Event management individual assignment- The Lion King, the landmark musical event
1) Introduction
The Lion King musical, a 15-year-old Broadway musical adapted from one of Disney’s most popular cartoon, have come alive. It is the internationally-acclaimed landmark musical event, based on the Disney classic beloved by many, which made its Southeast Asian premiere in Singapore at the new Marina Bay Sand (MBS), Sands Theatre this March. The Lion King has won six Tony Awards in 1998, for Best Musical, Best Director of a Musical, Best Choreography, Best Scenic Design, Best Costume Design and Best Lighting Design, and has won over 70 major international theatre awards. Set against the majesty of the Serengeti Plains to the evocative rhythms of Africa, and brilliantly re-imagined, Disney’s beloved film has been transformed into a spectacular theatrical experience. The stage explodes with glorious colours, stunning effects and enchanting music including Elton John and Tim Rice’s Academy Award-winning ‘Can You Feel The Love Tonight’. At its heart is the powerful and moving story of Simba — the epic adventure of his journey from wide-eyed cub to his destined role as King of the Pride Lands.
The Lion King follows the adventures of a lion cub, Simba, who is driven into exile after his father, Mufasa the King, who was brutally murdered by his heinous brother. The brother, Scar, becomes King and terrorises the lands into the despair. Meanwhile, Simba escapes into the jungle, where he befriends Timon, a wisecracking meercat, and Pumbaa, a big-hearted warthog. As Simba grows from wide-eyed cub into a strong young lion, he finds himself struggling with the responsibilities of manhood and his future role and birthright as King. Eventually, he returns to overthrow his wicked uncle, Scar, and reclaims the kingdom, restoring peace and joy to the Pride Lands and all its inhabitants.
The Lion King follows the adventures of a lion cub, Simba, who is driven into exile after his father, Mufasa the King, who was brutally murdered by his heinous brother. The brother, Scar, becomes King and terrorises the lands into the despair. Meanwhile, Simba escapes into the jungle, where he befriends Timon, a wisecracking meercat, and Pumbaa, a big-hearted warthog. As Simba grows from wide-eyed cub into a strong young lion, he finds himself struggling with the responsibilities of manhood and his future role and birthright as King. Eventually, he returns to overthrow his wicked uncle, Scar, and reclaims the kingdom, restoring peace and joy to the Pride Lands and all its inhabitants.
2) Characteristics of Lion King
The Lion King Musical is a type of a special short term event which operates only for the month of June and July, every day except for Monday, at 8pm for a weekday’s show and a 2pm and 8pm for a weekend show. This event is also open to public whereby people come together for a common purpose, to act as a spectator or audience for leisure purposes and enjoy the classical musical which has been around for 13 years and just recently made its debut in a Southeast Asia country, Singapore. The Lion King Musical is classified under a major event as it is capable by scale and media interest, of attracting significant visitor numbers, media coverage and economic benefits.
3) Environment and venue
The musical was held at the Sands theatre of The Marina Bay Sands. Marina Bay Sands has 2 theatres, the Grand theatre and the Sands theatre. The extravagant interiors of the Sands Theatre and The Grand Theatre are based on traditional proscenium theatres, designed to provide a good view no matter where one sits. Both theatres boast state-of-the-art acoustics, plush seats and the latest lighting equipment, and aim to deliver the ultimate in theatrical experience.
The reason for the musical being chosen to perform at the Sands Theatre, even though it contain lesser audience compared to the Grand Theatre (1,600 seats and 2,100 seats respectively), was that the lightings, acoustics and seating arrangement of the Sands theatre suited Broadway performances. The characters entered from the different doors during the start of the musical amazed the audiences. Audiences like us were bewildered by how close and real the characters look like. Despite being seated at the dress circle, we were still able to enjoy their performances.
The seating plan of the sands theatre was split onto 3 different areas; the stand, the dress circle, and the upper dress circle with 3 floors, whereby the price varies on the area. For example, the area nearest to the stage, known as Platinum seat, was sold at $240. The second closest area from the stage, known as A Reserve, was sold at $165. The remainder areas known as B Reserve, C Reserve, D Reserve and E Reserve are all sold at $125, $85 and $65 respectively.
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At the entrance of the theatre, security bag check! |
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We have reached the theatres! A huge crowd gathered outside the theatre. |
When we went there, we were surprised by the huge crowd, with age ranges from maybe a 5-year-old child to a 70-year-old grandparents, even 30 minutes before the show started. We have also heard that many eager fans went in 1 hour before the show started. The excitement built up from these people excited us even more.
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Xinyi and I (right to left) at the entrance of the theatre, excited before going in |
4) Programming
As mentioned earlier, the musical operates from Tuesday to Sunday; 8pm show on the weekdays which ends slightly before 11pm and with 2 intervals, 20 minutes each, while there is 2 slots on a Saturday and Sunday show, 2pm and 8pm show with a similar structure as the weekday show. It is known that Monday is their off day.
The use of local kid, 11-year-old Singaporean, Nicholas Papayoanou, as the young Simba and Nala was another bond connecting the show to the audience. Attempted use of singlish by some of the cast brought the quick witted audience to burst into laughter. Applaud to the crews who have put in efforts to blend the Singaporean culture with their South-African based story.
Impressed faces were shown all over the faces of these audiences at the end of the show. Unfortunately, we were unable to meet the cast backstage due to copyright issues by Disney which even banned us from taking photos in the theatre. Despite, that we were able to catch up with some part-timers there, who were kind enough to share some information about the different functions of the show.
5) Manpower allocation
The manpower is mainly split into 2 areas, the front-of-the-house and the back-of-the-house. The people working in the back-of-the-house have different responsibilities. One of the minor responsibilities is to distribute food and to the workers and users working for the event to replenish up. The major responsibility of the back-of-the-house operation is to handle the logistics of loading the equipments and do stocktaking. These equipments include props, lighting, make-up tools, styling tools and lighting equipments.
The front-of-the-house includes the 150 part-time usher by rotation, the 5 scanners who scan our bags, the 150 casts and crews from 12 different countries and maintenance, security (maybe internal or external 3rd party contractors) and cleaning crew. It was known to us that each show, there were 40-50 ushers and escorting securities stationed at the different doors of the theatres, whereby the more the crowd flow, the more the ushers stationed at the door. There are 10-15 people in the technical crew per show and is in-charge of handling moving equipments, audio, sound and other technical issues. There are also 40 cast members for each show, including back-up performers. 1 person could play 3 different characters and vice versa, 3 people could play 1 character in case 1 falls sick.
6) Logistics
The logistics includes trucks and Lorries used for loading and transporting the props, equipments and daily food and beverage supplies. A container is used to store the stocks while being transported from overseas and a forklift is used to lift the load into the loading dock and the loading bay. Food and beverages are acquired by 2 different methods; directly from vendor or through supply chain management from outside that could be directly consumed and from warehouse internal transfer whereby food are stored in MBS and used when needed. Though it is cheaper to use food directly from the vendor, but there is always a risk of stock-out whereby there is not enough food to supply the consumers. The warehouse method, on the other hand, is more expensive but it prevents shortage of goods and prevents consumer dissatisfaction. A palette and power jack is also used to transport trays of supplies to the storage place. A palette jack is a manual fork-shape trolley which is easier to control but requires more energy to activate. A power jack is the machine-operated version of the palette jack. It requires less effort to operate but is not as agile as the palette jack. The event may need to use 3rd party contractors to help in controlling these areas, whereby most of them works graveyard shift.
7) Products and services
There is a Marina Bay Sands box office ticketing at the entrance of the theatre which sells the tickets and acts as an information counter for the event. There is also a 3rd party contractor to help me merchandising the products.’ Lion King’ shirts and masks are given out if one spends a certain amount of money on the show. Alternatively, one can buy their tickets online or through the hotline. Packages are also sold that may include a ticket to the show, a glass of beverage at the bar counter, a merchandise or a souvenir, a night’s stay at MBS or free parking depending on the combination that one prefers. A merchandising store named as ‘theatre boutique’ is stationed outside of the entrance to enable the audience to bring the memory home.
The ‘Lion King’ has provided such services that one could buy vouchers and uses it as a gift to someone and let them choose the date that they wish to attend themselves. This service is highly popular on the corporate level, which is one of aspect that makes the show wide-reached. Another service used would be the wheelchair service whereby they would provide wheelchair seats when one calls to make arrangements. There is also a wheelchair transfer service to assist the wheelchair bounded. There is also a sound-proof room beside door D to minimize disturbance of the audience. For example, when a baby starts crying, the ushers would usher the family into this room which has transparent mirrors and the family could hear from the audio but not live. This service would bring a more enjoyable experience for the other audiences. There are also 2 15-minutes intervals for the casts to take a break and the audience to quench their thirst. A lost and found counter is situated near the theatre which helps to locate personal items and lost kids. There is also a hotline provided on the web and brochure to encourage feedbacks and improve on complains.
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| The Theatre Boutique |
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| The Marina Bay Sands Box Office |
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| Shelves of merchandises |
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| Inside the boutique theatre |
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| In front of the snack/ bar counter |
7) Advertisements and promotions
The Lion King musical adopted various marketing tool such as posters on taxi, commercials, word of mouth and sponsoring local celebrities to the musical. The musical have also worked with its sponsor, OCBC bank, showbiz Asia as a packaging partner, channel 5 official TV station, Singapore airline as the official airline and MBS as the venue of the show provided.
8) Maximizing strengths and minimizing weakness
The strength of the musical is that it has excellent branding, Disney. Disney is well known by many since young and the story itself has a classical history. This musical has also won many awards which show its credibility and value of money. Another strength would be its reputation. MBS is an American company which owns Las Vegas Sand and Macau sands, the fact a multi-billionaire company approaching this event shows how much confidence they have in the event as compared to other musical events which would approach MBS instead. In order to maximize, Disney could use other classical cartoons and display another musical event.
The weakness is that its services are not consistent enough as feedback by a regular. More training, debriefing, group discussions and further trainings could be done to minimize such comments. Also, food and drinks are not allowed in the theatre. However, there is a snack bar just outside the theatre which caused confusion. MBS should put up more signs at or around the snack bar that food and drink are not allowed in the theatres.
9) Current and future challenges
There are several challenges faced by the event. Firstly, as photography is not allowed in the theatre due to copyright issues, several defiant people still takes photos illegally. In order to overcome it, the organizers should inform and brief everything professionally and clearly before the show begins. Secondly, unhappiness of seating arrangement is another challenge faced. When audiences arrived at their seats and realised that it is further than what they expected, they would request for a change of seats which the ushers do not have the power to make arrangements. What the ushers could do is to refer them to the box office and let them decide if an upgrade is possible. Thirdly, the black-out period, where there is no buffer for late comers who are unable to catch the beginning of the musical until the 1st interval to prevent disruption of the casts, have caused unhappiness among the audience. In order to overcome, the ushers could soothe them with honeyed words like ‘you are only 1 door away from the cast’ or treat them to beverages. Lastly, overlapping of seats occurs when the system in the box office becomes faulty, causing 2 people to have the same seats. When this occurs, if the event is not packed, they should be allocated to another empty seat, if the event is packed, they should be allowed full refund or free upgrade of seats to another show.
Links: The lion king official website
Bio of the casts
The Lion King Singapore Cast
Official blog of The Lion King
Come Singapore's review on the Lion King
A blogger's review on the Lion King
12 year-old Singapore boy to star in the Lion King Musical
TimeOut Singapore's review on the Lion King
Pre-theatre menu
Bio of the casts
The Lion King Singapore Cast
Official blog of The Lion King
Come Singapore's review on the Lion King
A blogger's review on the Lion King
12 year-old Singapore boy to star in the Lion King Musical
TimeOut Singapore's review on the Lion King
Pre-theatre menu
