SGUnited, in partnership with Singapore Tourism Board
Entertainment, defined as “an event performance, or activity designed to entertain others”. Well, it has certainly not been able to do that for most of 2020 with the pandemic shutting down live entertainment around the world.
In Singapore, Scott Peterson and his team at Resorts World Sentosa have certainly felt the pressure and worry as to the future of their industry. But that doesn’t mean they have stopped creating – if anything, they are busier than usual.
In this podcast the Singapore-born executive, who started out in local theatre, talks about how his team has been managing the crisis, how they have responded and what they are planning for the holiday season, knowing full well that the majority of Singaporeans have no option but to stay home for the holidays.
And towards the end, find out what his favourite physical memory is, from the days when we could have full-on live entertainment. Hint: Let your imagination take flight.
The moment reality set in …
“It was shocking to have the park shut down. I think people were a bit lost. Where do we go with this? But at the same time, it was also a period when Resorts World was called in and we were helping out with the care facilities. The mindset was, how do we help the nation to get past this Covid?
“Then the reality sunk in … what we did was to boost morale … we made sure that for performers, all online rehearsals were ongoing because we never know when the park will open again. And we cannot compromise on the quality of what we need to deliver.
“The creative teams were redesigning, recreating a lot of content. Because we knew that eventually one day the park would open. We had to still provide entertainment … we prepared for multiple versions of configurations of what could be done.”
A more empathetic style of leadership
“My style of leadership is not autocratic. I always like to mingle with the people on the ground, and I came from the ground. So when things happened, I made it a point to connect more with my people on the ground, because when you get too busy with all the planning and the top line work, you forget that there are those on the ground that worry about what’s next?
“So it did change my leadership style. I spent more time understanding the teams, and also to understand the concerns.”
Exploring new tech for the future
“As we move ahead, and we see the opening in phases, we see the potential of converting certain shows to online, because now that we’re looking at certain spaces, we realize that … it would not allow for the capacities that we want.
“We are collaborating with various companies on different types of technologies … looking at immersive studios, whether it’s gamification, VR, these are all the things that we hope to introduce … and to apply to our events in a different format.”
Creating entertainment for a local vs foreign audience
“One thing that we picked up (from a study) was that Singaporeans do not want to be treated like tourists when they come over to the parks …
“When we market the parks overseas, to any tourists, it’s about ‘you are coming to Universal Studios‘ – the brand, the theme. For the locals … they needed a reason to come back.
“We realized it was very important to create curated content for them because changing out the content gives them a reason to visit more often.
“Covid has taught us to focus more on experiences that locals want. And it also changed our mindset that maybe seasonal shouldn’t just be in the periods of Halloween and Christmas or Chinese New Year. Perhaps we should do the springs and the summers and make it bigger and more interesting so that the repeat visitation continues …”
For example, Aqua Gastronomy …
“Aqua Gastronomy is an immersive dining experience in the open ocean habitat. We wanted to test out dining in an experiential space. And we created this whole curated journey of the lady of the ocean that takes you through the different courses.
“It’s sold out for the month of November. And we will launch the festive edition in December. And what I realized is that there is a huge demand for experiential content …”
Merry, Bubbly Christmas
“We chose to call it a very bubbly Christmas. And the reason why we chose bubbly … the idea about bubbly … if we look at a child playing bubbles is that little joy and little things that make them happy and we thought about bringing smiles back to people because it’s been a tough year and we want to end the year with a smile.
“So a very bubbly Christmas is a resort-wide initiative that involves the various parks. Universal Studios will do a Universal Christmas. You will see very cute Minion costumes and overlays and a lot of beautiful scenic sets for photography for Instagram pictures, as well as meet and greets and then you take that journey into the aquarium … it’s going to be fun.”
