Christmas At The Fort festival draws 2,000-strong crowd

Singapore

CHRISTMAS At The Fort, a festival in support of the Singapore Bicentennial, drew a 2,000-strong crowd on Friday evening.

Featuring a strong line-up of well-known Singapore musicians, the festival opened on Thursday with singer-songwriter Charlie Lim, while Friday's show featured Haneri.

The festival also entertained audiences with an eight-minute multimedia video design by award-winning Brian Gothong Tan depicting Christmas in Singapore over the past 200 years and mass carolling sessions involving 300 musicians that will take place each night.

Christmas At The Fort is organised by Wesley Methodist Church and co-organised by not-for-profit arts and culture organisation The RICE Company Ltd.

Charis Lim, chairman of the church's Christmas At The Fort Taskforce, said: "This music festival is an initiative aimed at celebrating the spirit of giving and the values of charity and generosity and to serve an occasion which all can enjoy and take part in during the year-end festive season. It certainly gives us much joy to see this turnout and so many from all walks of life having such great fun."

Over the weekend, the festival will also feature well-known music artistes Joanna Dong, Olivia Ong and performances by Singapore bands such as Auburn Daze. The multimedia video design by Tan as well as mass Christmas carol sing-along session will also take place each evening during the festival.

Admission to the festival is free and attendees can look forward to carnival games, an eco-market and a series of food stalls.

The festival will also celebrate the spirit of philanthropy seen in Singapore over the past 200 years with the Spirit of Giving trail on the Locomole app, a self-guided experiential walking trail app.

More than 1,200 beneficiaries from charity and welfare organisations are expected to attend the four-day festival.

The public can show their support through donations via the app to charity.

Vendors of the eco-market can opt to donate a percentage of their sales proceeds to The Business Times Budding Artists Fund or Methodist Welfare Services.