It was a busy day at Vivamusic Hub on Monday, 4 September. Guests from the various recording labels, Vivamusic’s business partners as well as members of the media were at the Hub to celebrate the official opening of Vivamusic’s flagship store in Cathay Cineleisure Orchard.
The first true click and mortar model for the music industry in Asia, the Hub spans over 4,400 square feet of retail space. Besides a varied collection of CDs ranging from Jazz to J-Pop, there is also an accessories section in the Hub selling things ranging from earphones to unique CD racks. Not only that, the Hub also boasts of a wireless Internet access facility for the convenience of Vivamusic’s members. To access to the Vivamusic.com network for wireless Internet surfing, members simply need to bring in their own laptop computers and slot in a PCMCIA card which they can borrow from the counter. The most unique feature of the Hub is the MyChoice CD Makers. Brought in from United States, the five MyChoice CD machines allow customers to select tracks and customize their very own CDs with their very own names as well as music tracks.
The event began at 11am, with Mark Lai, CEO of Vivamusic.com bringing the Guest of Honour, Ms Yong Ying-I, CEO of Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA), to the Hub. They proceeded to the Box, Vivamusic Hub’s most outstanding physical feature, where the launch was to be conducted. The host for the event, Lester Lim, Corporate Communications Manager for Vivamusic.com, gave a brief introduction of the Hub before inviting Mark to present his speech.
Mark emphasized the importance of everyone collaborating together to form a “music ‘ecosystem’”. He also thanked all the various business partners of Vivamusic in his speech as well as acknowledging the hard work of the various staff in the company.
Lester then invited Ms Yong to the podium to give her speech. In it, Ms Yong touched on her reflections on how the business of recorded music has evolved through the years and how broadband in Singapore has taken on new challenges and in themusic and entertainment industry,
“Vivamusic Hub’s launch today is an example of what this new opportunity could look like. This launch will make Vivamusic.com the first broadband entertainment portal of Asia to have a physical storefront.” Ms Yong then continued, adding, “IDA regards a facility such as the Hub as a sign that broadband is hitting the streets.
It signals the start of broadband moving from the early adopters stage to that of mass adoption.” She concluded her speech by encouraging more industry players to participate “in this growing interactive broadband multi-media industry and to fully exploit the potential of broadband.” Then, Ms Yong and Mark were invited to cut the ribbon. Instead of a conventional ribbon, Vivamusic’s own design team created a “virtual” ribbon that was presented on a laptop linked with to the wireless network in the Hub. As Ms Yong and Mark clicked on the ribbon, a special video clip was shown to the audience. At the end of it all, as a gesture that the Hub was officially opened, balloons and confetti rained on everyone in the Hub.
Ms Yong and the guests were invited to tour the facilities of the Hub, especially the wireless Internet network stations and the CD Makers as well as the refreshments. All the staff of Vivamusic was on hand to answer all queries as well as show the guests around.
As part of the festivities for the launch, there were performances happening in the Hub on that day as well. Announcing the performances was Vivamusic’s very own IJ, Karen. First to start were the performers from Expect Music. Marko Chan, Sara T and Jessica made soothing tunes out from a flute, a “sanxian” and a “erhu” to the background of funky music.
Then it was Audiosports’ DJ spinning demonstration, by no other than Andrew Chow himself. Spinning for ten minutes, Andrew proved to the audience why he was the DMC champion for Singapore two years in a row.
Finally, the last performance for the day was from Kinemat Productions. Don, James, George and Redwan performed instruments like the aborigine didgeridoo, hulusi, a Chinese instrument and an African drum. Though these are all traditional instruments, this group gave their performance a twist with the introduction of a couple of turntable scratching.
Vivamusic would like to thank all business partners, recording labels, the media and all guests for attending the official opening as well as all who made the event possible.
View the launch
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