Opening Address by Mr Lee Suan Hiang, CEO, National ArtS Councilat Media conference To announce Keppel-NAC partnership for Keppel nights at Reflections at Keppel Bay Gallery at 3pm, 24 July 2008

Mr Teo Soon Hoe, Senior Executive Director and Group Finance Director, Keppel Corporation

Members of the Media and Arts Community

Ladies and Gentlemen

I would like to begin by congratulating Keppel on their 40th Anniversary celebrations.
As part of these celebrations, it gives me great pleasure to announce “Keppel Nights” –the National Arts Council’s partnership with Keppel that gives direct benefits to arts consumers.

“Keppel Nights” is an innovative ticketing scheme that aims to grow the audience base for ticketed shows in Singaporethroughsubsidised or half-priced tickets.The scheme aims to broaden and deepen people’s appreciation for paid arts and entertainment shows. This is in line with NAC’s mission to nurture the arts and make it an integral part of the lives of the people of Singapore. Indeed, not only will consumers benefit from more affordable tickets, arts groups and promoterswill benefit, too, through increased ticket sales.I am told that the arts groups and promoters were very pleased when briefed on this scheme two days ago.

“Keppel Nights” kicks off on 19 August at the Esplanade Concert Hall.Thereafter, selected weekend shows covering different genres will offer the half-price subsidy. The scheme will run for a year.

I would like to take this opportunity to applaud Keppel for using their Anniversary celebrations as a launch pad to give something back to the arts community. Keppel has been a dedicated supporter for the Arts for more than 2 decades and has received the Patron of the Arts Award 15 times.

The “Keppel Nights” scheme is a good example of a successful Private-Public-People partnership. The Council actively seeks to engage and encourage individuals to embrace, appreciate and practice arts by bringing the arts into their everyday lives. This is evident when you consider that there are currently over 3,000 free arts events each year organised by various stakeholders. To further nurture audience development, the "Keppel Nights" platform can play an important part in the aspect of deepening arts appreciation, as it has the potential of converting free arts goers to ticketed audience, as well as attracting new comers to the arts scene. The Council continually works towards increasingthe yearly ticketed attendance from the existing 1.3 million. We hope to see more such collaborations with the private sector.

Once again, my heartiest congratulations to Keppel on their 40th Anniversary Celebrations. I wish them greater success in the years ahead!

I will leave it to by NAC staff to present the details of the scheme later.

Thank you.