Era of COVID-19:
Preparing the Takeoff of the Performing Arts Market
with Online K-PAM

HONG Sawoong
Director of the Performing Arts Division at Korea Arts Management Service

#1. February 27, 2020. Last day of my business trip to APAM 2020 in Melbourne, Australia.

It was the last day of the official schedule of my overseas business trip. I had been nervous throughout the stay because of the coronavirus.
Catherine,* director of the Australian Performing Arts Market (APAM), invited those in charge of performing arts markets in major regions to a breakfast meeting. (* On this occasion, I would like to sincerely thank Catherine for her hospitality.)
Maybe because there were Koreans in the meeting, the participants raised great concerns over COVID-19 on that day, even though we had never discussed the matter throughout the period of APAM. In particular, they asked us about Korea’s quarantine efforts, which have always been active since the onset of the disease. They were also curious about the impact of the virus to the Korean performing arts scene. I answered like this.
“Korea’s ‘K-quarantine’ during the pandemic will be exported as a national brand. Please wait and see. In addition, the Korean performing arts scene is responding to the pandemic calmly and rationally. Performing arts companies are taking the lead in preventing infection at theaters....”
These remarks and Korea’s experience of the MERS outbreak were shared with others later on. I heard that Korea’s experience had been mentioned during the last session of APAM the day after our departure.

APAM Pitching Session ©KAMS

#2. May 2020. Changes brought by COVID-19... Acceleration of technological development for (international) conferences...

We had planned a series of projects helping Korean performances go global. But we had to suspend, postpone or cancel these projects one by one. We also became unable to move from country to country. So the situation was getting worse. Under these circumstances, I found a special case of organizing an online conference. The event was held using computer graphics to look just like an offline international conference. Using avatars, the conference provided real-time meetings and lectures in one cyberspace. Meanwhile, international performing arts markets and festivals were running video conferences on platforms like Zoom. So I carefully considered adopting this new case as an alternative for the ‘untact platform’ of the Performing Arts Market in Seoul (PAMS).

Official trailer of the Virtual Vive Ecosystem Conference 2020 ©V2EC2020

#3. June 2020. We decided to transform this year’s PAMS into an untact platform at 100%.

In Korea, the coronavirus was still causing obstacles but Koreans were getting used to their daily quarantine efforts. On the other hand, other countries continued to face unpredictable circumstnaces. Most of our projects helping Korean performances go global had been changed into the ones supporting the production and distribution of performance videos. But we wanted to maintain even a minimum amount of face-to-face exchanges at PAMS, considering the spread of the virus. During the last week of June, the Performing Arts Division had a scrum meeting.* (* Scrum meeting: Gathering together all members of a division, the meeting is composed of short briefings and information sharing. This is to connect the pieces of everyone’s tasks, just like forming a scrum. This type of meeting was borrowed from startups.) During that meeting, the members of my division started an intense debate over how to organize this year’s PAMS. We needed to make a decision.

‘Let’s choose to prepare an ‘untact event’ at 100%!!‘

We had wanted to maintain a minimum amount of face-to-face exchanges but letting go of that plan, my division decided to organize this year’s PAMS on an untact platform at 100%. The PAMS team had actually found a digital business platform in the style of a role-playing game (RPG) developed by a Korean startup, which was quite timely. In the framework of the platform, we had to prepare the performing arts market in an untact way.

Our mission was to finish the preparation on time.

#4. Meet the challenge of COVID-19 with a new concept called K-PAM

DOP: It stands for a digital online platform.
Pamvatar: It is the nickname of PAMS’ digital avatar who is neither feminine nor masculine.
Space warp: It refers to a function enabling us to move from space to space without waiting for the avatar to move.

We have recently used quite a few neologisms during our meetings.
From time to time, I wonder if I would be someone like Neo in the movie .
I say to myself, “Don’t expect too much of that....” But I ask people what they think of this whenever I have a chance to do so.
Most of them respond positively and some of them are amazed.

Unfortunately, we offer neither mobile, real-time video meetings nor compatibility with Mac devices, with which international participants feel familiar. That is because we don’t have enough time to prepare the event...

Despite this, we have the following goals for the digital online platform of this year’s PAMS.
First, we will keep the existing face-to-face* PAMS’ networking and meetings intact as much as possible. (* Last year, I didn’t even imagine that I would say “face-to-face” so often.) In this regard, we will maintain PAMS’ own programs (e.g. PAMS Choice Showcase and PAMS Pitching).

Second, we will make up for the offline performing arts market’s limits regarding space and time. This is a new challenge and opportunity for us. Even in cyberspace, we look forward to more connections and exchanges.

Although everything is uncertain amid the spread of COVID-19, we will showcase K-PAM (meaning “Korean performing arts market”) as a new standard of performing arts markets, convinced that we can try anything.

Before the event, I would like to remind you that this year’s PAMS may have some unexpected situations and weaknesses because we chose a road not taken.
Nevertheless, I can’t wait to see the interest and response of international performing arts colleagues.

2020 PAMS Digital Online Platform ©KAMS

2020 PAMS Digital Online Platform ©KAMS