The Beginning

The story of Cityneon began in 1956, when CityNeon Electric (the founding company in the group) was set up, and started trading in domestic electrical appliances in 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" which specialized in design and fitting-out 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, if indeed there was any. Not surprisingly,there were no professional exhibition-service providers as well.

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 Promotion Board) to work closely with them to stage the first ever solo-country "Made in Australia" trade exhibition in Singapore. Cityneon was tasked to erect the exhibition booth structures and provide other ancilliary services for the event. The exhibition turned out to be an overwhelming success, and prompted officials from the other foreign embassies to stage similar shows for their respective countries. Having had the experience and advantage of staging the Australian event previously, Cityneon became the vendor of first choice to these foreign missions. Its clients quickly expanded to include the U.S. Department of Commerce; the UK Department of Trade and Industry; France CFME; Japan JETRO; etc,etc.

It was also during this time that professional exhibition organizers, primarily those from Europe, began to plant roots in the region. Spearheading this was the Montgomery Group from the UK which organized the first ever "Oil and Gas" exhibition in the carpark of the Singapore Hyatt Hotel. Cityneon was the first service-provider for this event. The Montgomery Group has since gone on to organize a series of very successful trade exhibitions, some of which have today become Asia's largest events - such as the "COMMUNIC ASIA", the "FOOD & HOTEL ASIA" and "MACHINE ASIA" series. Through all these years, it has consistently engaged Cityneon's services as its Official Contractor.

Having acquired a strong reputation for its reliability and professionalism, Cityneon was soon commissioned by its clients to assist in the delivery of similar travelling trade exhibitions and road-shows overseas - in Malaysia, Indonesia, HK, China and even far away regions like the Middle East. This marked the beginning of Cityneon's first forays into the international exhibition markets.

The 1980s was an exciting decade which witnessed almost breath-taking growth among the East Asian economies. Most countries in Asia - including Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Taiwan, and China/HK - registered consistently high single-digit annual growth rates. Regional trade blossomed, and professionally-organised trade exhibitions became a popular platform for the meeting of international buyers and sellers of goods and services. 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 had been delivering traveling exhibitions and road-shows in many parts of the Middle East region since the 1970s, it only began considering to set up a permanent base there in the early mid-1990s.

The event that triggered this was 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 in the rehabilitating 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.

The event turned out to be an overwhelming success, and by 1994, it was decided that Cityneon would 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



The decade of 1990s would prove to be one of the most exciting and challenging in recent memory. The early 90s was marked by a period of almost unstoppable growth among the South East Asian economies. However, the entire region was abrubtly brought to its knees with the onset of the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997. The business and political environment was dramatically transformed overnight, and severe challenges confronted all governments and enterprises of the region. Remaking itself to prepare for the challenges at the doorstep, the Cityneon Group undertook a fundamental re-organisation - structuring its Singapore operations into 4 separate business units, each specializing and focusing on its specific area of strengths:

• Cityneon Exhibition Services - to focus on exhibition equipment rental services, and provision of Official Contractorship services to professional trade-show organizers.
• Cityneon Creations - to focus on servicing of corporate clients and national trade agencies who require very high quality design & build services for their custom-built pavilions at world-class international events.
• Cityneon Concepts - to focus on provision of top-end high quality event-management and event-organizing services to institutional, public agency and corporate clients.
• Cityneon World-Projects - to focus on provision of design & build services for public visitor galleries and museums, as well as interior architectural services for the retail, commercial and hospitality sectors.

Cityneon steps into the 21st Century with guarded optimism. On the one hand, the global challenge of terrorism - ignited by September 11, and the subsequent Iraqi conflict, together with the onset of SARS in Asia in the early 2000s had thrown the entire events and exhibition industry into temporary disarray. On the other hand, this is often referred to as the Asia-Pacific century, with growth rates powering unstoppably ahead, led by China and India. The events and exhibitions industry is witnessing unprecedented growth, as evidenced by the increasing number and size of mega-convention centers 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).

The Middle East region is undergoing a period of renaissance, with new huge investments into infrastructures and development projects committed on a daily basis.

Cityneon has been operating in these regions since the 1970s, and is now well-poised to captialise on the growth there. It has the experience, the expertise and the local knowledge to assist its clients to get the best out of taking part in the exciting journey of growing in tandem in these regions.