After encountering red tape that saw the festival downsized last year, the Clockenflap Music & Arts Festival was back this past weekend at a new venue, the site for the West Kowloon Cultural District, and frankly, it was a milestone for music festivals in Hong Kong.
While the previous Cyberport site gave us a small taste of a music festival, the new site actually accommodates everything that Hong Kong needs in a venue for an international music festival – the vast open spaces, the size for multiple stages, and most importantly for Hong Kong, no damn noise complaints.
The festival stepped up its game with over 60 local and international acts playing across five stages, and making small treks between different stages to catch acts, beer in hand, amongst the hordes of people, it really did feel like Hong Kong may just finally have a full-fledged music festival on its hands.
It couldn’t have come too soon.
While it didn’t quite have the size that well-established music festivals in Japan or Singapore have, when you’re on the grass listening to great music surrounded by the waterfront against the backdrop of one of the best damn skylines in the world, it’s a no brainer.
Clockenflap is uniquely Hong Kong – and the government needs to step up and realise this.
This is exactly the kind of event that this city needs to nurture.
For festivals like Clockenflap, it’s all about the funding. Being a designated public area, organizers couldn’t charge admission on the site. So with no ticket charge this year, it was a great draw for punters, but not a great outlook for the festival’s sustainability.
Profits for the festival organizers mainly came from the food and drink sold on site – not exactly a great business model, but one organizers had to endure due to more government restrictions.
Considering how starved music lovers are for a festival like this in Hong Kong, I would have happily doled out the cash for a weekend ticket, and I’m sure I’m not alone.
An admission cost would only mean better things for Clockenflap’s growth – bigger acts, better food, more to do and more to see.
This all begs the questions, why are there still so many government imposed hurdles for putting Clockenflap on?
How can they not envision what Clockenflap could become, and do for this city?
It’s absolutely vexing!
Even if ROI is really still their main concern, don’t they see the creative arts industry as just that – an industry?
And in that respect, Hong Kong is still very much an untapped market. One that’s just waiting for an event like this to call their own.
And Clockenflap – a long term investment. One that could not only become a selling point for tourism, but also truly enrich Hong Kong’s flair and culture as an international city.
Clockenflap can be the game changer. It’s a prime example of how to properly utilise the West Kowloon site and give both locals and visitors a unique experience in Hong Kong.
As fans, this past weekend gave us but a small taste for what we can expect from Clockenflap down the line. And the people have spoken – we want more.
A well deserved thanks and congratulations are in order to Jay Forster, Mike Hill, Justin Sweeting and the rest of the Clockenflap crew for surpassing their former glory with this year’s festival. Brilliant weekend.
See you there next year!
Comments