!
• Maybe I’ll join the Fort Canning Park Night Heritage Tour
• Or Artist’s Night Out
• I never watched a live Pole-dance act, so I think Pole Artistry would be interesting to see.
• Suaveciclo sounds cool
• and walking some of the Night Lights Trails seems like an interesting activity.
• I’ll definitely pay a visit to the National Design Centre, since I did not get around to that last weekend.

Is it worth visiting Singapore Night Festival 2016?

I have to admit that I was disappointed about the first weekend.

The number of shows seemed less than during previous editions of NightFest, the quality of the shows was average, and the accessibility/visibility was often lousy. There was nothing that really wowed me or touched my heart.

Teeny tiny acts that everyone wanted to see did not ‘work’, since the performers were immediately surrounded by a thick sea of people, making it impossible for 90% of the audience to even catch a glimpse. I’m not exaggerating, folks.

But … almost everything on the program is outdoors and free, so that’s nice. The only ticketed show we went to was House of Curiosities, which was outdoors as well.

Being a mainly free festival, I would definitely recommend everyone to visit SGNightFest 2016.

A fact that gives hope for the second weekend is that usually the second weekend is The Big Weekend; with the Main Act!

Just don’t go there with too high expectations, bring plenty of water for all the times that you have to wait, so that you stay hydrated. It was hot on both nights we were there and the heat and crowds really got to us.

Tips and ideas for future editions of SgNightFest

The WheelHouse should have rolled over a 1 meter-high catwalk, allowing for a big audience to enjoy this act.

I had to take pictures, holding my camera high above my head, so that later, at home, I saw what the act looked like. Pretty ridiculous, right?

The performers apologized afterwards, saying that they never before performed for such a crowd. Normally a small number of spectators simply walks along with them. Now they were surrounded by a wall of people.

That same catwalk could then have been used by the AquaMens , allowing them to still interact with the audience, but since their fishbowl-heads would stick out above the crowd, more people would have enjoyed this act.

Very hard to even catch a glimpse of the two AquaMenS

The queue for The Story Box was crazy long, making it impossible to see this show. We tried twice, but lucked out both times.

This is Singapore, organizers. Whenever there IS an event, especially when it’s free, you can expect huge numbers of people gathering. That means that physically small, intimate acts don’t work. Especially not on street level. Only a handful of spectators get a chance to enjoy the acts, while the majority is left frustrated, seeing nothing.

These kind of acts CAN work, if they would e.g. roam freely through the festival areas all the time. Then everybody would have a brief encounter here and there, probably even multiple times.

I visited the famous and delightful street festival Just for Laughs or Juste pour Rire in Montreal, Canada, for 6 years in a row. Saw numerous acts each year and never had a problem to see any of them.

You can contract the best acts in the world, but what’s the point if you do not provide the logistics and conditions that allow most of the audience to see it?!

Choose for acts that are high up in the sky, on a stage or on a catwalk. Stilt walkers are suitable, aerialists, etc.

So here are tips 1 and 2:

1. Choose acts that fit the circumstances and locations
2. Where necessary, improve and maximize the visibility and accessibility to accommodate Singapore’s big crowds

Filling up the program with low-quality acts by ‘hobbyists’ brings down the experience and the image of the Festival. As long as those acts are entertaining and high-quality then there’s no problem. But if it feels and looks embarrasingly ‘amateur’ then it’s better to not include these performances in the Festival. Some of the acts on Armenian Street and in front of the Cathay were depressingly ‘poor’.

That brings me to tip 3:

3. No program-‘fillers’. Choose for professionalism, quality and entertainment-value over ‘sympathy’-acts and hobbyism.

Have you been to the first weekend? How was your experience? Which acts were your favorites?

Do you agree with my feedback and advice? Or do you look at it totally differently?