Benefits for artists

Dedicated
We have wide experience in the programming and support of foreign artists. If required, we can handle the entire logistics too: the visa, the trip and hotels. Our festival has been booking international artists since 1973. The first guest was Djoni Ginsir, a dancer from Bali. Since 1976 we have included musicians and dancers from Asia in the program every year from various provinces of Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore.

The number of foreign artists has grown in recent years, and musicians and dancers from the United States and Europe have also appeared at the festival by invitation.

Media interest
The Tong Tong Fair, of which the Tong Tong Festival is a part, has for a long time been among the Top 100 Events. (Up to and including 2008, the event was called Pasar Malam Besar.) And not just because of the large number of visitors (a record number of 133,000 in 2008); in terms of media interest our ranking is even higher, in the top 40, to be precise. The Tong Tong Fair is extensively covered every year by the national and regional media, in the newspapers and on radio and TV. Reports about the Tong Tong Fair are also included on websites at home and abroad, and in web logs. What is the secret of this wide appeal? The diversity of the event: editors catering to a wide audience can find something to interest their readers in the rich diversity on offer.

Several times a year we send a general press information pack to our complete list of more than 1,200 editors and also approach various publications with information especially tailored to their field of interest.

Besides all this free publicity we also invest heavily in paid advertising. Apart from advertising in magazines and dailies, billboard posters are displayed all over the Randstad (West of the Netherlands). And we distribute tens of thousands of free-cards, advertise on public transport and on national TV and radio.

We also publish our own magazines and flyers. At the start of the year, a flyer with a print run of at least 50,000 gives a first impression of the Tong Tong Festival and advance ticket sales begin; the Indisch Anders (50,000 print run) ‘books edition’ is for visitors who want more in-depth information; the festival edition of the Pasar magazine (print run 185,000 copies) includes the complete program of the Tong Tong Festival together with background information. These free magazines are distributed throughout the Netherlands by more than 1,500 distributors, and mailed directly to more than 40,000 interested people in our database.

In addition, we publish a glossy promotional magazine three times a year (print run 4,500) which is sent to our donors (more than 2,000) as well as to our other contacts in the media, museum, music and diplomatic worlds.

An artist performing at the Tong Tong Festival thus also benefits from this extensive publicity campaign!

Awards
The Tong Tong Fair (formerly Pasar Malam Besar) won the Promotion Award of The Hague in December 2006 in the category Tourism and Economy. This was followed in June 2007 by the presentation of the prestigious Grand Prix of the National Events Awards, the ‘Oscar’ of the Dutch events industry. The Grand Prix is awarded to an event, which in terms of size, standing and allure, has become a real phenomenon. Previous winners include the International Film Festival Rotterdam, North Sea Jazz and the Oerol theatre festival.