The Project

Journey to the East Festival 2023 is a 9-day festival celebrating cutting-edge Asian contemporary arts and eastern performance cultures in Glasgow. In 2023, a range of exciting vents took place at the Centre for Contemporary Arts and other venues in Glasgow from 22 to 30 of September, centring the phenomenal work of ethnically diverse artists and activists. The festival presented an expanded view of Eastern performance practices as the exploration of the unconscious mind, and showcased a programme of live performances, music and film screenings, artist talks and workshops, with a number of incredible international premieres by an amazing lineup of artists including Yousuke Yukimatsu, Keioui Keijaun Thomas, Alvin Collantes and Ben Okamoto

The partnership

Established in 2021, Journey to the East Productions, the festival organiser, aims to promote underrepresented Asian and Eastern performance practices to wider audiences, through an annual nine-day festival. Jian Yi, the arts organisation’s Chief Executive, is originally from Australia and had an existing, strong connection with E G Business Equipment, an Australia-based organisation which operates in the field of retail technology.

Seeking to explore expansion opportunities into new overseas new markets, and build more connections between Asia-Pacific, the business sponsor saw an opportunity to heighten their global brand awareness and business image through arts sponsorship. Aligning their brand to a project promoting cultural and racial equity was highly attractive and the business sponsor initially came on board for the first Journey to the East Festival in 2021. This proved so successful that a second year of sponsorship for the 2023 festival was agreed, with match funding from the C&BS Fund allowing Journey to the East’s goal to expand their aim to promote cultural and racial equity through programming, raise awareness and help build an ‘East and West’ cultural solidarity.

The positive outcomes
The Journey to the East 2023 Festival was a resounding success with strong ticket sales and several national media outlets printing both previews and glowing reviews. Match funding from the C&BS Fund allowed Journey to the East Productions to fulfil their ambition of booking diverse line-ups and bringing renowned acts to Glasgow with many delivering their first ever performance in the city. Delivering a diverse schedule of artists from across the globe directly to local audiences in Glasgow, and delivering an artist-led initiative to promote the development, recognition and inclusion of culturally marginalised, non-Western art forms in the broader Scottish performing arts landscape, has had a significant impact on the reputation of the arts organisation as key player in performance arts in Scotland. Equally, EG Business Equipment has hailed their partnership with the festival as having a positive impact on their plans to reach international markets and audiences, and to raise global awareness of their brand.