The Case Study of Taiwan Hip-Hop Festival

國立中山大學管理學院國際經營管理碩士學程

碩士論文

Master of Business Administration Program in International Business

National Sun Yat-sen University Master Thesis

台灣嘻哈音樂季之案例分析

The Case Study of Taiwan Hip-Hop Festival

研究生：賈達立

Jakub Haidari

指導教授：陳媛玲博士

Dr. Yuan-Ling Chen

中華民國 107 年 06 月

June 2018

I want to dedicate this master thesis to six people who have been by my side in overcoming this great challenge in my life, and that have motivated me to be a better person and professional every single day. All these people were there for me when I was at the bottom and therefore they deserve to be there when I will be at the top

To my father and mother, because they gave life to me and fully supportedmy studies abroad.It must have been very difficult to let their oldest son leave home for five years. But now I am done and can return back home.

To my beautiful and smart wife, who loves me unconditionally. Her every day support and advices were the boost I needed to overcome this challenge. Her presence changed me from a boy to a man who is not afraid of taking any risk and keeps his word.

To my lovely son, who brought so much joy to my life. His smile keeps me going and pushes me to step out of my comfort zone in order to achieve my goals. He motivates me to be a better person every day and act as a role model for him.

To my grandfather, who never got the chance to study at an university but was still able to be one of the most influencial people in my life. He showed me that a person can start from nothing and with clear vision,passion, dedication and discipline can achieve great things. Rest in Peace Grandpa I love you.

To my grandmother, for always checking on me and making sure I eat and rest well.

Thank you all for believing in me. This is for you.

Acknowledgment

I would first like to thank my advisor Dr. Yuan-Ling (Linda) Chen from the

International Business MBA department at National Sun Yat-Sen University, who accepted

me last minute. She gave me confidence and useful advice, which were crucial for finishing

this case study.

I would also like to acknowledge all the people who contributed to Taiwan Hip-Hop

Festival. Especially I would like to thank my lovely wife, my parents and parents in law, who got my back during the difficult periods and did everything in their power to help me accomplish one of my dreams. Special appreciation goes to my middle brother for his help,

BDesign Borovicka for his professional graphic designs and Ginjin for flying in from

Mongolia to share his knowledge on the Hip-Hop industry. Thanks to Wolf, Sowut, Jay Izaak and YZ for being great friends and providing me secret information on the Taiwanese music industry. Without your help this master thesis wouldn’t be so valuable.

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摘要

台灣擁有眾多不同規模和流派的音樂節。有電子舞蹈音樂，流行音樂，搖滾音樂，爵

士音樂和其他許多節日致力於。然而，台灣並沒有一個致力於嘻哈音樂的節日。這種

類型的音樂越來越受歡迎，正在超過美國的主流。目前 Billboard Chart 上的大部分歌曲

都來自這個流派。一部名為 Rap 的中國電視劇也為推動台灣的這種流派產生了巨大影

響。

本次台灣嘻哈音樂節（THHF）的個案研究將為當代台灣音樂節行業提供重要見解，並

為組織首屆台灣嘻哈音樂音樂節提供所有必要信息。這些實用建議將集中在管理，市

場營銷，財務，風險管理和退出策略等方面。

為了提供有價值的信息，使用互聯網收集的二手數據主要是諸如 Facebook，Instagram

和 KKTIX 等網站。原始數據通過與台灣的活動策劃者，藝術家和發起人進行面對面的

採訪。為了獲得預算電子郵件的報價和 Facebook 郵件已與藝術家和他們的預訂代理交

換。

關鍵字: 音樂節，嘻哈, 活動策劃等, 營銷計劃

Abstract

Taiwan is home to numerous music festivals of different sizes and genres. There are festivals dedicated to the Electronic Dance Music (EDM), Pop Music, Rock Music, Jazz Music and many others. However there is not a single festival that is dedicated to Hip-Hop Music in

Taiwan. This type of music has been gaining popularity and is overtaking the Mainstream in the United States. Currently most of the songs on the Billboard Chart come from this genre. A

Chinese TV showed called Rap of China also made a huge impact on promoting this genre in

Taiwan.

This case study of Taiwan Hip Hop Festival (THHF) will provide important insights on the contemporary Taiwanese music festival industry as well as to provide all necessary information to organize the first music festival dedicated to Hip-Hop music in Taiwan. These practical suggestions will focus on aspects of management, marketing, finance, risk management and exit strategies.

In order to provide valuable information secondary data was collected using the internet mostly websites like Facebook, Instagram and KKTIX. Primary data has been collected by face to face interviews with event planners, artists and promoters in Taiwan. In order to obtain quotations for the budget emails and Facebook messages have been exchanged with artists and their booking agents.

Keywords: Music Festival, Hip-Hop, Event Planning, Marketing Plan

Table of Content

Acknowledgment ...... iii

摘要 ...... iv

Abstract ...... v

Table of Content ...... vi

Table Index ...... viii

1.Introduction ...... 1

2. Background ...... 3

3. Market Analysis ...... 4

3.1 Market Background ...... 4

3.1.1 Taiwan Music Festival Industry ...... 4

3.1.2 Hip-Hop Industry in Taiwan ...... 6

3.2 Differentiation Strategy ...... 8

4. Recommendations ...... 10

4.1 Management ...... 11

4.1.1 Ownership ...... 11

4.1.2 Management Team ...... 12

4.1.3 Customer Relationship Management ...... 15

4.2 Marketing Plan ...... 16

4.2.1 Product ...... 16

4.2.2 Price and Pricing Strategy ...... 17

4.2.3 Promotion ...... 22

4.3 Place ...... 33

4.4 Target Market ...... 36

4.5 Branding ...... 38

4.5.1 Slogan ...... 38

4.5.2 Logo ...... 38

4.5.3 Hashtags ...... 40

4.5.4 Red Solo Cups ...... 41

4.6 Finances ...... 41

4.6.1 Budget ...... 41

4.6.2 Artists Selection ...... 43

4.6.3 Break-even Analysis ...... 47

4.7 Critical Risks and Problems ...... 48

4.8 Exit Strategies ...... 50

5. Conclusion ...... 51

6. References ...... 53

7. Appendix ...... 55

7.1 Appendix A – Facebook Page Layout ...... 55

7.2 Appendix B- Logo Color Variations ...... 56

7.3 Appendix C – Poster & Flyer Design ...... 57

7.4 Appendix D- Proposed Rundown ...... 58

vii

7.4 Appendix E- Proposed Budget ...... 59

7.5 Appendix F- Website Design ...... 60

Table Index

Table 1: Organization Chart ...... 12

Table 2: Competition Pricing ...... 19

Table 3: Ticket Intermediaries Comparison ...... 21

Table 4: Music Events Facebook Popularity Comparison ...... 24

Table 5: Music Events Website Evaluation ...... 32

Table 6: Advantages and Disadvantages of the Venue ...... 36

Table 7: Target Segmentation ...... 37

Table 8: Artist Popularity and Show Fee Analysis ...... 45

Table 9: Final Line Up Fees and Length ...... 46

viii

1. Introduction

The number of music festivals in Taiwan is increasing. Each festival attracts from few hundreds to couple thousand visitors a day. This fact indicates that young Taiwanese are more interested and willing to spend their money on such experiences. The market is strongly dominated by the music genre called EDM (Electronic Dance Music), followed by Rock

Music and Independent Music. One genre that people listen to, but is not represented by a music festival is Hip-Hop. There are many definitions of Hip-Hop, but probably the best definition comes from Google Dictionary. Google defines Hip-Hop as a style of popular music of US black and Hispanic origin, featuring rap with an electronic backing. This music style has spread all over the world and representatives of Hip-Hop can be found in almost every country in the world. Hip-Hop songs are dominating the Billboard charts, which ranks weekly the most popular songs across all genres, ranked by radio airplay audience impressions as measured by Nielsen Music, sales data as compiled by Nielsen Music and streaming activity data provided by online music sources 1 . Taiwan and China are no exception. Matter of facts Chinese Hip-Hop has been growing and even took the center stage in the second half of 2017 due to a Chinese TV Show called The Rap of China. The show aired 12 episodes and according to BBC news, counted more than 2.5 billion views2. The Rap of China was definitely a game changer and made this genre more popular in China and

Taiwan. So back to the main problem, why doesn’t Taiwan have a festival solely dedicated to

Hip-Hop music? This case study will provide important insights on the contemporary

Taiwanese music festival industry as well as to provide all necessary information to solve the problem. The only solution how the problem can be solved is to organize the first outdoor

1 Music: Top 100 Songs | Billboard Hot 100 Chart. (n.d.). Retrieved June 2, 2018, from https://www.billboard.com/charts/hot-100 2 Hip-hop takes centre stage in China for the first time. – BBC News (13.9.2017). Retrieved from: http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-china-blog-41236746

music festival dedicated to Hip-Hop music. Therefore the author of this case studied all the music festivals aimed to attract young Taiwanese and came up with clear suggestions for organizing a new music festival. The author of this research tries to answer the following study questions:

Q1: What is the contemporary music festival industry in Taiwan like?

Q2: How to organize a music festival in Taiwan in the aspects of management, marketing, finance, risk management and exit strategies?

2.1 How should the management be organized?

2.2 How should the marketing be conducted?

2.3 How much budget should be allocated for organizing a first year music festival?

2.4 What are the risks of organizing an outdoor music festival?

2.5 In case of failure, what are the possible exit strategies?

2. Background

This case study explains how to execute and establish a music festival in Taiwan called the Taiwan Hip-Hop Festival. At Taiwan Hip-Hop Festival visitors should not only have the chance to listen to some prominent rappers from Taiwan but also participate in rap battles or try painting graffiti, which are important element of the Hip-Hop culture.

The management should try to establish a new festival brand and promote the Hip-

Hop culture as well as aim to make a living organizing this event in the future. Goals of the festival should be to grow to ten thousand visitors, attract foreign visitors from abroad, bring international headliners and become a yearly tradition for Taiwanese youngsters. However the main goal of the festival should be to make profit for the owners and support the owner’s lifestyle. THHF should be organized under a new established sole proprietorship. This business structure would provide full control of the company to the owner in exchange of taking all the risks and. The ownership could be limited to the Executive Director only.

However, in the future if reliable and trustworthy investors or partners would want to join the management team the owner would have the option to sell parts of the ownership to them.

The events mission should be to provide one of a kind music festival for the Taiwanese youth and promote Hip-Hop culture in Taiwan. In order to better understand the music festival industry in Taiwan a market analysis has been conducted.

3. Market Analysis

3.1 Market Background

The author would like to address the contemporary music festival industry in Taiwan in the following section. If we want to analyze the market background of Taiwan Hip-Hop

Festival we have to look at music festival industry and also Hip-Hop events. This section will only focus on the festival industry and Hip-Hop events in Taiwan. Since there is not a festival dedicated to Hip-Hop music, THHF would be a market pioneer.

3.1.1 Taiwan Music Festival Industry

Sadly there are no official statistics about music festivals in Taiwan, therefore face to face interviews with event planners of the festivals have been conducted. In this section we will analyze few competitors to THHF. The most popular music genres are Electronic Dance

Music (EDM) followed by Rock Music and Pop Music.

The longest running music festival is “Spring Scream 春天吶喊”. It has been running since 1995 and attracts around 6000 visitors a year to its location near Eluanbi Lighthouse in

Kenting3. Spring Scream features on average 6 same sized stages, where indie musicians from

East-Asia region perform at the same time. Every year organizers choose from 600 applicants, who will have to fund their own costs to play at the “Spring Scream 春天吶喊”. The whole festival has a Woodstock vibe and since it is a multiple day event, attendees are allowed to camp on the premises.

Since first year’s event should be held in Kaohsiung, we decide to write about the

“Megaport 大港開唱”. This festival offers rock music at the Pier 2 venue in Sizihwan.

3 Spring Scream music festival is something to shout about – South China Morning Post (24.3.2013) Retrieved from: http://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1197214/spring-scream-music-festival-something- shout-about

According to South China Morning Post in 2013 it attracted around 20000 people. It offers multiple stages which are indoor and outdoor, but no other entertainment.

Probably one of the biggest music festivals is the “Ho-Hai-Yan Gongliao Rock

Festival”. Nobody knows exactly how many people attend this festival, but the estimates are a few hundred thousand. The turnout is so high because it is a free music festival sponsored by the government. The bands compete for large cash prices and play mostly heavy metal music.

It is held in July at the Fulong Beach in Taipei34.

Other mentionable music festivals that focus on punk and heavy metal are “山海屯搖

滾祭 Heartownrockfest Taiwan “ in Taichung and “覺醒音樂祭覺醒音樂祭 Wake Up

Festival” in Chiayi.

Since the EDM genre is the most popular one between the young Taiwanese, there are many EDM parties and festivals. Largest EDM music festivals are “Road to Ultra: Taiwan”,

„Looptopia Music Festival 樂托邦國際音樂季 “, “SpringWave Sunset”, “Arcadia”,

“Creamsfield Taiwan” or “ON THE BEACH”. “Road to Ultra” or “RTU” is a one day event with one stage founded by the team that organizes Ultra Music Festival. This EDM party is a franchise brand which production companies can purchase. Therefore “RTU” has many worldwide stops and customers know what they can expect. In Taiwan, Kaohsiung based event company Spunite Production, purchased the rights to use the brand and launched this event in 2014 at the Kaohsiung Exhibition Centre. From 2015 they moved the event to Taipei

Dajia Riverpark. This party features prominent international Djs, one highly sophisticated stage and therefore attracts thousands of attendees.

4 An Island of Festivals: Exciting Music Events Around Taiwan – My Taiwan Tour (12.9.2017) Retrieved from: https://www.mytaiwantour.com/blog/2017/09/12/an-island-of-festivals-exciting-music-events-around-taiwan/

“Arcadia” is a two day event in Taipei. It is different from the other EDM parties due to their stage design. The stage is in form of a giant spider, which has been made out of recycled material and old military equipment. Similarly to “RTU”, “Arcadia” is also a franchise but the Spider stage travels around the world unlike “RTU” where each stop has different stage layouts.

In 2017 two new EDM festivals debuted in Taiwan. “Creamsfield” a UK based festival decided to Electronic Dance Music started in 1998. Similarly to “Road to Ultra”, it is also a franchisee and has been hosted around the globe. All the above mentioned EDM festivals are all franchised events, where the owners allow a reginal production company to use the brand.

At the beginning of spring in April, „Looptopia Music Festival 樂托邦國際音樂季“ a two day EDM festival in Taoyan Pushin Ranch debuted with three stages and 50 electronic artists. This festival is organized by a well-established Taiwanese event production company called The Loop. They have been organizing large scale parties in Taiwan additionally to running an award winning nightclub OMNI. „Looptopia Music Festival 樂托邦國際音樂季

“ is a two day festival, which offers a real festival atmosphere, due to the decorations, activities and food vendors.

3.1.2 Hip-Hop Industry in Taiwan

The Hip-Hop music scene can be divided into two categories: the mainstream and the underground. Mainstream music is defined by Urban Dictionary as commercialized music that is extremely popular among people5. Taiwan has some mainstream artists that are signed under big music labels and perform at big events such as 911 玖壹壹, Miss Ko, MJ116, Mc

5 Mainstream Music – Urban Dictionary (n.d.). Retrieved from:

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Mainstream%20music

HotDog, JSheon or Nick The Real. All these artists are highly popular, have large follower base and also their show fees are extremely high. The underground scene has much more artists that are either independent or have a small music label backing them up.

All these artists have in common that they earn most of their income through live performances at diverse events:

1) Individual concerts: Any artist can organize their own individual concert. Some of

the mainstream artists might host an album release concert at one of the biggest arenas

such as Kaohsiung or Taipei Arena. The upcoming artists will probably rent a music

live house and try to bring two hundred people there. The less know ones that have a

very small following will approach a small bar or restaurant and try to invite their

friends and fans.

2) Campus concerts: Since Hip-Hop is a trendy genre among university students,

booking agents try to target universities. Depending on the budget of the student

association, organizers will book one of the Hip-Hop artists for a discounted

performance fee. The labels are willing to lower the fee due to the belief that the artists

popularity among students will increase.

3) Club Shows: All the Taiwanese Nightclubs play exclusively only EDM music.

However on some occasions they will invite a well-known Hip-Hop artist to perform

for a short show. This will offer a small diversity to their other nights.

4) Hip-Hop parties: Every major city in Taiwan has a few Hip-Hop parties throughout

the year. Kaohsiung has a party called “下港體制 / Shotgun System”, which is

organized by a RedBull Freestyle 2015 Taiwan champion Dj called Mr.Skin. It is

always indoors from 10pm to 3am once a month. It features three Djs sets and two rap

shows and attracts on average 180 attendees. Another mentionable Hip-Hop event is a

free event called “Hip-Hop in the Park”. This monthly event has been running for over

six years and is organized by “Doobiest Shop” owner Dj G.oldie and a Dj from

Croatia DJ Draze.

Since Taichung is home to two hip-hop music labels, one of them called Brainzapp

organizes a showcase of their talents at Legacy. The party is called “Taichill City

Block Party” and attracts on average 300 attendees.

3.2 Differentiation Strategy

Taiwan Hip-Hop Festival should differentiate itself from other Taiwanese music festivals in three main aspects.

1) Type of Music and Artists

THHF will be the only music festival that offers Hip-Hop music to its attendees. In

Taiwan the festivals either only offer live music acts like at Rock Music festivals or they purely offer Djs who play EDM music. Taiwan Hip-Hop festival should offer both live rappers, who will perform their own songs as well as Hip-Hop Djs, who should only play international Hip-Hop music. At the first year event the author recommends to only have one stage and therefore there has to be a balance between Djs and live performers. The ideal the ratio should be 1:4, so one Dj for every four live acts.

The Taipei EDM festivals like “Road to Ultra Taiwan” and “Looptopia Music Festival 樂

托邦國際音樂季”bring a high number of international acts. These acts probably attract a lot of locals but also cost enormous amount of money. Since THHF probably won’t possess such strong financials, it will be limited to book only local artists and one cheap international artist.

2) Location

Depending on the city of origin of the organizers, they should host the festival in the city they are familiar with. Taipei, Taichung and Kaohsiung are the most suitable ones due to the size of the population and the transportation infrastructure. Since the author of the case study is from Kaohsiung and not so familiar with Taipei venues, he suggests to host the festival in the second largest city in Taiwan, Kaohsiung. Every major music festival in Taipei is held at the Dajia River Park, due to government safety regulations. Kaohsiung doesn’t host any big music festivals besides “Megaport 大港開唱”at the Pier 2 in Sizihwan. All the festivals in

Taiwan finish at 10pm in order not to disturb the local residents. This makes the attendees who are still full of energy and ready to party upset. They face two options, either go home or spend more money on entrance to a nightclub or a bar. Therefore THHF should aim to be different in this aspect and choose a location where it won’t bother the residents. Also the

Taipei festivals are located on an empty space, so the organizers have to build fences and the entire necessary infrastructure. The ideal venue for THHF would be the government owned

Taiwan Sugar Factory Museum in Ciaotou District in Kaohsiung. This historic factory that is open to public every day until 6pm is easily accessible with MRT or train and even possesses a large parking lot. The Ciaotou Sugar Factory has enough space for all the activity and is interesting to walk around and take pictures at.

3) Activities

Most of the music festivals in Taiwan only offer musical entertainment. Attendees wait to get in the area and then rush to the front to be in the first line at the stage. Then they just spend the whole day on the same spot, because there is nothing else to do besides getting some food, drinks and go to the restroom. Probably only exemptions are a two day EDM party on a beach in Kenting called “ON THE BEACH” and “Spring Scream 春天吶喊”. “ON

THE BEACH” has every year several activities such as beach football, beach volleyball or

even Brazilian Jiu Jitsu during the day. “Spring Scream 春天吶喊” offers yoga classes and throwing rocks at pottery. These activities make it more interesting for the attendees. THHF should host activities simultaneously during the daylight. It should start small by only offering a graffiti jam, where street artists will paint various pictures on wood walls. Festival goers can admire this type of art as well as try to paint by themselves. In the future THHF should extend the list of activities related to Hip-Hop culture by offering a basketball court, fashion show, breakdancing battles or skateboarding exhibition.

As you can see there is not a single music event that brings artists from different music labels and cities together and unifies the whole Hip-Hop scene. Besides that there are many other things that can be done differently to extinguish itself from the competition. Therefore the author proposes practical suggestions for anyone, who is interested in filling the market gap.

4. Recommendations

In the following section reader can find all the necessary information that is needed to host an outdoor music festival in Taiwan. It includes four main aspects such as the management, marketing plan, finances and exit strategies.

4.1 Management

This part introduces the recommended ownership and organization structure. Every position is clearly described and includes the proposed job duties. The organizer can however adjust this based on the size of the execution team. The author recommends to rather work in a small and efficient team than in a large and inefficient team.

4.1.1 Ownership

Although Taiwan Hip-Hop Festival is just an event, for some contracts it needs to be organized by a company. Therefore for the purpose of organizing THHF the owner has to establish a company. According to a Taiwanese Certified Public Accountant Han Hsieh, the easiest way how to solve the issue is to establish a Sole Proprietorship. In order to establish the Sole Proprietorship, or in Mandarin 獨資 Dúzī the owner will have to: 1) come up with a name and get it approved 2) find an office to rent 3) fill out an application form 4) open a company bank account and deposit 10000NTD in it. This form of business is the cheapest and easiest to set up, however the owner will be reliable for all the debts. It is risky, but it can pay off. Additionally if the owner decides to expand beyond THHF to providing professional designs, event consultations or sale merchandise, he will be legally allowed to do so. The name of the company should be unique and clear, therefore the best option would be: “達立企

劃工作室”which could be translated as Haidari Event Planning. This is just an suggestion for the reader who is interested in setting up his or hers company. Haidari or 達立 is the surname of the author of this case study. The owner of the company should be already well connected

in Kaohsiung. There is a local businessman, who owns an office building near City Council and rents addresses for just 2000nt a month. The address of the company would be: 高雄市前

金區大同二路 20 號 B1 and it would be a one year contract. The next step would be to open an appropriate bank account for a sole proprietorship. This can be done at the Sunny Bank on the Bo’ai 2nd Road in Kaohsiung.

4.1.2 Management Team

The management team should be led by the founder, who has a vision of small but extremely productive and reliable team. The founder should want just a small amount of people to be involved in order to be more efficient. Therefore the proposed ideal organizational structure should look like this.

Table 1: Organization Chart

Executive Director Consultant

Assistant Event Director

Assistant Event Designer Coordinator

Entrance Security Bar employees employees employees

4.1.2.1 Executive Director

The brain of the event should be the founder and at the same time the Executive

Director.

The Executive Director should have a clear vision, wide set of skills and a hard working attitude, so he can perform a lot of tasks. If the founder is a foreign national, who doesn’t speak Chinese, he won’t be able to perform certain task and therefore will have to hire a local assistant. The founder’s tasks should be to: 1) find a suitable venue 2) book suitable artists 3) decide on the date and price of the event 4) come up with marketing 5) provide financial resources 6) manage the social media accounts 7) hire employees 8) conduct meetings with sponsors 9) find suitable suppliers 10) promote the event with giving out flyers and putting up posters 11) execute the event and make sure it aligns with his vision. Since the Executive

Director will also be the owner of the company he will be fully reliable for any financial loses.

4.1.2.2 Consultant

The author suggests finding a close friend or relative who could be a consultant. The person’s expertise doesn’t have to be related to neither Hip-Hop music nor event planning, but should have a great intuition as well as taste for designs and art. The consultant’s role should be to advise the Executive Director on different decisions he will be facing and help with the promotion & execution.

4.1.2.3 Assistant Event Director

If the Executive Director won’t be Taiwanese, he will have to hire a local person. His main tasks will be to assist the Executive Director with all tasks involving Mandarin.

Therefore he will have to: 1) do research and local law 2) find suitable ticket distributor 3) register hard copy tickets at local government 4) help negotiate and book artists 5) find sponsors 6) find event photographer 7) negotiate terms with the venue 8) find food caterers 9) find audio, stage, lightning company 10) find suppliers 11) translate promotional materials 12) sell tickets 13) help organize after party 14) create a drink menu 15) assist Marketing director

16) create content for Facebook page 17) obey and follow the Executive Directors commands.

As you can see this person will have a lot of tasks to do. Therefore he needs to have experience and connections in an event planning company. He also needs to be hard working and reliable. Since this person will not be a shareholder of the event, he should be paid a monthly salary. The author suggests a salary of 20000NTD a month plus free meals during business meetings. Since the person won’t be working full time and only spend a few hours a day on preparing the festival this salary should be an appropriate compensation and should motivate the person to be fully dedicated to this project.

4.1.2.4 Designer

Nowadays every business needs a graphic designer or a person who is able to design some materials for the company. Festivals and other events strongly rely on their visuals promotion. Therefore the Executive Director has to find a creative and reliable designer for his team. Ideally the person needs to be able to work fast, have lots of skills with Photoshop and be able to come up with designs from scratch. The designer’s job duties should include 1) logo design 2) profile pictures 3) cover videos 4) flyer design 5) poster design 6) artist and activities promotional designs 7) proposal PowerPoint design 8) drink list design 9) hard copy ticket design 10) other posts for Facebook designs. Since the designer won’t be working full time on these cases, he should be paid upon agreed flat fee of 10000NTD. This number is just a suggestion and should be negotiated with the designer based on the quantity of the designs.

4.1.2.5 Assistant Event Coordinator

In some cases the Executive Director might be too overloaded with the tasks he might need an additional team member. This could be a close friend or a family member that hard working and shares the same vision. The Assistant Event Coordinator should 1) help promote the event by putting up posters and distributing flyers in Tainan area 2) try to sell tickets in

Tainan area 3) prepare the event premises and 4) supervise the workers during the event.

4.1.2.6 Accountant

A local Certified Public Accountant needs be hired to help set up the company and to overlook the finances. He should ensure all the laws are being followed and that the right amount of taxes will be paid to the government after the event. He should be paid an upon agreed flat fee. The author suggests a fee of 5000nt per year. This person needs to have at least five years of experience as an Accountant and be able to speak fluent English so he can directly communicate with the Executive Director. He should not be part of the company, but he will still play an important role in running it.

4.1.2.7 Part Time Workers

Additionally to these positions, part time workers need be hired during the event to help with the execution. These part time workers should be recruited from nearby universities through Advertisements in their department Facebook groups. The part time workers should be divided in three groups during the event. One group should be located at the entrance and 1) welcome the attendees and artists, 2) check tickets as well as 3) check bags for prohibited objects like weapons, drugs and own drinks. Second group should be located behind the bar.

Their job should be to 1) receive deliveries, 2) set up the bar, 3) make and sell beverages and to 4) clean the premises after the event. Last group should be flexible workers, whose primary job will be to 1) monitor the safety of the attendees,2) making sure people don’t go to restricted areas and in some cases 3) assist other groups with tasks.

4.1.3 Customer Relationship Management

In case of having a question or an issue before the event, attendees should use

Facebook Messenger to message the management team. Admins of the page should only be the Executive Director and Assistant Event Director and so one of them should try to promptly answer the question. All questions should be answered politely and promptly, since

THHF should values its customers. If the user speaks English the Executive Director should

take care of it, however if the person only speaks Mandarin the Assistant Event Director should handle it. Additionally people can direct message the Instagram Account or email [email protected] to receive an answer in English directly from the Executive

Director. During the event the whole management team except the designer should serve as customer relationship staff. Hopefully there won’t be any problems, everything will run smoothly and customers will be very satisfied.

4.2 Marketing Plan

In this section the reader will be able to learn how to create a right marketing plan for a music festival in Taiwan. This knowledge can be also applied to promoting any other event.

4.2.1 Product

Taiwan Hip-Hop Festival should be a one day music festival dedicated to Hip-Hop music. It should be aimed to be held every year in one of the three major cities in Taiwan.

This event will be the first of a kind in Taiwan since it will be outdoors and combine other

Hip-Hop related activities as well.

The Festival: After purchasing the ticket through 3rd party provider or a PR person, the ticket holder should be eligible to enter the festival ground and be entitled to the following features. The person can stay on the festival premises from the opening time, which should be at 12pm until the closing time 11:30pm. The visitor can listen to all the shows from any place on the premises (except the VIP) he desires, since there will be no chairs and therefore no seating order. Besides enjoying live music performances, he should have the option to sign up for freestyle rap battles and have the chance to win a cash price of 3000ntd. Graffiti art is a huge part of Hip-Hop culture, therefore organizers should provide portable wood walls for graffiti artists. These artists should showcase their painting skills as well as teach the festival attendees free of charge about the street art and even let them try painting graffiti by

themselves. In order to satisfy basic human needs, the ticket holder can use portable toilets as many times he wishes free of charge. A unique feature of the festival should be the chance of interacting with the artists in person. The idea of the festival is to bring the fans closer to the artists. The artist should have a chance to sell their merchandise, take pictures and have conversations with the fans. Being so close to their idol, taking pictures with them as well as having a conversation will make it definitely unforgettable for the festivalgoers.

Aside from the free services mentioned above, the only additional fees will be the option to buy alcoholic and nonalcoholic beverages at the bar or get some food from the food vendor.

Advertising: THHF should aim to attract young adults, who are passionate about Hip-

Hop music. The demographic is very specific. This can be an interesting opportunity for brands that want to expose their products to this demographic or be affiliated with THHF brand. This can be a beverage producer, fashion brand, entertainment facility or another product or service, whose users are young adults. These sponsors should have the option to get their logos or products shown on diverse spots.

4.2.2 Price and Pricing Strategy

Setting the right price is very important in all business, as it affects the demand.

Pricing the event too high might make it unaffordable for some visitors and the visitors who will pay will have high expectations. However pricing the event too low, might result in people having low expectations and will think that it is not worth attending. As mentioned in the environment analysis, there are many different music festivals and music events in Taiwan.

The consumers are very knowledgeable and price sensitive. Also it is easy to compare price of other festivals or events through internet. Most of the festivals rely on ticket selling

distributors such as KKTIX, IBON or ACCUPASS. These distributors sell all kinds of tickets through e channels or through convenience stores.

Therefore THHF won’t be able to establish price by itself and will needs to adjust to the current market. Below is a table, which shows few related events prices. The data has been retrieved from the KKTIX webpage and Event Pages on Facebook. KKTIX was established in

2014 and sells tickets mainly to music concerts but also to: educational, networking, outdoor events as well as to exhibitions. The average price was calculated by averaging all General

Admission tickets Tiers. For example if the event offers three GA tiers: GA1 for 3600NTD

GA2 3800NTD GA3 4000NTD the average price for the ticket will be 3800 NTD.

Table 2: Competition Pricing

NAME EVENT TYPE AVERAGE 1 day GA TICKET PRICE Looptopia Music Festival 樂 EDM Festival 4400 NTD 托邦國際音樂季 2018 Creamsfield Taiwan 2018 EDM Festival 3900 NTD Road to Ultra 2017 EDM Festival 3800 NTD DreamMonster Music EDM Party 3550 NTD Festival 年獸音樂節 Arcadia 2017 EDM Party 3350 NTD 覺醒音樂祭覺醒音樂祭 Music Festival 1700 NTD (Three day pass) Wake Up Festival ON THE BEACH EDM Beach Festival 1500 NTD (Two day pass) Spring Scream 春天吶喊 Indie Music Festival 1400 NTD Spring WaveMusic and Art Pop Music Festival 1300 NTD Festival Megaport 大港開唱 Rock Music Festival 1200 NTD 山海屯搖滾祭 Rock Music Festival 1050 NTD Heartownrockfest Taiwan Taichill City Block Party Hip-Hop Party in Taichung 500 NTD 3/2/2018 Big House Tour 4/6/2017 Hip-Hop Party in Taipei 450 NTD 下港體制 / Shotgun system Hip-Hop Party in Kaohsiung 350 NTD

All the events could be categorized based on price range. As you can see the EDM

Festivals are the most expensive competitors. Their price ranges from 3000NTD up to

4500NTD. The organizers are charging high prices to cover the huge expenses for stages and international artists that can easily cost over millions.

In the second category you can find mostly Rock or Indie Music festivals. They are priced from 1000NTD to 1700NTD. The price is much smaller, since the organizers are not spending a fortune on stages and artists. They book mostly local artists and a few international headliners and sometimes don’t even pay some of the performers.

The last category consists of events priced below 1000NTD. They focus on Hip-Hop music only. However all the events in the third category are held in indoor music venues and usually just for few hours. They only provide few live shows and Djs and since it is held at live music houses the organizers don’t have to pay for stage. Therefore they can only charge maximum of 500 NTD.

Since Taiwan Hip-Hop Festival will be an outdoor full day event, it should be positioned in the second category. However since it is a first year event and held in Kaohsiung, where the purchasing power is considered lower, it should set its price low. From the analysis we suggest to offer a limited time Early Bird for 900NTD and then Pre Sale for 1000NTD. In order to encourage people to purchase tickets in advance ticket price at the door should be set much higher for example 1500NTD. We believe that this price will indicate that it is a good quality outdoor festival with many local artists and activities.

Choosing the right ticket distributor is a decision that the organizers need to make.

There are three main choices to choose from. First one is ACCUPASS, which focuses mainly on events related to guest speakers and seminars. However most of the music event organizers choose to sell their tickets through KKTIX and IBON in order to provide better customer service. IBONs advantage is that it cooperates with 7-11. Therefore users can buy the tickets through the machine in any 7-11 in Taiwan. If you plan to organize a big event, where you expect to sell more than 10000 tickets, you can print posters that will be distributed to every

7-11 in Taiwan. Also your event can be featured in their monthly event brochure.

Disadvantages of selling through IBON are high percentage cut from your revenue (7%) and long processing time for establishing the event (14days).

Probably the best option would be KKTX. Advantages of KKTIX are low processing time for establishing an event (2days) additionally it can be edited by yourself from a

computer. They are also charging a smaller percentage from the sales (6%) and provide an app which you can use to scan tickets at the event. KKTIX cooperates with Famiport, and if you pay additionally 1500nt, people can buy tickets at any Familymart through Famiport and pay cash instead of paying with credit card. Disadvantages of KKTIX are the lack of support with promotion. In order to be featured on their Homepage you need to be a long term partner and organize numerous events a year6.

Table 3: Ticket Intermediaries Comparison

KKTIX IBON

ADVANTAGES -only 5% cut - Tickets sold at 7-11 - available in Family Mart - Options with Promotion - Website & Store such as Posters & Flyers - fast set up of event - KKTIX APP - Customizable Registration Form DISADVANTAGES -Lack of Promotion Support -7% service charge - slow establishment of the event

Since KKTIX is widely known and offers reliable service as well as other benefits,

THHF tickets should be sold through KKTIX website and Famiport.

Additionally physical tickets should be printed and sold. These tickets should be distributed to trusted people, who will utilize their networks of friends and social media to sell tickets. In return they will be granted a 10% cut. This 10% should be enough to motivate them and drive ticket sales up.

6 KKTIX (n.d.). Retrieved from: https://kktix.com/pricing

4.2.2.1 Payment Methods

As mentioned in the section above, customers can either purchase the tickets from

KKTIX or from one of the trusted sellers. If the customer chooses to buy from KKTIX website, he will have to pay with a credit or debit card. Since some of our target audience doesn’t have credit cards, they should have the option to purchase the tickets from any Family

Mart. They just have to use the Famiport and select THHF through the KKTIX page and pay in cash. In exchange they will receive a hard copy ticket at the counter. If the buyer decides to get the ticket from the trusted seller, he will have to pay in cash. On the day of the event, tickets will be able to be purchased only by cash. In order to receive the payment from

KKTIX you have to fill out an application for funding in the Billing Section. This section is only available after five days of the event, and it will take KKTIX 7-15days to process the application and transfer the money to your account.

4.2.3 Promotion

Having a good promotion is crucial. People need to find out that there is an event happening on the set date. First time events are very difficult to promote, especially when it is organized by an unknown organizer. Even though you would be a world star celebrity, you need to work very hard on promotion.

Since THHF will be a new kind of event for the Taiwanese, it needs to focus on explaining clearly how it is different from the other music festivals in Taiwan. Nowadays there are many different options how to promote an event.

The ways of promoting the festival will depend on the budget. Therefore the author of this case study will provide two promotion plans A and B. Plan A is a basic and minimum promotion this event will need in order to receive enough exposure. Promotion plan B would be an ideal way of promoting and it includes all the elements from plan A as well.

Plan A: We live in the 21st century, where everything is digitalized and almost everyone uses social Medias daily. Therefore the main promotion tools THHF will use are a

Facebook Fanpage and an Instagram account. Since the target audience is young and technology savvy, it constantly uses these two most popular social networks. Both of them are free to establish and owned by the same company. So let’s look at them separately.

4.2.3.1 Facebook Fanpage

It is a very common for businesses to go on Facebook and promote themselves online.

There are many options what a Facebook user can create to promote its business. Some decide to create new Facebook Accounts or Groups. However the most effective and proper way to promote a business is to establish a Facebook Fanpage. Depending on your business type you will choose the type of Page that offers features you require. As I mentioned it is very easy and free to create a Fanpage. Once you give your page a name, you can start utilizing on all the features. You will also be asked to fill your business information such as contact info and your story. Facebook will allow you to create events, start a live video, write statuses, upload or share videos and photos. Amazing benefits of having a Facebook Fanpage are the statistics you are provided. These statistics will show you the amount of likes, post reaches, page previews and many more that you can use to improve your marketing. Everything sounds very simple, however to reach a lot of people on Facebook is very challenging and can take long time to build your page follower base. Even though you upload amazing content, the

Facebook algorithm, will only show it to a certain number of people. Of course the more followers and likes your page the more people you can reach with your posts.

Since having a Facebook page became a must for promoting, all the festivals use

Facebook to promote their events. Here is a table showing amount of likes each music

Festival has on Facebook as of April 4th 2018.

Table 4: Music Events Facebook Popularity Comparison

Facebook Page name EVENT TYPE Number of Likes on Facebook Looptopia Music Festival 樂 EDM Festival 85,556 托邦國際音樂季 Creamsfield Taiwan EDM Festival 11,210 Road to Ultra: Taiwan EDM Festival 79,996 DreamMonster Music EDM Party 13,763 Festival 年獸音樂節 Arcadia Taiwan EDM Party 26,446 覺醒音樂祭覺醒音樂祭 Music Festival 56,773 Wake Up Festival ON THE BEACH EDM Beach Party 10,706 Spring Scream 春天吶喊 Indie Music Festival 22,788 春浪音樂節 (Spring Pop Music Festival 250,193 WaveMusic and Art Festival) Megaport 大港開唱 Rock Music Festival 50,366 山海屯搖滾祭 Rock Music Festival 36,391 Heartownrockfest Taiwan Taichill City Block Party Hip-Hop Party in Taichung No FB Page since it is 3/2/2018 organized by a music label Big House Tour 4/6/2017 Hip-Hop Party in Taipei No FB Page since it is organized by a music group 下港體制 / Shotgun system Hip-Hop Party in Kaohsiung 1,806

As you can see the events are ordered from the most expensive to the least expensive.

The price of the ticket doesn’t affect the amount of fans on Facebook. Some of the festivals are quite new and some of them have been running for a many years. There is no evidence that the long running festivals have the biggest following. For example the festival with the highest number of likes the Spring Wave Music and Art Festival launched in 2006. On the second place is a newcomer “Looptopia Music Festival 樂托邦國際音樂季” which debuted in 2017. „Looptopia Music Festival 樂托邦國際音樂季“ has four times more fans than the longest running “Spring Scream 春天吶喊”. So why does „Looptopia Music Festival 樂托邦

國際音樂季“ have such a large following base? There are numerous reasons such as 1)

creating unique and interesting content and 2) using Facebook Ads to reach a wider audience

3) inviting most prominent artists in the EDM genre such as Martin Garrix, Dj Snake, Dimitri

Vegas etc. 4) numerous partnerships with large Facebook pages related to EDM that share

„Looptopia Music Festival 樂托邦國際音樂季“ content 5) large number of influencers who promote the festival and lastly 6) long established event planning company called The Loop.

„Looptopia Music Festival 樂托邦國際音樂季“ is a great example how a successful festival fan page should look like and serve as an role model. Since THHF probably won’t have a huge budget like „Looptopia Music Festival 樂托邦國際音樂季“ to invite famous artists and it also won’t have a well known company organizing it, THHF needs to focus on partnership with influencers in the industry and Facebook Ads.

The most powerful influencers in the Hip-Hop industry are the artists themselves. The artists should use their social media accounts and network of friends to promote THHF. It will spread the word about the festival more and bring more visitors to see their shows. There might be some issues with this way of promotion. Some of the artists might not feel obligated to promote a first time event with a new organizer they don’t have a relationship with. Some artists might be lazy or told by their record companies not to promote this event. In worst case artists that haven’t been invited or that didn’t reach a deal with the organizers might spread a negative word of mouth and discourage people of attending this event.

According to Statista.com as of February 2018, Facebook was the most Popular Social

Network in the world with 164million users followed by Instagram with 106 million users7.

Since the site is free, how can it be worth more than 451 Billion USD? The reason is that

7 Most popular mobile social networking apps in the United States as of February 2018, by monthly users (in millions)- Statista (n.d.). Retrieved from: https://www.statista.com/statistics/248074/most-popular-us-social-networking-apps-ranked-by-audience/

Facebook lets users advertise on the platform. With the help of Facebook Ads, Fanpages can reach more audience. For a certain amount, Facebook can target your target audience and increase your post reach, video views or Fanpage likes. The advertiser creates a post and then he can boost it, so more people will see it on their Facebook Timelines. Best part about it is that the user can specify their target audience and choose the appropriate budget for the campaign. The more you decide to spend on your promotion the extra reach you will receive.

When you are choosing the target audience, you can choose the age, the area, interests and other very specific demographic information about the users. This will ensure that only people you believe are interested in your event, will see the posts. Another great advantage of

Facebook Advertising is that it gives you an option to advertise the post on Instagram at the same time as well. However one disadvantage of Facebook Advertising is the 20% text rule.

The image or video you want to boost can only contain 20% of text. If the picture or video you want to boost is identified with more text than allowed, it will stop showing to the users.

Instagram doesn’t have this limitation, so although some of your pictures will be stopped advertising on Facebook, they will still show to Instagram users.

The name of the Facebook Fanpage should be: 台灣嘻哈音樂季 Taiwan Hip Hop

Festival, which is the Chinese translation of Taiwan Hip Hop Festival. It should make it easier for Taiwanese to find online. The profile picture should be the Logo with a background that can be linked to concerts or party. From May 2017 Facebook users including Fan pages can use videos as their cover photo. Since THHF won’t have any video footage of previous events it needs to be creative. It can upload a special animation where the logo, location and date will be displayed with music playing in the background. Next step should be creating a

Facebook event, write the description for it and invite as many people as possible.

At first it will be challenging to gain likes and reach, therefore just new Music Videos from Taiwanese artists should be posted. At the same time, Facebook Ads to get more likes

should be running. Once there will be a few hundred of followers, the admins can start releasing information about the festival such as Line Up, ticket prices and activities held during the event. All the posts should be bilingual and the pictures well designed.

Additionally all the messages and comments should be promptly replied. All the festival related posts such as artist’s announcements, ticket price announcements, video invitations or contests should be boosted for few hundred Taiwan dollars.

A great way how to increase engagement and reach is by contests. An excellent example is “ON THE BEACH”. Since the party is held on the beach in Kenting during Spring

Break holiday, they decided to give a large number of tickets free of charge away. Facebook users can upload a picture of themselves in bikinis to “ON THE BEACH” event page and if they receive a certain number of likes, they will be rewarded with a free ticket to the party.

The amount of likes required to get on the picture increases by the time getting closer to the event. Although the organizers give a large number of tickets away and lose potential revenue, they can still earn revenue from the beverages at the party. Most importantly they will get many visitors to their event pages and the event page since the bikini selfies will be shown on many users Timeline. Contests and giveaways should be a part of Facebook promotion. An idea could be where Facebook users have to guess artist silhouettes with a small hint. They will have to comment the right artists who will be performing at THHF and also share the pictures on their timeline. Once the given time will be up, the right solution and random selected winners should be announced. Another contest can be where Facebook users have to tag two of their friends under a post in order to win free tickets to the festival. In order to be fair winners should be randomly selected using third party apps like Woobox. After announcing the winners, proof of random selection of winners should be posted and winners should be notified by sending them a private message and tagging them in the post.

4.2.3.2 Facebook Event Page

One great tool of Facebook is creating an Event Page. Users can create an Event Page, upload cover photo, write a description and invite other users to participate. The invited users can see the event description, post shared inside the event by hosts and based on that decide if they will go, cannot go or if they are interested and continue getting notifications. Event name should be clear for example: “台灣嘻哈音樂季 Taiwan Hip Hop Festival”. It should provide clear information such as the location of the festival, exact time of the event, how to buy tickets, which artists will be performing and what other activities can they look forward to.

The more people will click going or interested the more likely other people will attend the event.

4.2.3.3 Instagram Account

Instagram is the second most popular social network based on the amount of users.

Compared to Facebook it is much simpler and only fully functional on cellphones. Users can upload and edit photos and videos up to 1minute long as well as send direct messages to each other. Besides that Instagram introduced IG stories, which is similar to Snapchat and Live video broadcast in 2017. Since Instagram is very easy to use many celebrities and companies use it to promote themselves.

The Instagram account name should be easy to find and remember. Therefore the name should be @taiwanhiphopfestival and should be categorized as festival. Instagram’s profiles are different from Facebook Fanpages because they don’t have cover photos or videos, event pages and review section. Every Instagram user can have a small circle profile picture,

150 character biography with one link, email address, and unlimited amount of 1minute videos and pictures on their profile. The profile picture should be same as on the Facebook

Fanpage. The sole purpose of Instagram account should be to share promotion pictures and videos related to THHF.

Huge advantage of both Facebook and Instagram are the statistical insights. They show how each post is performing, how many impression it has created and most importantly the demographic of the followers such as gender, age range, location as well as times when they are most active.

4.2.3.4 Posters and Flyers

Even in the age of digitalization, many promoters choose to use physical promotion utilities such as banners, ads on buses and subways, newspaper ads, posters, flyers and many more. Due to the low budget THHF cannot afford a lot of these. However printing 100 A1 size posters, and 2000 flyers shouldn’t break the bank.

Posters and Flyers should be identical and contain the most important information about the festival. The designer will have to make both of them visually appealing and informative. The information on the poster is pretty much standardized. Music festivals add logo, names of the artists that will perform, date of the event, venue, ticketing info as well as sponsors if the event has some. Sometimes promoters also add company organizing the event and pictures of the artists.

THHF posters and flyers should include pictures of the artists, name of the artists, logo, date, venue, list of activities at the festival, QR codes to Facebook event page, Facebook

Fanpage and KKTIX page as well as sentence stating that it is the first outdoor Hip-Hop

Festival in Taiwan. A sample poster can be found at the end of the case study as Appendix C.

After the posters will be put up, they have to catch the attentions, thus the size has to big. Ideal size of the poster would be A1, which is four times bigger than A3. These big posters will definitely be noticeable in the environment. Size of the flyers shouldn’t be too small, but also not too big so the people will keep it. Optimal size for a flyer, which will contain so much information, should be A5.

If you follow the author’s suggestion and you plan to host the first year event in

Kaohsiung, posters should be mainly distributed in Kaohsiung and Tainan area. Other cities in

Taiwan like Taichung or Taipei are too far to go and put up the posters. It is easier to just use the Facebook Ads to attract visitors from those cities. The 100 posters should be posted on busy locations and places where the target audience spends time, such as universities, night markets, shops, cafes and restaurants. People, who will the posters up, will be required to ask for the permission first from the owner in order to not vandalize somebody’s property. Flyers can be left at some Hip-Hop shops, but should be mainly handed out directly to the target audience at frequent public places such as the Ruifeng Night Market or Central Park area.

4.2.3.5 Webpage

Facebook can be a great tool to promote and share information. This information sometimes doesn’t reach the user due to the algorithm. A safe way how to share information is having a website. A website can be systematically ordered and contain much more information than Facebook. Therefore it is more like an information sharing tool than just promoting. There are few advantages such as creating your own design, add-ons like countdown to the festival, different pages for all kinds of information, accessible for everyone not just Facebook users and few others. However having a good website, takes a lot of time and money to establish. First of all you need to find a hosting server and free domain name.

Luckily the domain name taiwanhiphopfestival.tw was available at the time of writing this case study and with WordPress hosting costs 3000NTD a year. This is quite a sum for just a webpage and not sure if it is worth it. Next challenge will be to build the webpage. It takes lot of time setting up the menu, creating content, optimizing SEO, designing the webpage and making sure everything works and looks as it is supposed to be. The webpage should include a homepage and subpages such as: 1) Info with all the necessary information on how to get to the venue, what to bring, prohibited objects, rules and etc., 2) Line Up with full released Line

Up and time schedule, 3) Media with all the promotion videos and pictures being on one place.

The webpage can also serve for potential sponsors to contact the organizers, since it will provide email address and phone number. A sample layout proposal can be found at the end of this case study as Appendix F.

However not all music festivals have a webpage and if they do, they are very simple.

The best webpages have „Looptopia Music Festival 樂托邦國際音樂季“, “Road to Ultra

Taiwan” and “Megaport 大港開唱”. Here is a list of music festivals which have a webpage and rating based on the content, design, language options and accessibility on a scale of 1-10 with 10 being the best.

Table 5: Music Events Website Evaluation

NAME EVENT TYPE Webpage Rating

Looptopia Music EDM Festival https://looptopia.cc 10 Festival 樂托邦國際音樂季

Creamsfield Taiwan EDM Festival https://www.creamfields.tw/ 6 Road to Ultra EDM Festival https://taiwan.roadtoultra.com/ 8 Taiwan DreamMonster EDM Party NO PAGE 0 Music Festival 年獸音樂節 Arcadia Taiwan EDM Party http://www.arcadiaspectacular.com/ 7 only global brand page

覺醒音樂祭覺醒音 Music Festival http://www.wakeupfestival.com.tw/ 5 樂祭 Wake Up Festival ON THE BEACH EDM Beach NO PAGE 0 Party

Spring Scream 春天 Indie Music https://springscream.com/ 4 吶喊 Festival Spring WaveMusic Pop Music http://www.spring- 4

and Art Festival Festival wave.com/en/index.php Megaport 大港開唱 Rock Music http://www.megaportfest.com/ 9 Festival 山海屯搖滾祭 Rock Music NO PAGE 0 Heartownrockfest Festival Taiwan Taichill City Block Hip-Hop Party NO PAGE 0 Party 3/2/2018 in Taichung Big House Tour Hip-Hop Party NO PAGE 0 4/6/2017 in Taipei 下港體制 / Shotgun Hip-Hop Party NO PAGE 0 system in Kaohsiung

These 5 promotion tools are a must do for promoting a large scale event properly. Following are additional tools from plan B THHF could use to let more people know about the festival.

4.2.3.6 MRT station banners and MRT train ads

Kaohsiung Mass Rapid Transit System or also just called KMRT is a public transport system in Kaohsiung City. It has 37 stations and opened to public from 20088. According to the 2016 Kaohsiung Rapid Transit Corporation total ridership was over 63.10 million trips, which generated over 1524 million NTD in revenue9. As you can see thousands of people take the MRT every day, therefore a percentage of them are exposed to the ads. These ads at the

MRT stations and inside the MRT are managed by different advertisement agencies such as

FORESIGHT. This form of advertisement is very pricey and therefore just big companies use it. One LED panel at one busy MRT station costs approximately 185000NTD including production cost for a month. 30 Posters inside the MRT above the seats cost 63000NTD for one month including printing.

4.2.3.7 Mass Media Promotion

Probably the most effective way how to spread the word about THHF are the Mass medias such as TV, Newspapers and Radio. These medias are however also the most expensive and can cost millions NTD for airtime and so they are not worth it for a small sized new event. Big EDM festivals held in Taipei are reported by few Taiwan TV stations, due to the fact that they bring well known international acts and attract thousands of visitors. The

Medias also don’t trust a first year event, because they don’t want to be responsible if the event cheats or fails. They work with people who they trust and built a relationship.

4.3 Place

There are many factors that the success of the festival depends on and location is one of them. A great music festival needs a great and suitable location. The atmosphere of the location and venue has a strong link to visitor’s experience. The venue needs to be accessible,

8 What is Mass Rapid Transportation – KMRT (n.d.). Retrieved from: http://mtbu.kcg.gov.tw/english/intro.php 9 2016 Anual Report – KRTCO (n.d.) Retrieved from: http://www.krtco.com.tw/about_us/2016AnnualReport.pdf 33

safe, large enough to fit the expected attendance and equipped with basic needs such as toilets, water, shelter, food. Also a venue of the festival needs to be the right distance from visitor’s home; otherwise it can affect the attendance. If the festival plans to continue after 10pm, it needs to make sure it won’t disturb the residents living nearby.

Even though most of the festivals in Europe and USA last till the early morning, all the outdoor festivals in Taiwan finish before 10pm in order not to violate the regulations.

Following the 2015 accident in New Taipei, where more than 200people were severely burned due to poor organization skills, the government imposed strict rules for festival organizers and limited holding events to a small number of outdoor locations10. If somebody wants to organize an outdoor event with capacity over 1000 visitors, it can be held only at the

Dajia Riverpark. Kaohsiung only hosts the “Megaport 大港開唱” festival in March at the Pier

2 Art Center in Yanchengpu District. A suitable venue for THHF would be in north of

Kaohsiung located old Sugar Factory. This Sugar Factory in the Ciaotou district operated from 1902-1999 and was later turned into a museum. It is daily visited by hundreds of tourists that admire the old buildings, landscape and enjoy the peaceful atmosphere.

This venue is owned and managed by the government, so the organizers will have to fill out a lot of paperwork and obey the bureaucracy, but on the other hand can rent it for cheap since the government is not as greedy as private landowners. The whole factory area is very spacious, so only a part of it should be rented for the festival. It can accommodate few thousands of visitors. Unlike the Dajia River Park venue in Taipei, where it is just a green field by the river, Ciatou Sugar Factory has interesting buildings, few toilets and fences around. This is a great advantage since a lot of money can be saved on decorating the venue

10 More than 200 people are set on fire at Taiwan water park after colored powder sprayed onto crowd ignites during show – Daily Mail (29.5.2015) Retrieved from: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3141668/More- 200-people-badly-hurt-explosion-Taiwan-amusement-park-coloured-powder-sprayed-crowd-ignites.html 34

and making sure people sneak in without paying the admission fee. There are still entrances that will have to be blocked and part time workers will have to monitor.

An advantage or disadvantage can be the location. It is located little bit far from the city center and resident area. This allows the event to continue till late hours even excess the

10pm curfew and let people catch the last MRT train at midnight. However the location is very accessible with public transportations. The Sugar Factory is right next to the Ciatou

Sugar Refinery MRT station. It takes approximately 30minutes MRT ride to get there from

Central Park MRT station. This should promote environmental transportation and responsibility, since people shouldn’t drink and drive. For those who will drive their cars or scooter there is a large free of charge parking spot. Besides having MRT access, the venue is located walking distance from Ciatou train station, allowing visitors from other cities such as

Chiayi and Tainan to also comfortably attend the event. Similar to the MRT, the last train leaves Ciatou at midnight. Visitors can also directly arrive with busses number: 8506, E08,

I71C, 98C, 8041C, 98A, E08A, 8049, 8040, 8041B

In the following table you can see the advantage and disadvantages of having the

Ciatou Sugar Factory as the venue for the first Taiwan Hip-Hop Festival. As you can see there are many advantages and disadvantages to hosting the festival in Ciatou, but there are not many options in Kaohsiung.

Table 6: Advantages and Disadvantages of the Venue

Advantages Disadvantages Rent is relatively cheap (12000NTD for three Kaohsiung people spend less money on day) entertainment Accessible with public transportation (bus, Hip-Hop scene is much smaller in Kaohsiung MRT, train) than Taipei Large free parking Venue belongs to Government and so need to follow many rules Historical Venue Visitors might consider it far from the city Spacious Unfamiliar to visitors Low cost for securing the venue If the amount of people is too low, it will look empty No Noise Limit Hire part time workers to secure secret entries Undiscovered by festival goers Since it is outdoor venue, will have to spend a lot of money on stage, sound and lights Picturesque venue

4.4 Target Market

Since the event name is Taiwan Hip-Hop Festival, the target market for it will be citizens living in Taiwan. Hopefully in the future the event will grow bigger and will have finances to attract big international headliners and Hip-Hop lovers from other countries.

Visitors that will come to THHF will be mostly Taiwanese, due to the fact that the artists will use Mandarin to perform. However there are numerous foreigners that are able to understand

Mandarin music and love Hip-Hop, as well as foreigners that will want to see the foreign acts perform, might show up at the festival. Mostly it will be Taiwanese people who listen to Hip-

Hop music and are from Kaohsiung or Tainan. Festivals like “Road to Ultra Taiwan” and

„Looptopia Music Festival 樂托邦國際音樂季“ indicate with their attendance that there are thousands of people willing to spend few thousands Taiwanese dollars on a one day ticket.

These people however go to EDM festivals in Taipei and therefore it cannot be estimated how many of them would come to THHF. Hip-Hop music especially Trap subgenre attracts mostly younger generations. Not everyone can listen and understand the meaning of the lyrics.

For example a junior high school student, will not be able to fully understand the topics described in the songs. Therefore he will probably not be a fan yet. Usually High School students start to listen to this genre full of explicit lyrics about rich lifestyles, social issues and other diverse topics. During the festival alcohol beverages will be served and in order not to violate any law, event will be accessible only for people over 18 years. With these specifications, we can define a very clear target markets and other minor markets.

Table 7: Target Segmentation

Hip-Hop supporter Festival Goer & Foreign national Party People Age: 18-30 years 18-30 years 18- 22 years Location: Kaohsiung, Tainan Kaohsiung Kaohsiung Occupation: Student, Low level Student, Low level Student job job Music genre: Hip-Hop EDM, Hip-Hop Hip-Hop Motivation to attend: See live Hip-Hop Experience a new Support own country shows, meet his music festival, have a artist performing in a idols, support Hip- good time with foreign country, Hop community friends, get experience entertained Taiwanese music festival Likelihood of Very high Medium Low attending THHF

A potential ticket buyer could be described as following. A young adult in his early twenties, studying at a university in Kaohsiung, but has a part time job in a convenience store or tea shop. In his free time he plays basketball, video games and listens to Hip-Hop. His favorite artists are mainstream rappers like MJ116, MC Hotdog, Soft Lipa, Miss Ko, but sometimes listens to less famous rappers like YZ, BG8locc, Raco G and Finesseboy. Once a month, he will go out with a small group of his friends to party either at a Nightclub or will attend Mr. Skins Shotgun system party. From time to time, he will purchase new expensive clothes or shoes from Central Park. He is active on Facebook, Instagram, Line and also participates on PTT forum.

As mentioned in the paragraph about Facebook advertising, Facebook enables you to fill out the target audience; you want your boosted posts to show. Here is a potential audience setting for Facebook Advertisement. Both male and female gender should be selected. Age of the audience should be 18-26 years old. Location could be either Taiwan, or just major cities in Taiwan or only Kaohsiung. Facebook users should have shown interest or liked pages related to: Hip-Hop Music, Parties, Concerts, Music Festivals, Ultra Music Festival, Rapping,

Livemusic, Hip-Hop, Graffiti, Freestyle Rap, Festivals, Entertainment as well as like artists such as MC Jin, MC Hotdog and Mj116.

4.5 Branding

This section will introduce some ideas, the organizer could implement when creating a brand for the music festival.

4.5.1 Slogan

Unlike businesses, festivals usually don’t have slogans. Only thing that THHF should emphasize and how it should attract people is by stating that it is the: “First Outdoor Hip-Hop

Festival in Taiwan”. This sentence clearly states what type of event THHF will be. After reading this sentence people will know four main things about THHF: 1) it is the first which means that there was nothing like this here before 2) that it is an outdoor music festival 3) there will be exclusively only Hip-Hop music played 4) the festival will be held in Taiwan

4.5.2 Logo

Having a logo is a must for any business or a brand. A Slovakian graphic designer living in Taiwan and working under the name BDesign Borovicka was hired to come up with and proposed design the THHF logo. This logo should be placed everywhere on business cards, posters, flyers, contracts, profile pictures, cover photos, event webpage and hopefully merchandise.

When you look at the proposed THHF logo you realize many features and details.

First thing you realize are the four letters THHF. THHF is an acronym and it stands for

Taiwan Hip-Hop Festival. The font is very bold and sharp. Some observes might even think the second H looks like a 1 (one), due to the fact that it is cut at the top. In the middle of the

THHF you can see a sun. This is not just any picture of the sun, but it is the same sun as in the

Taiwanese flag. According to World Atlas the Taiwanese flag was established in 192811. It consists of the KMT party flag and red part of the flag to represent the Han Dynasty. THHF shouldn’t be affiliated with any political party, but it should just represent Taiwan. Foreigners, who are not familiar with the Taiwanese flag, might think the sun represents outdoors. To add a shape to the logo, four arches have been added. Between the arches you can find the full name of the event. In the top part it says: “Taiwan Hip-Hop Festival” and at the bottom the

Chinese translation: “台灣嘻哈音樂季”.

11 Taiwan Flag and Description - World Atlas (n.d.). Retrieved from: https://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/flags/countrys/asia/taiwan.htm

This logo has a few other advantages. It is made using vector technique, so the size can be easily changed without losing the quality. Second the logo can easily change the color in order to adapt to the material it will be put on. Hip Hop Zije, an annual Slovakian Hip-Hop festival changes its color every year. For example attendees will remember that in year 2015 it was blue and in 2017 it was red etc. THHF can copy the idea and change the whole color of it every year. The proposed logo and its color variations can be found at the end of this case study as Appendix B. Third in png format, it can be easily put on any background. Lastly in case there is no space for the square logo, just the text saying THHF with the sun can be used as a variation of the logo.

4.5.3 Hashtags

Hashtags group certain keywords or phrases, allowing people to follow and engage with topics they’re interested on Social Medias like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and even

Pinterest uses hashtags to make it easier for users to find relevant content12. If you search for example for #taiwan you will find all pictures or videos that people tagged and think are related to Taiwan. Events usually use hashtags to see what content users are uploading related to the event. Therefore it would be smart to follow this trend and utilize this free feature.

Hashtags should be unique and relevant. The most relevant hashtags for THHF would be

#THHF #taiwanhiphopfestival #台灣嘻哈音樂季. The organizing team, artists, users can use this hashtag and then have a look what else has been posted with the same hashtag. This hashtags should be used consistently and people should know about them. The second and third proposed hashtag is unique for our event, however people have been and are using

#THHF. Besides many different meanings, THHF also stands for the Tuscon Hip-Hop

12How to Use Hashtags Before, During, and After Your Event – Eventbrite (29.7.2017). Retrieved from: https://www.eventbrite.com/blog/how-to-use-hashtags-for-your-event-ds00/

Festival, which is also an annual Hip-Hop festival. This festival is a small festival run in

Texas, USA.

4.5.4 Red Solo Cups

A unique part about THHF can be the disposable cups. Festival organizers usually use cheap non branded plastic cups or special sponsor branded cups. However THHF should try to be different and provide additional value to its attendees. It is well known fact that festival goers and party people like to show off with their lifestyle by posting pictures and videos on their social media. Therefore the THHF organizers should provide iconic red solo cups, which can be seen at American college parties. These red solo cups, should have a THHF logo sticker on it. This will ensure that the logo will be visible on the cup and therefore people who will see this picture will know it is from Taiwan Hip-Hop festival. In order to get the red solo cup, THHF attendees will have to purchase a mixed drink at the bar. As a bonus people can take the cup home and keep it as a memory of the greatest night of their life.

4.6 Finances

In the following section, you will have the opportunity to find out about THHFs budget and Break-even Analysis. Since the event is run differently than businesses, this case study will not include a balance sheet. The company will not own any assets and therefore a balance sheet cannot be created.

4.6.1 Budget

After extensive research, THHF budget has been estimated to be around 580400 NTD.

This proposed budget is just a suggestion. Stage companies, catering companies, artists, booking managers, accountants, photographers and videographers were asked for quotations per email or Facebook Messenger. The Executive Director can decide on the size of the

budget depending on his financial situation. You can find the budget at the end of this case study as Appendix E. As you can see the THHF Budget is divided in six sections.

1) Entertainment: In this section you can find the show fees for all the performing

artists such as Djs, rappers and the hosts. Also the fee for the rap battle, which

includes the Dj, two hosts and price for the winner. Since the graffiti activity should be

supported by sponsors, only the materials for the graffiti wall have to be covered by

the organizers. In total 191000 NTD should be paid. Some of the fees should be paid

before, some on the date and some two weeks after the event depending on the cash

flow of the event.

2) Staff: This section includes all the workers that will contribute to the event except the

CPA and the designer. As you can see there are two types of part time workers. One

type is paid per day and one per hour. In case of not needing the part time workers

they can be simply paid out in cash and sent home. It also includes three months of

salary for the Executive Event Director and pay for both photographer and

videographer. The fees should be paid out few days after the event to the workers and

once the pictures and videos are delivered. The salary to the Executive Event Director

should be paid monthly.

3) Hardware: Third section is dedicated to hardware. This includes the stage, lightning,

sound, power generator, tents, tables, chairs, banners, Dj equipment and portable

toilets. The easiest way is to find one suitable event planning company that can

provide all these things. Since the whole section will have to be paid to one event

planning company, the money can be paid once the KKTIX revenue comes in.

4) Venue: The venue fee of 12000 NTD covers three day rental of a selected section at

the Ciatou Sugar Factory and should to be paid one day before the event. Additionally

to the rental fee a deposit of 30000 NTD should be paid. However this deposit should

be returned once the venue has been cleaned.

5) Marketing: The whole marketing section will have to be paid before the event. It

includes fees for all the promotion material printings, social media ads, production of

promotion videos and designers salary.

6) Company Expenses: Last section is dedicated to company expenses. To set up a

company a CPA should be hired and paid 5000nt. Also a one year contract for rent

will be signed. Rent can be paid quarterly or monthly, depending on the contract with

the landlord.

These were all the important expenses for the festival. Since we cannot estimate the demand, we cannot calculate how much money will be needed for the bar inventory. We can expect that additional 40000NTD will have to be set aside to buy the bar inventory such as alcohol, soft drinks, equipment, red solo cups and ice. In case of not selling out all the inventory, it can be brought back to the store and refunded.

4.6.2 Artists Selection

One of the most challenging tasks festival organizers face is the booking of the Line

Up. If you have a look at any festival poster, you will realize that some names are written in big fonts and some in small. The ones written in big are the headliners, the most famous acts at the event. Some festivals can spend millions of dollars on the headliners. Usually a Line Up consists of few local acts, few upcoming artists and one or two headliners. The headliners always perform as the last act, since most of the people want to see them and there is the risk of the audience leaving the event after the headliners show. The organizers have to balance the artist’s budget. They cannot spend all their money on one headliner and then don’t have any money left for the upcoming acts.

Here is how the THHF should decide on which artists to book and how much to spend on them. Artists can be categorized by many different things, like genre, popularity, country of origin or whether he is signed to a record company or is independent. If an artist is signed to a record company or has an agent, it is less like to get a good price and negotiate. To find out the market prices for various artists you should inquire the show fees through emails,

Facebook or phone calls. One way to analyze the popularity of an artist could be looking at their Facebook or Instagram follower base. A high amount of followers could mean a high popularity. However this hypothesis might not be true, because some artists might not use

Facebook to promote themselves, some might buy likes or use a lot of Facebook Ads. In order to get a brief idea of the popularity, it should be enough. After collecting enough data, we can make a rational decision.

Here is a table of selected Taiwanese Hip-Hop artists, their prices and show length.

Table 8: Artist Popularity and Show Fee Analysis

Show Fee in Name Label FB follower amount Show Length NTD 玖壹壹 Ainoko 1.113.647 20 890000 Miss Ko Universal 525.315 45 350000 Dizzi Dizzo Agent 335.921 30 180000 J.Sheon AixEntertainment 160.270 20 120000 187Inc Ainoko 571.13 20 80000 Barry Chen HowWeROll 26.748 60 65000 Ozi Agent 50.462 20 60000 Dwagie KungFuEnt 308.776 45 50000 Shongzan KungFuEnt 140.252 30 50000 Tipsy Agent 10.491 20 50000 YZ 35.617 30 20000 婁峻碩 SHOU MillionsEnt. 43.521 30 20000 Dallas Waldo Agent 33.458 30 15000 Raco G 1.870 20 12000 BG8Locc 18.643 15 10000 FinesseBoy Agent 3.092 15 10000 JayRoll Brainzapp 2.907 30 10000 Peatle Brainzapp 9.010 30 10000 Sowut 6.205 30 10000 Zenbo OnStudio 4.648 20 6000 DrunkCrown Agent 360 20 6000 Gil G Agent 18.800 15 5000 LazyboyGang 2.000 15 2000 NewBounce 1.000 15 0 Total: 2883378 likes 625 minutes 2031000

As you can see from the Table, artist without agent are less expensive than artists with agents or music labels. For example YZ has bigger follower base than Barry Chen or Tipsy and is charging less for his performance. You can also see that some artists like DrunkCrown, who have only 360 likes on their Facebook Fanpage are trying to overcharge. Therefore these artists shouldn’t be booked, because for that money, somebody with greater following base can be booked. Gil G a 17 year old female rapper from Kaohsiung, has a large a following on

Instagram of 18800 followers and is willing to perform for 20 minutes for just 5000. This can

be considered as a good deal. Since the festival might be fully funded by the Executive

Director the first year, there is no way artists who cost more than 50000ntd for a 20minutes show will be booked.

The festival should last from 12:30pm-11:30pm, which is 11 hours (660minutes).

There should be three one hour Djs sets and also rap battle for two hours. 660 (total time) – 90

(3 Dj sets) – 120 (rap battles) – 100 (short breaks with Dj music between the shows) = 320 minutes of shows. The artists should either perform for 30, 20 or 15 minutes. We could fill the show with 6 *30minutes shows, 4*20minutes shows and 4*15minutes shows.

The following table proposes the artists, which should be booked for the festival.

Reason for booking these artists are affordability, easiness to deal with, appropriate price

(balance between popularity, show length and show fee). You can find the proposed run down at the end of the thesis as Appendix D.

Table 9: Final Line Up Fees and Length

Fee in Show Name NTD Length YZ + BG8LOC 30000 45 Ginjin 25000 20 Shou 20000 30 Dallas 15000 30 Raco G 12000 20 Peatle 10000 30 JayRoll 10000 30 Finesseboy 10000 15 Sowut 10000 30 Dj Boyyaa 8000 60 Zenbo 6000 20 Gil G 5000 20 Dj Noirs 5000 100 MC Reddog 3000 100 LazyBoy Gang 2000 15

Dj Nathan 2000 60 Dj Loris 2000 60 NewBounce 0 15 Total: 175000

4.6.3 Break-even Analysis

According to Business Dictionary Break-even point is a point in time (or in number of units sold) when forecasted revenue exactly equals the estimated total costs; where loss ends and profit begins to accumulate13. This is the point at which a business, product, or project becomes financially viable.

There should be two waves of tickets the Early Bird for 900 NTD and the General

Admission for 1000NTD. In order to make it easier to calculate the break-even point, we averaged the ticket price to 950NTD per person. In the budget section, costs of 580400NTD have been estimated.

Average Ticket Price: 950NTD/ticket

Expenses: 580400NTD

The formula to calculate the Break Even Point is as following:

If we insert the values in the formula we will find out that 611 tickets will have to be sold in order not to lose money on this evet.

13 Break Even Point – BusinessDictionary (n.d.) Retrieved from: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/breakeven-point.html 47

This is however not the exact breakeven point, since there will be other streams of revenue which cannot be predicted such as rental of space for caterers, sponsoring and bar revenue.

4.7 Critical Risks and Problems

One disadvantage of events is that it can be very easily copied. It doesn’t require years of Research and Development. Basically anyone can just attend an event, analyze it and copy the parts they like. Therefore there are many events that are very similar and only extinguish themselves with small things. There are also many other risks involved.

Steve Robbins wrote an article on Entrepreneur.com about 5 risk categories. They are as followed: Product Risk, Market Risk, Human Capital Risk, Competitive Risk, and Financial

Risk14. So let’s analyze all the risks.

1) Product Risk: Taiwan Hip-Hop Festival should be an event that aims to attract

hundreds of Hip-Hop lovers. Since there are no similar events like this before, people

might have different expectations. Based on these expectations they will be satisfied or

dissatisfied. There is the risk that after THHF people might be very dissatisfied

because they were expecting international celebrities, more people, better food or

something else. This dissatisfaction can lead to negative word of mouth and destroying

THHF’s reputation. The safety of the attendees is another huge risk. Some intoxicated

attendees might hurt themselves or destroy the property. There must be rules

implemented, such as no guns allowed on the premises, no destroying the property.

Also the bartenders won’t serve alcohol to already drunk customers in order to prevent

accidents.

14 Business Plan Risks – Entrepreneur (11.12.2004). Retrieved from: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/49042

2) Market Risk: THHF will be the first outdoor Hip-Hop festival in Taiwan. There are

many other Hip-Hop activities from small scale club shows to few thousand visitor

indoor concerts. One could wonder, why has nobody organized an outdoor Hip-Hop

festival before in Taiwan? Therefore there is the market risk of market not be large

enough or not ready for such an event.

3) Human Capital Risk: Working with people is risky and challenging. Some people

disobey the orders and are extremely lazy or incompetent. Since the Executive

Director doesn’t speak Mandarin and needs a local assistant he needs to choose

somebody who has experience and has time to help. Choosing the wrong assistant can

be crucial for the events success. If the assistant will not perform the assigned tasks or

will not get any sponsoring it can bring the festival to a huge danger. It doesn’t stop

with just the assistant, all the staff needs to perform well and avoid making any

mistakes. Photographer and Videographer need to be chosen carefully. Their previous

work needs to be checked and evaluated if they can perform their job well. The artists

could also be counted as Human Capital since they will be hired to entertain the

attendees. If they don’t show up to their show or get hurt, THHF organizers will be

blamed.

4) Financial Risk: Organizing an event is a gamble. You can either win or lose. The

organizers of this festival will be facing a huge risk. If the event won’t generate

enough revenue to cover the costs, they will have to pay for the difference with their

own money.

5) Competitive Risk: If THHF succeeds or if it will sparkle an interest in an investor or

other organizer, he can very easily book an outdoor or indoor venue as well as get a

full Hip-Hop Line Up and copy THHF. As it was mentioned before events are very

easily copied. So there is a huge risk of being the first mover in this market and then

being copied. If a different investor will spend more money on better artists or get a

better venue or better advertising, it can be more successful than THHF. This will hurt

very badly to the future demand of THHF.

4.8 Exit Strategies

In case of total failure or lose of interest in organizing another event the Executive

Director will have the following options for exit strategies.

1) The most favored exit strategy would be Licensing the organizing of the festival. An

event planning company or the government can for a fee borrow the brand and

knowhow of the organizer in order to organize the next THHF. However the

Executive Director will still supervise the event and make sure it follows his mission

and vision. After end of the contract the brand will be returned back to the owner.

2) Second most favorable exit strategy would be Selling. For a fixed fee a buyer can

purchase all the assets, brand and knowhow from the Executive Director. The buyer

will be fully responsible for the future of THHF.

3) Third option is Liquidation. The few assets the company owns will be sold and the

company will be closed.

4) Last option is to Quit. The owner will settle all the debt, close the company and keep

the few assets as a sad memory of his failure.

5. Conclusion

The author of this case study is confident that after following recommendations the event can become a huge success among the Taiwanese Hip-Hop lovers. He believes that after the Chinese TV show “Rap of China”, more and more people are interested and this genre and that the Hip-Hop market will be growing sustainably in the future. After extensive research the author was able to answer all the questions regarding the marketing, management and finances. This knowledge should help the interested reader to organize a successful event.

However this know how is not enough. The Executive Director has to be very confident, hardworking, dedicated and disciplined.

Taiwan Hip-Hop Festival has enormous potential to be one of the most visited outdoor festivals in Taiwan. Customers should perceive THHF as “innovative” event in the festival industry, with fun activities, amazing atmosphere, low price and professional performers.

Depending on the first event, THHF should decide about the future. If the event will lose a large amount of capital and the Executive Director won’t be able to get funding for the next event there shouldn’t be another THHF. However if the event will attract large amount of people and generate profit there are great possibilities for its growth since it is the only outdoor Hip-Hop festival in Taiwan. Here are some additional services or changes the

Executive Director could implement in the future.

1) Location: The Executive Director could change the location of the festival from

Kaohsiung to Taipei. The biggest festivals are all held in Taipei due to the larger

population and bigger spending power. This will allow the organizers to attract more

people, charge more money for the ticket as well as reduce the cost for artist’s

transportation. If the festival gets very popular around Taiwan, there is the option of

holding it twice a year, one in Taipei and one in Kaohsiung.

2) Artist Line Up: In the section about how to choose the appropriate artists for the Line

Up, the organizers had to choose the less expensive ones. If the budget will allow it,

booking more popular artists will bring more attendees and increase the popularity of

the festival. Ideally would be if for the second year the organizers could book a

famous international act.

3) Promotion: If there will be budget restrictions THHF should only be promoted with

the help of social media, posters and flyers. However in order to grow there will be

need for more marketing. News coverages, articles in newspapers, ads on MRTs and

busses, radio skits and many more could be used to promote THHF and make it well

known among the Taiwanese people.

4) Activities: Besides the live rap shows, there will be rap battles and a graffiti jam

during the first year. However Hip-Hop culture is much larger. Therefore THHF

should include more activities related to Hip-Hop culture such as basketball, break

dancing, fashion show, lectures and movie screenings. The more activities will be

included the more fun will the attendees have.

5) Merchandise: A high profit product artists sell is their merchandise. Once the brand

awareness will increase and there will be more capital for the event, the designer

should design some merchandise. T-shirts, hoodies, cups, hats, towels and many more

can generate extra revenue as well as serve as free advertising.

6) Team: The first event is expected to host a few hundred attendees, but the following

year hopefully one to two thousand people. In order to plan and execute all the tasks a

larger and more professional team will be required.

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http://www.krtco.com.tw/about_us/2016AnnualReport.pdf

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island-of-festivals-exciting-music-events-around-taiwan/

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for-your-event-ds00/

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https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Mainstream%20music

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ranked-by-audience/

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crowd ignites during show – Daily Mail (29.5.2015) Retrieved June 6, 2018 from

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3141668/More-200-people-badly-hurt-

explosion Taiwan-amusement-park-coloured-powder-sprayed-crowd-ignites.html

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culture/article/1197214/spring-scream-music-festival-something-shout-about

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http://mtbu.kcg.gov.tw/english/intro.php

7. Appendix All the Appendixes are intellectual property of the author of this case study.

7.1 Appendix A – Facebook Page Layout

7.2 Appendix B- Logo Color Variations

7.3 Appendix C – Poster & Flyer Design

7.4 Appendix D- Proposed Rundown

7.4 Appendix E- Proposed Budget

7.5 Appendix F- Website Design