Allow more visitors to Bicentennial showcase in final month

For three months in a row, I have tried to get two tickets to The Bicentennial Experience at Fort Canning Park, but to no avail.

I last tried to book tickets on Aug 7, the first day that slots opened for shows in September. But by that night, when I went online, all the slots were taken up.

This has been the case every month since June.

How is this possible, since I tried to register for tickets at the start of the booking period?

This is not the ideal bicentennial experience, and it has left a bad taste in the mouth.

With the showcase set to close on Sept 15, here are my suggestions:

• Extend the operating hours to accommodate more visitors in the final month of the event.

• Increase the number of visitors in each slot, speed up the showcase, and find out where the bottlenecks are and improve human traffic flow.

• Visitors without tickets should be allowed to register on the spot, in case there are cancellations or no-shows. They can be sent SMS (short message service) notifications if a vacancy becomes available.

• Make available a walk-through video of the Time Traveller show on the Singapore Bicentennial website or at Fort Canning Park for visitors who could not get tickets to it but are there to view the outdoor exhibits, which do not require tickets.

If the organisers decide to extend the showcase beyond Sept 15 for visitors who have not seen it, they should take these steps.

• Stagger registration to allow bookings only a week in advance, since opening bookings a month early may give rise to no-shows.

• Make attendees pay a refundable token fee to reduce no-shows.

• Set a cap of two tickets for every booking. The current limit is 12.

• Limit the number of times an individual can book tickets. I understand some people have visited the showcase more than once.

• Allocate tickets first to Singaporeans, then to the general public.

• Better still, make the showcase permanent.

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