ORGANISERS of music festivals here are taking what they've learned from a year of ups and downs, and looking to make next year's calendar impress.

F1 Rocks was easily Singapore's flashiest music festival of the year, with its unprecedented star-studded line-up and pairing with the Singapore Grand Prix, which brought in an international audience.

And F1 Rocks organiser All The Worlds is looking to make the five-year Formula One franchise even better next year.

The main focus of improvement will be to fix the inevitable teething problems that accompanied the ambitious three-day festival, such as technical glitches, audience communication and logistical problems at the Fort Canning Park venue, according to Paul Morrison, chief executive and chief creative officer of All The Worlds.

'If we have to find a different or better venue we'll do that,' says Mr Morrison, who apologised to audiences for any disappointments but is confident that by and large the crowd enjoyed itself.

'We're also going to find a way to increase the proportion of VIP packages because there was so much demand for them this year,' he adds.

Of course, many of Singapore's festivals aren't comprised purely of music events but feature music very prominently. The most obvious is the annual Singapore Arts Festival (SAF), which has been the defining benchmark of the local festival scene for the last 32 years.

The SAF wants to take what it has learned in the past decades and continually re-invent itself so that it remains relevant within the new festival landscape.

'Formulas are probably the worst thing for any festival,' says Low Kee Hong, general manager of the SAF. He feels that the correct strategy is to instead work on understanding both artists and audiences and to adapt to their needs.

'Moving forward, one of the key things to address is a better understanding of the evolving landscape of festivals and other presentation platforms in Singapore and around the region,' says Mr Low. 'There must be a conscious effort to better position the SAF in relation to the other platforms and festivals so that there is greater clarity in what everyone is doing, in order to avoid duplication and create greater value for both artists and audiences.'

This need for festival programming to be dynamically contextual creates opportunities for constant development, and Mr Low sees opportunities in future to redefine the SAF's musical components.

Success and size can be a double-edged blade, however, and a large audience can lead to pressure to appeal to as wide a demographic as possible, especially when public funds are involved.

But even the many younger music-specific festivals of The Esplanade - such as the six-year-old Mosaic Music Festival and eight-year-old Baybeats - have to walk the fine line between wide appeal and lack of focus.

'As a centre for everyone, our festivals also need to continuously strike a balance in the line-up each year, catering to all ages and income groups,' says JP Nathan, The Esplanade's director of programming.

The Esplanade is going to focus on quality to draw people to upcoming festivals. 'Over the years we've found that good music of quality - by notable or less familiar bands - has the ability to bring in the audience,' says Mr Nathan.

'Crucial lesson'

The Esplanade's potent mix of free and paid events will also allow audiences to enjoy an entire music-filled day at The Esplanade for the price of a single ticket.

Music-oriented festivals in the private sector, such as those organised by IndoChine, will also work to remain nimble and responsive to the organic local music scene.

'One crucial lesson that we have learned as well is to share music demos from various artists with our customers, friends and media personnel to get an idea if the acts will sell and provide an experience for our audience,' says Michael Ma, group chief executive of IndoChine. The IndoChine Green Festival is currently running in conjunction with the Apec summit here.

Timbre Music organises a combination of pure music festivals, such as the Timbre Blues Festival, and music-oriented ones such as Beerfest Asia, and is doing some major planning ahead for 2010.

'We give ourselves a longer lead time to organise festivals properly,' says Danny Loong, chief creative director of Timbre Music. 'Whether it's Beerfest 2010 in June or Timbre Rock & Roots in March 2010, we are already in the midst of planning and execution now,' he says.

Increased lead time is also a focus for major record label Universal Music, which is involved in both F1 Rocks and Singfest through its joint-venture entity All The Worlds.

'The plan is to get our partners lined up early on to be able to work through the offerings much, much earlier on which will then allow us to integrate the experience more seamlessly,' says Sandy Monteiro, Asean senior vice-president and vice-president for digital in South-east Asia, Universal Music Group.

Mr Monteiro hopes to improve the incorporation of multimedia experiences into festivals in order to complement live stage performances. 'The concept is unchanged, the plan is to get it right,' he says.

Classical audience

The Singapore Sun Festival, organised by IMG Artists, looks like it will be courting classical audiences next year, since Mindy Coppin, senior vice-president and director, IMG Artists Asia Pacific sees classical music in Singapore as a niche waiting to be properly cultivated.

'Classical music audiences in particular are very underdeveloped and this audience has not grown in many years,' says Ms Coppin. 'It's very important that we do not compete with other festivals in Singapore,' she adds, echoing the SAF's Mr Low's point about avoiding duplication.

Three music festivals were absent from Singapore this year - Singfest, the Keppel Bay Music Festival, and Womad. Out of the trio, only Womad's absence wasn't a surprise. One of the reasons rock music extravaganza Singfest skipped 2009 was that its proximity to F1 Rocks and the desire to concentrate on F1 Rocks' debut, according to All The Worlds' Mr Morrison. All The Worlds organises Singfest in partnership with Midas Promotions.

And the Keppel Bay Music Festival, which was supposed to debut this year, was put off over concerns about the economy, according to bar and restaurant entrepreneur Michel Lu, who conceptualised the festival, and whose Prive restaurant and lounge is located at Keppel Bay Marina. Both Singfest and the Keppel Bay Music Festival are due to make an appearance next year.

'Certainly, we are planning to revive the Keppel Bay Music Festival in 2010,' says Mr Lu. 'But also other one-off concerts and live shows, whether smaller intimate ones like the Amanda Palmer and Neil Gaiman showcase last Sunday, or even larger ones,' he adds, referring to a concert held at his Stereolab club during the Singapore Writer's Festival.

'It has been a really good year for us and we are expanding quickly, and one of the areas we intend to re-engage in is the concert, festival, dance party organisation business,' Mr Lu says.

Mr Morrison is also committed to organising the third iteration of Singfest because it would complement F1 Rocks well in terms of appealing to a younger and more experimental crowd.

But world music festival Womad, which was due to return next year after a two-year hiatus, still has no concrete plans to make a comeback.

'We remain committed to returning to Singapore where we had so many great festivals but at present there have been no approaches that would enable us to do so,' says Chris Smith, director of Womad, adding that the festival hopes to return some day.

Even though the world music niche looks like it will be under-exploited next year, new ground will be broken by a new entry, Live! Singapore, which will focus on the performing arts. It will leverage on the Resorts World Sentosa integrated resort, which is scheduled to be open by then, and will help to draw regional audiences. It will be held from June 8 to 11 alongside the Arts Festival.

'Live! Singapore was developed in response to the needs of the global industry and Singapore was chosen for being the ideal East-meets-West location,' says Michael Dreyer, Asia Pacific vice-president for Koelnmesse, which will be organising Live! in partnership with IMG Artists.

'According to PricewaterhouseCoopers, the global entertainment and media industry is slated to reach US$2.2 trillion in 2012, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.6 per cent between 2008 and 2012,' says Mr Dreyer. He adds that the government's Renaissance City for the Arts strategy, along with Singapore 7,500 performances annually, reinforce Koelnmesse's conviction that 'Singapore is perfectly placed to become the home for this new global business initiative for the live performing arts industry'.

This means that there will be at least three large music-centric events in Singapore in 2010 that weren't held this year. Taken together with the other annual festivals that are due to return next year, and festival goers should have plenty of music for their ears.