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Perception of the general public on the efficacy of Hong Kong Harbour Fest

The survey started by gauging people's overall perception on the successfulness of Hong Kong Harbour Fest. Results showed that 60% of the respondents thought the event was unsuccessful as a whole, as opposed to only 8% who held the opposite view. Another 18% took a neutral stand by answering "half-half" (Table 3).

With respect to the efficacy of the Harbour Fest in specific areas, 42% of the respondents said this event had made a negative impact on the international image of Hong Kong. Meanwhile, nearly a quarter (24%) of them thought there had been no impact at all, but a similar proportion (23%) believed that a positive influence had been brought to Hong Kong's international image (Table 4). Moreover, 36% said the music festival failed to demonstrate to the world that Hong Kong had gone out of the SARS shadow, as contrast to nearly one-third of them (32%) who perceived this event as being successful at this front (Table 5).

Table 6 showed that 43% of the respondents interviewed thought the Harbour Fest was unsuccessful in attracting tourists to Hong Kong. Besides, there was an equal split between those who believed such an event had successfully drawn tourists to Hong Kong (25%), and those who said "half-half" (26%), each constituting around one-quarter of the respondents. As for the efficacy of the Harbour Fest in reviving the local economy, findings suggested that 56% of the respondents considered this event to be unsuccessful in this particular aspect, as opposed to only 15% who gave positive responses by opting either for "very successful" or "quite successful" (Table 7).

Table 8 summarized respondents' opinion on the efficacy of Hong Kong Harbour Fest across the various attributes prompted. It can be seen that all perceptions were on the negative side. Economic efficacy was rated as the poorest attribute (56% on the negative), followed by its effects on tourism and Hong Kong's international image (both with over 40% on the negative). Its effect on declaring Hong Kong having gone out of SARS was rated more favourably, but still with heavier opinion on the negative (36% negative versus 32% positive). All in all, including but not restricting to the four attributes mentioned, 60% of the respondents considered the event unsuccessful.

A dollar-value appraisal of Hong Kong Harbour Fest

The survey continued by measuring the respondents' perception on whether the government's expenditure on three particular leisure and cultural activities, namely, Hong Kong Harbour Fest, the visit of Real Madrid Football Club, and the annual Hong Kong Arts Festival, were value for money. Results revealed that, of the three events, a landslide majority of 79% of the respondents agreed that the contribution of $0.82 million for the visit of Real Madrid Football Club was good value for money, whereas only 15% thought it was not good (Table 10). By the same token, almost two-thirds (65%) of them said the $17 millions spent on the annual Hong Kong Arts Festival were good value for money, as against 18% who said "no" (Table 11). On the other hand, only 15% regarded the $100 million contributed on the Harbour Fest to be good value for money, whilst as high as 79% said "no" (Table 9).

One billion dollars were allocated by the SAR Government to launch post-SARS promotional campaigns, meaning a spending of HK$150 by each Hong Kong citizen. When asked to suggest how much should a single citizen contribute to organizing an event like the Harbour Fest, 44% of the respondents gave a value which fell within HK$15 or below. Meanwhile, a quarter of them (25%) failed to suggest an answer for this question. Taking the average of all definite answers provided, the median was calculated to be HK$10.0, and the mean figure being HK$30.6 (Table 12).

Appraisal of the general public on the operation of Hong Kong Harbour Fest

As regards people's appraisal of the operation of the Harbour Fest, findings showed that as many as 70% of the respondents believed that insufficient promotional work was done for the Harbour Fest, as contrast to only 15% who said publicity was adequate (Table 14). Meanwhile, slightly more respondents expressed receptiveness to the idea of having the local and international artists performed on the same stage, as 39% welcomed this idea, while 35% thought such an idea was bad, another 17% took a neutral stand regarding this (Table 15). Location-wise, Table 16 showed that 59% said Tamar was an appropriate site for organizing the Harbour Fest, while 22% considered it a bad choice.

Concerning the pricing of Harbour Fest tickets, 55% of the respondents said ticket price was too high in general, 35% thought it was reasonable (Table 17). On the other hand, over half (51%) of the respondents opposed the Government's decision to give away the tickets of the October 24 concert for free, whereas 37% supported this arrangement (Table 18). Irrespective of whether they agreed to the giving away the tickets, when further probed how they thought about the allocation of four free tickets to each person, 59% said "too many", while nearly one-third (32%) of them opted for "just right", only a small proportion of 2% considered four tickets per person as "too few" (Table 19).

Reasons of going or not going to the Harbour Fest concerts

In order to assess why the overall attendance of the Harbour Fest was below satisfaction, all respondents were asked to suggest possible reasons. Findings revealed that the most frequently cited answer was "insufficient promotions", by more than half of the respondents (51.3%). Other popular reasons included "inexperienced organizer / confusing arrangements", "performers not attractive enough" and "tickets too expensive" in descending orders, mentioned by 26%, 20% and 19% of the respondents correspondingly. Meanwhile, 12% failed to give a definite answer for this question (Table 20).

Table 21 showed that a landslide majority of 96% of the respondents interviewed had not attended any concert of the Harbour Fest, whereas only 3% were audience of this music event. Amongst the 68 concert-goers who were able to tell the exact number of concerts they had actually attended, each of them had gone to one concert on average (Table 22).

For the 1,951 non-audience of the Harbour Fest, "tickets too expensive / no extra money" topped the list of the most commonly mentioned reason for their not going to any concert of this music festival, as cited by 30% of these respondents (constituting 29% of the total sample). Other popular reasons included "not interested in music festivals", "no time / too busy" and "performers not attractive enough", each constituting over 20% of this sub-group (Table 23).

At the other front, the 71 Harbour Fest audience were also asked to give reasons for their attending the concert(s). Over half (51%, constituting 2% of total sample) of them said they were attracted by the performers or production of the Harbour Fest, followed by "receiving a complimentary ticket" (18% of sub-sample) and "accompanying family members/friends/colleagues/classmates" (13% of sub-sample) at quite a distance (Table 24). It should be noted, however, that because the sub-sample size here is only 71, the sampling error at 95% confidence level could be as high as plus/minus 11.8 percentage points.

In an attempt to measure people's receptiveness of organizing annual music festivals like the Harbour Fest, all respondents were asked if they welcomed this idea. Findings suggested that 57% were not supportive, as contrast to nearly one-third of them (33%) who said "yes", another 10% did not have a definite opinion (Table 25).

Audience's evaluation of the Harbour Fest concerts

This part of the survey was designed to measure the assessment of the Harbour Fest concerts by its audience, thus the following discussions were based only on the opinions of the 71 concert-goers. As mentioned before, because of the small sub-sample size, the figures are subject to large sampling errors, which could be as high as plus/minus 11.8 percentage points. Figures in this section are, therefore, only for rough references.

To start with, these respondents were first asked to rate, using a scale of 0-100, their appreciation of the Harbour Fest concerts as a whole. The mean score was calculated to be 61.9 marks, with the median being 65.0 marks (Table 26).

With respect to the specific aspects of the concerts, 55% of the Harbour Fest audience interviewed admitted that they were satisfied with the performers in general, 22% expressed dissatisfaction, another 22% opted for "half-half" (Table 27). By the same token, among this sub-group of concert-goers, as high as 71% were satisfied with the overall production quality of the concerts, whereas only 12% gave negative views on this particular area (Table 28).

Finally, when further asked if the Harbour Fest had achieved one of its primary objectives by providing Hong Kong residents the best in "feel good" international entertainment, 55% perceived this event to be failed in this aspect, while 41% gave a positive response (Table 29).