a Very good thing for HK

Hong Kong’s biggest challenge in the world of events has always been the scarcity of venues. For those of us that have tried to do an event in an alternative space we are so often faced with such a cacophony of  “oh dear” and “what if?” and “we’ve never done that hear before” that we run back to our safe little hotel ballrooms and convention halls.. Well there is a group that is working on changing that. Meet Very Hong Kong…

The folks behind VeryHK are mostly architects. About a year ago they were in Europe giving a presentation on Hong Kong and the use of space when they realized just how underused and wasted public space in Hong Kong is. The envision artistic and creative happenings in those wonderful scenic spaces under flyovers, alleyways that lead to nowhere, streets and cozy neighborhoods with little traffic, sitting out areas and parks… They came back with a mission, a mission to show the government and the Hong Kong people just how useful these places are and how a thriving cultural world city can use their space creatively.

So the folks at Very launched a very ambitious festival with back to back events in various locations across the city. None of them are event planners and when they started out on the project I don’t think they quite knew what they were getting into.  I met with them last week to look over the plans for these events and offer any tidbits of sagely advice I could.  As you would expect from architects their drawings and layouts were spectacular and used the space well. Overall I was very impressed, the styling was cool the planned experiences were very creative and seemed like would be well received by the public and all the events were suitable for local and expat audiences. Generally everything looked great and although the team seemed so stressed their eyeballs were about to bleed the plan looked good to go. We focused on some risk management and tweaks to take the experience up a level, I wished them well and said “call me if  you have any questions”, I only got one call about the recommended number of first aiders per participants onsite…

So today I was very excited to attend the first VeryHK event… and it was excellent.. located in Kwun Tong under a flyover, the space was conveniently located  two blocks from the MTR and near some public toilets. The event had a large hands on art component, classical performances by talented young musicians and an interesting swap meet sort of thing… The crowd was thick and everyone was involved, participating and having fun. I look forward to seeing how the next week goes with the other seven events they have planned.. Especially the Very Big screen, a free out door movie theatre and picnic all week at the old Tamar site… check out their site for the schedule and updates www.veryhk.org

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