The Cityneon Story
The Beginning
The story of Cityneon began in 1956, when Cityneon Electric (the founding company in the group) was set up, and started trading domestic electrical appliances from a humble shop house along South Bridge Road in the heartland of Singapore.
As Cityneon worked closely with retailers who stocked and sold its products through their stores, it extended another service - that of designing, decorating and fitting-out of these retailers' shops. This led to the incorporation of "Cityneon Displays and Construction" catering to the interior design and renovation of retail store displays.
First forays into exhibitions
Cityneon is an early pioneer of the exhibition services business in Singapore. In the early days, professionally organized trade exhibitions were rare, as there were no professional exhibition service providers.
Cityneon's first foray into the professional exhibition services arena began in the early 1970s when the company was commissioned by AUSTRADE (The Australian Trade Commission) to stage the first ever solo-country "Made in Australia" trade exhibition in Singapore. Cityneon worked closely with AUSTRADE as we were tasked to erect exhibition booth structures and provide other ancillary services for the event. The exhibition turned out to be an overwhelming success and prompted officials from other foreign embassies to stage similar shows for their own countries.
Having had the experience and privilege of staging the Australian event previously, Cityneon became the choice provider of exhibition supplies to these foreign missions. Our client base expanded rapidly to include amongst many government authorities, the U.S. Department of Commerce, UK Department of Trade and Industry and Japan External Trade Organisation etc.
During those times, professional exhibition organisers, primarily those from Europe, began to plant roots in the region. Spearheading this was the Montgomery Group from the UK which organised the first ever "Oil and Gas" exhibition. Cityneon was contracted to be the official organiser for this inaugural event in the car park of the Singapore Hyatt Hotel.
Since then, the Montgomery Group had gone on to organise a series of trade exhibitions some of which have today become Asia's largest events, such as the ‘COMMUNIC ASIA’ and ‘FOOD & HOTEL ASIA’ and again, Cityneon's services were engaged as its preferred official contractor.
Having acquired a strong reputation for our reliability and professionalism, Cityneon was appointed a steady influx of work for similar tradeshows and roadshows across South Asia and Far East - Malaysia, Indonesia, HK, China and the Middle East, thus, paving the way for Cityneon's entry into the international platform of exhibition service providers.
The 1980s was an exciting decade for the developing Asian economies with significantly incremental annual growth rates for most countries in Asia - including Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Taiwan, China and Hong Kong. Regional trade blossomed and professionally organised trade exhibitions became a popular platform for international buyers and sellers of goods and services to meet. As one of the earliest providers of such unique services, Cityneon grew in tandem with the region's growth.
Beyond Asia to the Middle East
Although Cityneon has been delivering traveling exhibitions and road-shows in many parts of the Middle East region since the 1970s, incongruously, the idea of setting up a permanent base there was triggered by the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq, that led to the 1st Gulf War in 1990. Although the Iraqi invasion failed as it was strongly rebuffed by UN allied forces, Kuwait's infrastructures were nonetheless badly damaged and devastated by the invasion.
In response to this, a mammoth exhibition entitled REBUILD KUWAIT was organized in Bahrain in 1993 by the Montgomery Group - with the view of facilitating the rehabilitation and rebuilding of Kuwait in the aftermath of the war. Cityneon was contracted to design, build and provide all exhibition infrastructural services to this mega-event, which occupied almost 22,000 sq metres of indoor and outdoor space at the then newly completed Bahrain International Exhibition Centre.
Cityneon lived up to its expectations and delivered the project well and so, a year later in 1994, we set up a permanent base in Bahrain to service its growing list of clients in the Middle East, and to tap into the growth opportunities of this fast-growing region.
Remaking for the future... the 1990s
In the early part of the 1990s, international and regional trade flourished for the Asian countries as their economies were reaping benefits of liberalisation in their policies and implementation of free trade agreements. However, this also led to the vulnerability of these economies and the region was abruptly brought to its knees with the onset of the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997.
The business and political climate was dramatically transformed overnight and severe challenges confronted all governments and enterprises of the region. In an effort to remake itself in preparation for challenges at its doorstep, the Cityneon Group undertook a fundamental restructuring of business operations at its Singapore headquarters, into 4 business units, each specialising on specific core competencies:
- Cityneon Exhibition Services - provision of exhibition equipment rental services and official contractor services to professional trade-show organizers.
- Cityneon Creations - provision of high quality design and custom-built pavilions for corporate clients and national trade agencies at world-class international events.
- Cityneon Concepts - provision of high quality event-management and event-organizing services to institutional, public agencies and corporate clients.
- Cityneon Global Projects - provision of design and construction services for interior architectures of galleries and museums, as well as the commercial and retail sectors.
Cityneon entered the 21st Century with guarded optimism. The exponential growth of the two emerging superpowers of Asia - China and India, brought the axis of change and growth once again to Asia. On the other hand, in retrospect, the global threat of terrorism, ignited by September 11 and the subsequent Iraqi conflict, together with the onset of SARS in Asia in the early 2000s, threw the entire exhibition and events industry into temporary disarray.
However, in an optimistic light, the MICE industry (Meetings, Incentives, Events and exhibitions industry is witnessing unprecedented growth, evident is the increasing number and size of mega-convention centres all over Asia and the Middle East. These include the Singapore Expo (Singapore); Malaysia (KLCC); Thailand (BITEC & IMPACT); Hong Kong (Wanchai and New Asia Expo); Japan (BIGSIGHT); Korea (PUSAN); and China (with mega facilities in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangdong).
Middle Eastern countries are undergoing a period of renaissance and they have taken steps to diversify their economy by developing incentive travel and meetings as their core industries to lessen their dependence on the oil industry with new huge government and foreign investments being pumped into the building infrastructures and development projects. The buoyancy of their meetings and events market – in particular incentive travel, the single most common type of event held in the Middle East makes it an emerging key destination for the meetings industry and this is reflected in the growth of venues designed for this market.
For example, the Qatar National Convention Centre, in Qatar’s Education City, will shortly open its doors for business, setting a new benchmark in world-class convention facilities with its 2,500 seat auditorium, 500-seat theatre and two lecture halls.
Cityneon has been operating in these regions since the 1970s and is now well poised to capitalise on the growth there. We have the experience, expertise and the local knowledge to assist our clients in making their presence there felt in a BIG way, as we commit ourselves to our clients to create manifold business opportunities from environments to experiences.