IF NUMBERS told the whole story, the Singapore Season in China could be said to be a modest success.

Most of its ticketed arts and film events in Beijing and Shanghai had average houses of 70 to 80 per cent attendance and Chinese audiences interviewed were largely receptive.

What these figures and random polls do not show is the lack of a strong brand presence and identity for Singapore's sophomore effort at cultural diplomacy that involved nearly twice the budget and resources of the first Singapore Season in London in 2005.

Among paying audiences or invited guests at individual Season events, there was not much awareness of an overarching festival with other Singapore shows going on.

The $3 million Singapore Season was just too sprawling, with its hodge-podge of over 30 business, media and arts events spread out over too many venues.

For example, events in Beijing, a city more than three times the size of Singapore in terms of size and population, extended from universities in the western part of the capital to the 798 art district in the north-east, an hour away by car.

This was not helped by a lack of concerted and effective marketing and publicity over the one month that the Season ran. It ended in Beijing on Oct 27 and wraps up in Shanghai this Saturday.

As a result, the showcase did not make much of a dent on the consciousness of the average resident in the two wealthy Chinese metropolises, currently inundated like never before with world-class cultural and entertainment options.

Lack of buzz

FROM the outset, Singapore had chosen the wrong time - or perhaps the wrong year - in China's political calendar to mount a major cultural diplomacy showcase.

The Beijing Season, which began on Oct 12, coincide with the Communist Party's closely watched, week-long 17thd Party Congress on Oct 15, a five-yearly occasion of major leadership reshuffles.

Apart from muting the initial press coverage of the Singapore Season, the Congress also meant that several high-ranking Chinese ministers and provincial leaders could not attend the opening gala dinner, for which a Singapore delegation led by Deputy Prime Minister Wong Kan Seng had pulled out all the stops.

A mid-ranking Chinese official at the dinner told my colleagues and me privately he had not heard about the Singapore Season and did not know it was such a glitzy event until that night.

'You should have taken out advertisements in the newspapers,' he said, in between a nine-course meal concocted by celebrated Singapore chefs and a fashion show and concert by Singaporean talents.

The organisers said print advertisements were taken out in three newspaper and magazine titles in the two Chinese cities. There are, however, dozens of major media publications in Beijing and Shanghai.

Outdoor advertisements were taken out at bus stops in Beijing and Shanghai, but these lacked visibility given the huge market size of these cities.

On the plus side, several Singapore Season groups and artists like the Singapore Symphony Orchestra and Singapore Dance Theatre were co-presented as part of major international arts festivals in Beijing and Shanghai and benefited from the exposure.

Season events without the infrastructure and audience base of a local partner festival sometimes suffered in comparison.

While organisers said Jack Neo's I Not Stupid Too had average houses of 86.5 per cent during the Singapore Film Festival in Beijing, one public screening of the film in Shanghai, attended by Life!, drew an audience of only 15.

Director Neo was present to give a post-show talk and expressed disappointment at the turnout. Over three-quarters of the cinema was empty.

He told Life! later: 'Promotion is the one thing lacking in this Season. I'm not sure what promotion activities have been done, but the one thing I'm hearing from audiences is that no one knows about this film.'

Just to market Singapore films alone, the director felt Season organisers should have set aside a promotion budget of $20,000 to $30,000 and hired a promotions company familiar with the Chinese film market.

Give creatives more say

GOING ahead, there is a need to determine just what kind of vehicle the Singapore Season is, seeing how it has morphed from the arts-based showcase that it was in London to a catch-all event comprising business forums, culture and family activities in shopping malls.

There are fears among the arts community that the Season, slated to move to a new country in 2009, will become a high-gloss business networking event - viewed as having more immediate returns - with the arts as a side dish.

My view is that our artists, film-makers and designers tell the world something they do not already know about Singapore. A cultural showcase should focus its resources on marketing and promoting them and their works.

Just look at how Singapore has lately been viewed as a more hip and happening place through the output of our artists, designers, film-makers and creative entrepreneurs. Indirectly, it has fed the city state's current boom in tourism, foreign talent and investment.

To create buzz for future Singapore Seasons, shows and exhibitions should be concentrated into as few venues as possible and publicised heavily. Business networking can take place at post-show cocktails hosted by corporate sponsors, rather than at separate business forums.

Instead of always moving on to a new country, the Season could be rotated among two or three key overseas markets so that it can learn from its missteps, tap on existing contacts and build up a following.

Finally, the task of steering the cultural showcase should not fall entirely on government departments back in Singapore, but involve a few high-powered creatives familiar with the city that the Season is travelling to.

Effectively bilingual and bicultural creative professionals like advertising director Lim Sau Hoong, architect Tan Kay Ngee and theatre director Kok Heng Leun stood out in the China showcase not just for their artistic vision but also their ability to communicate fluently with the Chinese dignitaries, press and their creative counterparts in China.

The identity of the overall Singapore Season programme would have been stronger had more of their expertise been tapped.

Basically, if you want to sell the message of Singapore culture as a bridge between China, Asia and the world, you need people who can walk the talk.

Who better to do so - instead of the all too common display of bureaucrats ill at ease with Mandarin - than culture industry professionals who actually speak the language, and embody the East-West hybridity in their lives and art?