I recently had a great time at the 41st Annual Dragon Boat Races in Melaka, Malaysia. They took place over a weekend on Saturday, June 27th and Sunday, June 28th. The 8-kilometer endurance races took place on Saturday. And then the 200-meter sprints and the awards ceremony took place on Sunday. I was there for both days, and I shot and posted three videos of the event for my YouTube Channel “Planet Doug.”
Afterwards, I started thinking about new features that could be added for spectators to better understand and better enjoy the event both as a competitive sport and as a fun festival. I came up with a few ideas. I just thought I’d write them down and post them here for fun.
The main issue I had with the Dragon Boat Races as a spectator is that I didn’t know anything about the actual races and the teams that were competing. I saw dragon boats paddling hard up or down the river, but I didn’t know which teams they were or what races they were competing in. And I thought it would help if there was a way to put a flag or two on each boat that identifies the team name, the category they were competing in, and the type of race it was. Then as a spectator, I would be a lot more emotionally invested because I would know who was competing and what they were competing for.
I also thought it would be helpful if the organizers put together a physical brochure that could be distributed to spectators (or purchased by them) giving all the information about the Dragon Boat Festival and the Dragon Boat Races.
I also had some random ideas for festival-style activities that could be added to the races for people to join.
Anyway, here are some details about the thoughts I had:
- Put permanent mounts on the boats for a flag pole with identifying flags:
Each team would be issued their own flagpole that is designed to fit securely into a special mount on the boat. Each flag pole would have a space for two flags. One flag would tell spectators the race type AND the team category. The second would identify the race team itself.
Flag One: This flag identifies the race type and the team category. This flag could use colors and words to indicate, for example, that this is a 200-Meter race in the Women’s category. Each category (Open, Mixed, Masters, Women, Corporate, etc) would have its own color to quickly identify it. And the words Open, Mixed, Masters, Women, or Corporate would also be on the flag.
Flag Two: And there would be a spot on the flag pole where the team itself could mount their own custom-made flag that identifies the team name or sponsor or city or country.
With these flags, a spectator would know which race was taking place, which category of dragon boat teams was competing, and the team names. That would increase the excitement level considerably because everyone would know which teams were racing and which race they were taking part in.
- Print a brochure with all the information about the races. This brochure could answer all the questions of when, where, who, how, what, etc.
- These brochures could provide the schedule for the races, the names of all the teams listed by category and race, the time and location of the opening ceremony, closing ceremony, and other special events.
- The brochure could contain a map of the Melaka River showing the location and route of the different races and where the starting line and finishing lines are for each race.
- The brochure could also contain general and fun information about the history of dragon boat races, the history of the races in Melaka/Malaysia, and their cultural significance.
- There could also be contact information, QR codes, phone numbers, website URL, email addresses, names of organizers and sponsors, etc.
- This brochure could be handed out for free at the event or distributed around Melaka at various spots in advance. To offset costs, there could be a fee to purchase a brochure at the event. Spectators would likely be more than happy to pay a ringgit or two or three for a nice brochure.
- Issue a QR code that provides up-to-date race results. Scanning the code would bring people to the Dragon Boat Races website and a specific page that provides a race schedule with results. This QR code can be printed on the brochure and be posted at various places along the river where the races are taking place.
I thought that in addition to improving the spectator experience of the races themselves, the organizers could lean into the festival atmosphere by providing activities and ways that spectators can get more involved and have more fun.
- Selfie Stations: Set up a full-sized dragon boat or a couple of mini-dragon boats next to the river (on the ground) that people could use for selfies. Children could climb into the boats and grab an oar and pretend to paddle or grab the steering oar and pretend to steer or grab a stick and actually beat the drum and have their picture taken. Having two such boats side-by-side would be fun to pretend to be racing.
- Toy Dragon Boats: Sell souvenir or inexpensive toy dragon boats and set up a small, shallow pool area where children can float their boats and play with them. There can be a short string attached to the front of each boat so they can be pulled through the water.
- Sell Items for Cheering: These can be paper accordion dragons that children can play with or adults can wave in the air to cheer on their team. Other ideas are miniature drums that spectators can beat on while the race is underway. Hand fans with a dragon boat motif and design.
- Set up Specialized dragon boat ergometers so that spectators can test and measure their own paddling power.
- Drummer Lottery: Hold a lottery that people can enter. And the winners get the chance to join an actual dragon boat race team and be the drummer for a fun race. Perhaps there can be four winners so that there are four teams competing. And each lottery winner is the drummer for a team and they hold a fun race.
- Hold a fun exhibition race for local celebrities and officials.
- Zongzi: Have vendors selling this traditional dragon boat snack, perhaps even mobile vendors going up and down the riverside race venues. There could even be special events where people learn to make their own zongzi.
And that’s about it for the ideas that popped into my head. The main improvement for me would be the first one: somehow conveying to spectators information about each race and the teams competing in them. I filmed dozens of races during the two days, but I generally had no idea which race it was and which teams were competing. A big event would, of course, have large digital screens mounted at the riverside showing all this information. But that would be expensive and difficult. So I thought using flags and a QR code system would be better.