Roll Up, Roll Up: Hong Kong’s First Favourite Carnival returns to the Central Harbour Front!

The AIA Great European Carnival will take pride of place once again at the Central Harbourfront Event Space, from 17th December 2015 through until 21st February 2016. The 67-day Carnival will run over all the major festive dates including Christmas, New Year’s Eve, Valentine’s Day and Chinese New Year - with special celebrations planned for each.

The AIA Great European Carnival won major awards including the Best Event Consumer, and Best Sponsorship Activation, at the Marketing Events Awards 2015, run by Marketing Magazine. After attracting more 830,000 visitors last year, the event promises to be even bigger this year with all the favourite rides returning in addition to a number of new rides coming from all around Europe. There will be new and revitalised games and complete range of new plush toys over 1,000,000 to be won during the carnival period.

“We were so pleased with the success of The AIA Great European Carnival last year and the joy it brought to the people of Hong Kong and this year we are committed to talking the event to the next level,” said Michael Denmark, CEO of promoter TGEC. “With thanks to the Government, the Hong Kong Tourism Board and some key partners, we are able to introduce a number of new concepts to make it a truly Carnivalmeets-Festival entertainment experience, all keeping within our traditional European theme. It will be another first for Hong Kong.”

Perhaps the most visible addition to this year’s Carnival will be the entertainment space in the form of an upside down purple cow named ‘Violet’, which will host the Udderbelly Festival, one of the United Kingdom’s most popular festival events. The Udderbelly Festival Hong Kong, also presented by AIA, will offer a variety of entertainment for young and old including talented music acts, comedy, children’s shows and stage performances.

Said Ed Bartlam, one of the founders and directors of the Udderbelly Festival: “Udderbelly Festival Hong Kong is our first adventure into the live entertainment market in Asia. Hong Kong is known around the globe as one of the world’s greatest cities and with the location for Udderbelly in the heart of Central, we couldn’t be more delighted.” 

The AIA Great European Carnival will also introduce Hong Kong to the Luminaire experience, spectacular grand structures made of handcrafted lights from Italy, which will light up the Carnival at night. It is a craft that has been handed from father to son for more than 400 years. The popular photo boards will this year be 3D scaled replicas of iconic landmarks from across Europe, such as the Eiffel Tower, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and Big Ben among many others. Hong Kong’s only outdoor ice-skating rink returns and there will be plenty more roaming street artists, a centralised food court offering an array of European food and beverage and non-stop entertainment on the main stage.

Of this year’s AIA Great European Carnival, Jacky Chan, CEO of AIA Hong Kong and Macau, said: “AIA is exhilirated to be the title sponsor once again of The AIA Great European Carnival this year. By working with TGEC to bring back this event, we hope to encourage people to cherish every precious moment with their loved ones and to create lots of lifelong happy memories with friends and family. As ‘The Real Life Company’, AIA is committed to accompanying its customers on the remarkable journey of life and to experience every exciting moment and heart-warming event with them.”

The AIA Great European Carnival 2015/16 promises to offer exceptional fun and entertainment for every visitor. “There is no other event like this in Hong Kong,” says Denmark. “The scale at which we are offering all the thrills that a Carnival brings, while recreating traditional European experiences during the most festive period of the year, is unprecedented. To host it on the Central harbour front makes it easily accessible to everyone in Hong Kong. We hope the AIA Great European Carnival continues to provide everlasting memories for the people of this amazing city and visitors alike.”

FOR THE GREAT EUROPEAN CARNIVAL ENQUIRIES:
Alex Gibbs or Matthew Yau
Agenda Consulting
+852 2890 4500
alex@tgec.asia

FOR AIA ENQUIRIES:
Mr Kevin Chan
Bentley Communications Limited
+852 3960 1903
kevinchan@bentleyhk.com

ABOUT THE GREAT EUROPEAN CARNIVAL

The Great European Carnival Ltd is the producer of the annual Hong Kong event called The AIA Great European Carnival. The Great European Carnival takes place between December and February each year, on the Central Harbourfront Event Space. Each year the event features amusement rides, carnival skill games, an outdoor ice rink, seasonal markets and performances on a community stage. The Carnival welcomes more than 1,000,000 Hong Kong and international guests and recently beat out several internationally renowned brands to win Marketing Magazine’s - Best Event Consumer and Best Sponsorship Activation.

ABOUT AIA HONG KONG AND AIA MACAU

AIA Hong Kong and AIA Macau are subsidiaries of AIA Group Limited. AIA Group Limited established its operations in Hong Kong in 1931. We have the largest team of financial planners in Hong Kong and Macau*, now over 11,000, as well as an extensive network of brokerage and bancassurance partners who serve more than 1.8 million customers. Our products range from individual life, group life, accident, medical and health, personal lines insurance to investmentlinked products with numerous investment options. We are also dedicated to providing superb product solutions to meet the financial needs of high net worth customers.

ABOUT AIA

AIA Group Limited and its subsidiaries (collectively “AIA” or the “Group”) comprise the largest independent publicly listed pan-Asian life insurance group. It has a presence in 18 markets in Asia-Pacific - wholly-owned brances and subsidiaries in Hong Kong, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, China, Korea, the Philippines, Australia, Indonesia, Taiwan, Vietnam, New Zealand, Macau, Brunei, a 97 per cent subsidiary in Sri Lanka, a 26 per cent joint venture in India and representative offices in Myanmar and Cambodia.

The business that is now AIA was first established in Shanghai over 90 years ago. It is a market leader in the Asia-Pacific region (ex-Japan) based on life insurance premiums and holds leading positions across the majority of its markets. It had total assets of US$172 billion as of 31 May 2015.

AIA meets the long-term savings and protection needs of individuals by offering a range of products and services including life insurance, accident and health insurance and savings plans. The Group also provides employee benefits, credit life and pension services to corporate clients. Through an extensive network of agents, partners and employees across Asia-Pacific, AIA serves the holders of more than 29 million individual policies and over 16 million participating members of group insurance schemes.

AIA Group Limited is listed on the Main Board of The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited under the stock code “1299” with American Depositary Receipts (Level 1) traded on the over-the-counter market (ticker symbol: “AAGIY”).