RWMF

The festival first started in 1998 at the Sarawak Cultural Village. Since then it has been its home to date.

2. When is the festival usually held?

The festival is slotted to be held on the second weekend of July every year and this year the 15th edition of the festival will be held from July 13 to 15, 2012.

3. Will the venue remain?

The venue will remain at Sarawak Cultural Village for 2012.

4. What are the objectives of the festival?

The festival has the following objectives:

i. Creating an international event in support of Sarawak Tourism Board’s objectives of promoting Sarawak as the region’s premier destination which emphasize on performing arts.
ii. Creating a signature event and to make it one of the top 10 world music festivals in the world..
iii. To attract visitors to the state especially from neighbouring Brunei, Singapore, Peninsula Malaysia, Australia and the region as well as from Europe & UK

6. Who are the organizers of the festival?

The festival is organized by Sarawak Tourism Board and the event will continue to be managed by STB Leisure & Properties, a subsidiary of Sarawak Tourism Board.

7.Does that mean that STB will no longer have a hold on the festival?

The event still belongs to STB who will continue to promote and publicise the festival

8. What is the festival format? Will it remain the same?

The festival is being held from 10 am to 12 midnight for the 3 consecutive nights. 18 groups, comprising 12 international and 6 Malaysian bands are lined up for the festival with 7 groups performing each night. Its formula of afternoon informative workshops, ethno-musical lectures, jamming sessions and mini concerts, which precedes the evening performances on the main stage will continue.

9. Who are its audience?

In 2011, the festival saw 21,254 festival goers attending the festival. An estimated 73 % of the festival goers came from outside Sarawak.

10.What is its success formula?

The success formula of the festival is its attractive performer’s line up, its afternoon workshops and the fantastic rainforest ambience.

11.How is the festival financed?

A bulk of the cost in organizing this festival is derived from sponsorship and government grants while ticket sales only contributes 1/3 of its income to finance the festival.

12.How do we foresee the festival in the next 5 years?

This festival is to be one of the region’s Malaysia best musical festival. It is among the 25 world’s best international festivals in the world according to Songlines, a well known music magazine and it is our hope that it will make it to the top 10. We also hope to make it more commercially viable

13. How does the locals benefit from the festival?

The accumulative spin-off to the local economy is estimated to be in excess of RM37m

The rising in the number of festival’s audience drawn from neighboring Brunei, Sabah, West Malaysia, Singapore, the region, Australia, Europe and the UK as a whole augurs well for the State in terms of visitors’ arrival.

15.There was a Rainforest World Craft Bazaar, was this in line with the Festival’s celebration?

These events are organized as a fringe event to the festival. This is to add more value to the festival, so as to enrich the experience of the festival goers. The inclusion of the fringe events is to add variety to the festival. We welcome anyone who wishes to organize any fringe event at their own cost.

16. How is the turnout for the workshops?

The workshops have always been a crowd puller and most festival goers attend the workshop and stay on for the night concert. The workshop is an interactive jamming session held at the ethnic houses in the Sarawak Cultural Village. Each workshop involved members of the various bands performing at the festival and the audience sit very close to the performers. The workshop can be of music, dance and folk stories and audience are encourage to participate in the workshop either by joining in the singing, dancing and playing of the musical instruments.

17.Besides the website, how else is the Festival being promoted in Malaysia and internationally?

Our medium of publicity include advertisement, flyers, posters, apart from the dedicated website. Our advertisements are place in selected travel and trade publications and newspapers. Our posters and flyers are placed in all Tourism Malaysia and MAS offices worldwide. We also place our posters, flyers with the travel agents that sell Sarawak overseas. These are also distributed at any of the tourism trade fair both in Malaysia and overseas. We also disseminate press releases both locally and internationally.

18.What is the media value generated?

Total media value generated is in the region of RM50m