An Indian Ocean resort, a Chinese New Year, and a week of programming that brought one to the other
| Client | Velaa Private Island, Maldives |
| Sector | Luxury hospitality |
| Years | 2018 and 2019 — two consecutive seasons |
| Occasion | Chinese New Year / Spring Festival |
| Scope | Programme design · casting · promotion · on-site delivery |
| Format | Week-long guest programme with gala finale |
Velaa Private Island asked ING Entertainment to build its Chinese New Year celebration — not a single stage segment, but a week of cultural programming across the resort, ending in a gala. It worked well enough that they did it again the following year.
THE BRIEF
Chinese New Year is the single biggest week in the Chinese outbound travel calendar. For a luxury resort courting that market, the holiday is not decoration — it is the reason a guest chooses one island over another. Getting it right means programming that reads as genuine to Chinese guests while remaining legible and beautiful to everyone else on the property.
Velaa Private Island engaged ING Entertainment to design and deliver that programme. The remit ran from promotion through to planning and on-site delivery — the full arc, not a supplied troupe.
THE PROGRAMME
The celebration ran across the resort for a week and culminated in a gala show. Rather than concentrating everything into one evening, the programme placed cultural moments where guests already were — the bar, the beach, the public spaces — so the holiday accumulated rather than arrived once.
Acts delivered across the week included:
- Lion dance and dragon dance — performed on the beach and through the resort’s public areas
- Bian Lian 变脸 — Sichuan opera face-changing, the programme’s signature “how did that happen” moment
- Guzheng — solo classical performance
- Chinese tea ceremony — a tea master hosting guests at the resort’s Avi Bar
- Martial arts — ensemble performance
- Costumed ensemble dance — full-company staging for the gala
- God of Wealth 财神 — a walkabout character greeting guests, the traditional New Year figure
WHAT A PROGRAMME LIKE THIS DEMANDS
Programming Chinese New Year on a private island in the Maldives is a different discipline from staging a gala in Shanghai, and it is worth being explicit about why:
Everything travels. Costumes, instruments, props and a dragon all have to arrive intact, on an island reached by seaplane. There is no local rental market and no second attempt.
There is no bench. On a mainland show a missing prop is a phone call and a van. On an island, whatever did not arrive does not exist. Redundancy has to be packed, not sourced.
The audience is international, not Chinese. A programme aimed only at guests who already know the traditions will lose the rest of the property. Bian Lian and lion dance carry across a language barrier because they are visual and physical — the acts have to be chosen for that, not simply for authenticity.
It runs for a week, not eight minutes. Acts must work in daylight on sand, in a bar at close quarters, and on a stage after dark. That is three different performance registers from the same company.
The resort’s brand sets the ceiling. At this end of the market, “festive” is not the goal. The programming has to sit comfortably inside a property whose guests are paying for restraint and precision.
THE OUTCOME
Velaa published the celebration across its own Instagram channel — lion dance, Bian Lian, the guzheng performance and the dragon on the beach — describing the gala as the culmination of the week and inviting guests to return for the next one.
Then they booked ING for a second consecutive year.
For a resort at this level, a repeat engagement is the meaningful verdict. The programme is one a property either renews or quietly replaces.
Planning Chinese New Year, Mid-Autumn or a cultural programme for an international property? ING Entertainment designs, casts and delivers Chinese cultural programming for hotels, resorts and brands — in China and beyond. → Talk to us about your season