Categories
Events

Night at the Library 2021

Photo credit: Russell Lee via Twitter

Fancy something a little different for Halloween this year?  The National Library Board brings us Night at the Library 2021, a free online series that will discuss uncomfortable, morbid and even frightening things through over 12 events.  Included in the line up are writers who explore the supernatural and professionals who work with the realities of mortality in funeral planning and end-of-life care.

Apart from talks and meeting authors, participants can also expect interactive events – Ghost Map on 5 Nov, for example, will see attendees working to draw a heatmap that corresponds with stories from an old favourite: Russell Lee’s True Singapore Ghost Stories.  

For those who want a more old-fashioned approach to spooky tales, Mervin Ang will share local urban legends and the facts and evidence surrounding them in the Urban Legends: Fact or Fiction event on 2 Nov.

And on the 3 Nov, viewers can enjoy a night of black comedy with the combination of local music and gallows humour at Killer Jokes.  

Apart from organising actual events, in typical library fashion, the NLB has curated a list of relevant reads at https://file.go.gov.sg/natl2021books.pdf so that those interested can also read their way through the season.

  
Night at the Library 2021 runs from 29 Oct – 6 Nov.  Find out more at www.go.gov.sg/natl2021.

Categories
News

Reopening Asia

Photo Credit: The Star

The recently concluded Joint Leadership Summit held at the Fullerton Hotel saw ASEAN government ministers, major global organisers, trade association leaders and tourism bureau chiefs come together to examine strategies to restart business events in the region. 

Photo Credit: The Straits Times, Ng Sor Luan

While ASEAN and the world still navigate choppy waters because of the pandemic, there are signs of a new horizon where shared safety protocols and best practices could lead to the resumption and increase in business meetings and events. 

Today MITEC, the Malaysia International Trade and Exhibition Centre, announced its reopening. This comes as welcome news to small and medium enterprises as well as the events and start up sectors. 

We may not be in the clear but signs of events returning in various formats especially with in-person attendees have us excited for event people in the region. 

Read more about it:

 https://bit.ly/3C3CxVo  (The Straits Times)

https://bit.ly/3C1eAxX  (The Star)

Categories
New This Fortnight News

New This Fortnight: 17/10/21

Picture Credit: PORTL YouTube Channel

New This Fortnight:

Sports broadcast in 3D

The good people at Unity may soon have you watching live sports in 3D! This tech, unlike 360° video, provides a greater level of immersion because the viewer is able to check out the action from multiple views. Read more about it here https://bit.ly/3aMPkQ1

Hologram meetings

Is “holoporting” a speaker to an event going to become more mainstream? Check out how IWC used PORTL tech in an event in April. 

Marina Bay Sands’ Virtual Meeting Place

Travel technology company WIT will be breaking in MBS’s newly-launched Virtual Meeting Place for the virtual component of its two-day conference on October 19-20 this year.  The virtual interface looks just like the real-life Marina Bay Sands and even allows event organisers to build their own virtual sets to replicate their real-life event spaces.  
Read more about the first global platform of its kind at https://www.webintravel.com/wit-is-first-industry-event-to-use-marina-bay-sands-virtual-meeting-place/

Categories
Event Service Professional

Ivy Zhang

“I became effectively bilingual because I grew up in Myanmar where I had less than 8 hours of electricity a day, so I always read tons of Chinese books growing up, which helped me greatly in expanding my vocabulary.

In the first few years of my career, I said “YES!” to every event and that’s helped me learn so much about myself and my hosting style.  It’s definitely not easy. I’ve cried countless times before, during and after events, obsessed over perfecting every single detail. But there’s no easy way to get around it – you just have to face each challenge head on if you want to be a great emcee!

A moment I will always remember must be hosting in Burmese, English AND Chinese at a gig with President Halimah Yacob. 

I was only supposed to host in English, but it ended up being an impromptu event in all 3 languages right on stage, in front of President Halimah herself. No pressure, right?

I’m not going to lie, the Covid restrictions were a huge challenge in the beginning. They challenged me to rethink everything about my hosting style, but reaffirmed my love for emceeing. It was very dramatic for a good 6 months!

Now, I would say I prefer hybrid to virtual events, simply because I love the presence of an audience to connect with.

This entire situation definitely brought about so many new and interesting technical skills for the entire events scene – it accelerated the development of more virtual tools to engage the audience in a stronger manner.

Universally, people love and crave for experiences which is what’s been taken away from us for the last 2 years and I believe people will flock to try more experiences when government restrictions ease.

So I think that many events companies will create more unique concepts where people will enjoy special and fresh encounters!”

Ivy – The bilingual emcee (Chinese l English) from Myanmar

Bilingual emcee for corporate events and weddings

Categories
News

Tokyo Game Show VR 2021

The hybrid version of the Tokyo Game Show 2021 ran from 29th Sep to 3rd Oct. It featured live streaming discussion panels and trailers to soon to be released games on its Youtube channel. While the live streaming segments of the event have become all too familiar with event organizers these days, this iteration of the Tokyo Game Show included a pretty cool VR element  to augment the show’s experience.

To read more about the experience check out: https://uploadvr.com/tokyo-game-show-vr-hands-on/

To view the experience: