Lessons from the Pandemic. Episode 2: Tisa Ho, Executive Director, Hong Kong Arts Festival

Interviewed By Ken Neufeld

Tisa Ho is the Executive Director of the Hong Kong Arts Festival. The 2020 Festival was to open on February 12th with over 150 scheduled performances from a dazzling array of local, regional, and world-renowned artists. We start our discussion reviewing the early days of February 2020, and the realization that a world-wide pandemic would dictate a whole other new set of circumstances around putting on an international arts festival in Hong Kong.

Welcome, Tisa.

You’ve been at the Hong Kong Arts Festival for 15 years. Please, give us some more details about your background working in the arts.

I have worked in the arts, primarily in Asia for many years. I worked in Singapore, where I was the General Manager of the Singapore Symphony and worked on developing the Esplanade-Theatres on the Bay also, while working in the Cultural Affairs of the Singapore government. For the past 15 years I have been Executive Director of the Hong Kong Arts Festival. We present over 150 arts performances and events featuring local, regional, and world-wide artists every year between the Lunar New Year and Easter. Our operating budget is around $20million USD. In addition to my work in Hong Kong, I am also currently Chair of the International Society of Performing Arts (ISPA).

How, in general has your organization been affected by the Pandemic?

The 2020 Hong Kong Arts Festival was scheduled to open on February 12th. Tickets were sold, and local, regional, and international arts organizations were in the process of coming to Hong Kong to perform. In late January, information about a contagious virus – COVID-19 – began to appear in the media. We were obviously concerned about how this would affect our Festival. By very early February, we realized that this was going to have a major impact not only on the local venue operations but as well the global movement of contracted arts companies performing at the Festival. We cancelled the 2020 Festival, and the 2021 Festival was a very different format than in the past.

Let’s focus on the earliest days of the Pandemic – you were just about to launch the 2020 Festival. What was the process you went through with your stakeholders – staff, artists, board, funders, audiences?

On February 4th, an emergency meeting of the Board of Directors was called, and the decision to cancel the 2020 Festival was made. It was agreed that we would contact our major stakeholders – donors, government bodies, sponsors as well as artists and performing companies with whom we had contracts, travel, and accommodations arranged, and prepare for a public announcement. That week between the board meeting and the announcement of the Festival’s cancellation was hectic. Because we were dealing with arts groups from across the globe, the understanding of the extent of the virus in Asia wasn’t necessarily shared by groups in Europe who were still in the “business as usual” mode.

When we went public with the cancellation, we fortunately had a lot of the public messaging in place to deal with patrons who had tickets, sponsors who had contractual agreements for exposure at the Festival, and governments that funded the Festival based on an expectation of a certain number of programs being undertaken. This really helped in showing our stakeholders that we were managing this crisis in a professional manner. When we cancelled the Festival, approximately 50% of all tickets were sold. Ultimately, we refunded about 75% of those tickets. The balance was donated back to the organization, which was a great help. Our major sponsor, the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust was also very understanding. Our Board really helped by lobbying the government to ensure that we retained funding.

Talk to me about the effects of cancelling the Festival on local arts groups and artists.

One of the aspects of the Festival that some people don’t realize is that we produce some local programming with Hong Kong artists. Getting exposure as part of an international festival is very valuable for them. We had one production that we thought we could reschedule for March or April 2020 and then that wasn’t possible, then we rescheduled for December of 2020 and then that didn’t happen. Now we are going to schedule for 2022.  One of the things that is so heart breaking about this situation is that we all work so hard to put the show on – writing, designing, rehearsals – it takes a lot of effort but, that’s what we love. And when you can’t do the show because of some outside circumstance over which you have no control, well it’s just heart breaking.

In 2020 you had a fully ready to open Festival with artists from around the world planning on travelling to Hong Kong. What was your message to your artists?

Of course, it is a world-wide event. Everyone knows in one way or another, what the situation is. And we have great relationships with these artists. So, really it was a matter of cancelling contracts, perhaps talking about engagements at future festivals, and hoping that everyone was healthy and safe. With some of these international companies it wasn’t possible to postpone events. This is a great pity because we had some fantastic performances planned.

What was the message to your board of directors? How did you communicate during the process of cancelling the Festival?

The Board was great. When we called our emergency meeting on February 4^th, I laid out some scenarios around postponements, focusing on local organizations, what to do about ticket sales, and all those other administrative details. They trusted our approach, supported the need for the Festival’s staff to continue working, and were very helpful with talking to sponsors, government funders, and donors. I think they did a remarkable job as trustees in a very difficult time.

Talk to me about the financial aspect of shutting the Festival down.

We were and are very fortunate in so many ways. The Hong Kong government was very understanding and provided some additional funding for the organization. One of our major sponsors agreed to continue their support. We also had about 25% of our patrons donate all, or at least a portion of the value of their tickets back to the organization.

As the months rolled on, did you begin to think about alternate programming and ways to keep the Festival in the minds of your stakeholders?

You know, one of the things about working in a pandemic is that we all now know how to do video productions. We did our share with a variety of both local and international artists. It was new, it was less expensive for the audience than a ticket to the theatre, and they could view from the comfort of their home. So, we did a variety of productions in the 2021 Festival some of which were live where possible, and some that were only video, and some that were both live and available in a streaming format.

We didn’t try to monetize our pre-recorded online productions – we really felt that there was so much competing free programming that it would have been difficult to charge. And fortunately, our major sponsor financially supported our online programming, including a strong educational component for students who were learning remotely. But we did charge for live online performances, with artists performing in real time from remote locations.

Is there a “silver lining” in all of this? Can you share some of outcomes that might you adopt for future Festivals?

Before the pandemic, people would group their ticket purchases together with one lead contact in our data base. With refunds going out to ticket buyers, we have captured a lot of new patrons on our data base. We have worked to sustain our relationships with funders, sponsors and donors. We have explored new forms of programming both online and live – some assisted by new technologies – that will no doubt influence future Festivals. I think hybrid is here to stay and will offer different ways of telling stories and touching people.

As the Chair of ISPA, you had worldwide members all in very difficult straits. What was ISPA’s role during the pandemic?

ISPA has always been about gathering and conversing with one’s colleagues. We continued to offer that opportunity online in a variety of ways. And although we could not present the usual congresses, the very popular Pitch New Works was produced for online viewing. I think that one of the behaviors that will change coming out of the Pandemic is international travel. I will not readily get on a plane for 10 hours unless there is a very real value presenting itself at the end of the trip! So, we will have to make sure that that value exists.

Any final thoughts you would like to share?

The Pandemic is a global event, and the world is so connected now that it is inconceivable that countries – big or small – will be able to isolate themselves in the long run. So, we’ve got to find a way to work together and take care of everyone everywhere. And one of the best ways of promoting the idea of working together is through understanding different cultures – and that’s where the arts come in.

Ken Neufeld is a retired arts manager, consultant, and the originator of The 2 Minute Arts Manager. He lives in Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada.

Also by Ken Neufeld:

Lessons from the Pandemic – and Beyond: an Interview with Pat McDonald

Backwards Planning: Yes! It’s a Thing