MTV's World Stage Malaysia 2013 event [GALLERY]

COMPANY:MTVEVENT:MTV WORLD STAGE LIVE IN MALAYSIA 2013DATE:8 SEPTEMBER 2013LOCALE:MALAYSIACOMPANY:MTVEVENT:MTV WORLD STAGE LIVE IN MALAYSIA 2013DATE:8 SEPTEMBER 2013LOCALE:MALAYSIAEVENT OBJECTIVE:To engage its audiences to discover music.EXECUTION:As a brand that espouses youth entertainment, MTV’s mission is to ensure that it is the cultural home for the millennial generation, music fans and artists.“Music is and always will be the centre of everything we do and MTV World Stage Live in Malaysia is a platform for our audience to engage and discover music,” Sian Ju Tan, vice president of MTV & Comedy Central Brands, Viacom International Media Networks Asia said.MTV World Stage is a free outdoor music concert that took place at Surf Beach, Sunway Lagoon with performances from Robin Thicke, Far East Movement, EXO and Joe Flizzow.[gallery link="file" ids="28041,28040,28038,28039,28037,28036,28035,28034"]For this event, fans were invited to win tickets for the event on the event site through a real-time multiplayer game, or through promotions run by MTV’s sponsors and event partners.Besides being held on ground with MTV fans in Malaysia, the event also had a global airing in 154 countries across the various MTV Networks. The Malaysia show is also MTV’s first originally-produced MTV World Stage event globally, started in 2009.The brand conducted a concerted 360-degree publicity plan, including the MTV Asia website, the channel, and contests run with sponsors and media partners. Out-of-home advertising such as billboards and shopping mall banners were also created.MTV also ran print, online advertisements and radio through its local partners such as broadcast partner, Astro and local radio partners like hitz.fm, ERA fm, MY FM and MIX fm.Pre-event press interviews with MTV VJs Alan and Hanli and hip-hop artist Joe Flizzow were organised as well. Social media buzz was created through MTV’s social media channels and engagement with entertainment and music bloggers. A weekend roadshow was run a week prior to the show at Sunway Pyramid mall.This year, MTV launched a campaign titled the MTV World Stage Insider. The Insider was a person the brand appointed to be MTV’s temporary ambassador. The Insider had to possess the stamina of a Spartan as well as received the chance to work for 10 days alongside the MTV social media team, to represent fans and introduce them to the MTV Experience from the inside, via real-time regular updates, videos, tweets and pictures of MTV World Stage Live in Malaysia 2013.The Insider also received an engagement fee worth US$10,000.The event also featured a behind-the-scenes updates from the Insider, coupled with the “Live Cut” version of the show that premiered three days after the event, providing fans a feeling of  a virtual attendance at the event.Sunway Lagoon was chosen as venue as the brand felt it made a spectacular backdrop for the show. The stage was built over the Surf pool at Surf Beach of Sunway Lagoon, which was drained in preparation for setup a week prior to the event.The event was staged and recorded live for global telecast. This year, the stage featured a retro-neon theme with laser effects.The event was held in conjunction with the brand’s celebration of its fifth anniversary this year. The event featured an Instagram wall feature where there was an on-ground Instagram wall that flanked the stage. Fans could tweet, post and share photos via Instagram.RESULT:The event saw 15,000 fans attending the event. While most of them are based in Malaysia, there were fans that came from across the region, including Singapore, Philippines and even as far as China.In the 24 hours leading up to the concert, MTV garnered over 83,000 mentions on MTV World Stage in the social media space, across Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. On the night of the concert, MTV World Stage trended on Twitter in Malaysia with about 40% of the trends related to the event. MTV World Stage also led in the top trends at mid-show.Over the ten days that the Insider took over MTV’s social media channels, MTV World Stage Live in Malaysia garnered more than a million social impressions across Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Over the same duration, the MTV World Stage Insider campaign created 10 times more buzz around the hashtag #worldstagemy, which trended on twitter over the ten days and top trended for four days in Malaysia. The MTV World Stage Insider’s updates through MTV social media channels reached an average of more than 10 times the regular reach and garnered over 25,000 more followers for MTV.The event was also across major daily publications, entertainment and music media outlets across the Asia region, K-pop outlets, broadcast TV/radio, music and entertainment bloggers.This included The Star (Malaysia), The Malay Mail (Malaysia), New Straits Times (Malaysia), The Straits Times (Singapore), AsiaOne (Singapore), Manila Bulletin (Philippines), Philippine Daily Inquirer, Philippine Star, Berita Harian, Yahoo! Malaysia, MSN Malaysia, Hitz FM (Malaysia), NTV7 (Malaysia), Sina, Korea.com and Fiji News.LESSONS LEARNED:One of the biggest challenges in organising the event was topping MTV’s last show, said Tan.“We look at the acts that are the most successful on a worldwide basis and acts that really resonate in terms of airplay, downloads, sales for the music labels, etc. When we’re putting the line-up together, we try to be as inclusive as possible, but it is also a very difficult task to try and avoid polarizing the audience,” Tan added.Another challenge was seen in the construction of the stage due to heavy rain almost every day.“The Surf Beach area is a pool and Sunway had to drain all the water in the pool in order to build the stage. The heavy rain hampered our efforts as the pumps could not drain away the water fast enough for us to build the stage. Thankfully, the rain stopped long enough for the production crew to finish the stunning stage which featured a retro neon theme with lasers,” Tan added.Security and crowd control was an issue as fans queued all around the Sunway Pyramid area to ensure themselves a good spot. MTV had to make sure fans were as comfortable and as safe as possible. “Equally, security was heightened for our artists as they moved around in public areas,” Tan added.Overwhelming demand for the concert passes was another challenge faced by MTV. “The webpage almost could not handle the increase in traffic. To ensure that participants could play the game smoothly, we limited the number of participants for each round and increased the frequency of the games,” Tan said.What were some contingency plans?The event was a rain or shine event but MTV had a first aid team on standby in case of medical emergencies.“To beat the rain and heat, disposable ponchos and fans were handed out to concert-goers. And importantly, together with our venue partner, Sunway, we had in place a security and evacuation plan in place,” Tan said.For future events, the brand will look at how to top the last show, in terms of creative set up, artist line up, fan engagement affairs and its partners for the event.