Now CNA 938 rewind. Geylang busy, busy busy this month. Have you been to the Geylang area? I live near there so I don't feel the need to go there to have more. Yeah, I do know that it's, I don't know, it's strange. It feels as if this year there's just a lot more hype around it. Do you feel that way? Yeah, yeah. So if you're wondering why it's going to be busy.
Because the annual Geylang Serai Ramadan bazaar is underway. So the bazaar officially opened on February 26th, and it will last till the end of the Muslim fasting month on March 30th. It is a crowd favorite, right, for festive shopping, culinary delights, culinary delights, especially culinary delights. Now the bazaar is set to feature about 500 stalls offering a range of goods and food.
That is insanity, 500 stalls. So there are 4 food and beverage zones, daily live performances throughout the duration of the bazaar, including traditional music shows, comedy segments, as is the case every year, large crowds are expected in the area, so the authorities have advised shoppers and motorists to stay alert. We've made that announcement as well on the show. Uh, make alternative travel arrangements and drive carefully when in
the area. I just want to take note here that um the MRT stations and the, basically your commuting experience to the Geylang Serai area is rather smooth these days because of the bus networks and the improvements to the MRT as well. So do plan your journey. You don't want, you want to avoid the crowds as much as possible. Um, well, guess what? We wanted to find out more about what it's like to have a stall. Geylang Bazaar, and we found one. Her name is Shereen Begum.
She's founder of Indian Incs. Now she's no ordinary stallholder at the bazaar. You're not going to find her uh tossing some burger around me. Um, but she is a henna tattoo artist and she has a stall at the bazaar. It's been 3 days now, Shereen, that you've set up shop there in Geylang. Uh, first weekend also has just passed. How's the atmosphere and business been like so far?
Hi, thank you for having me on board. Um, the atmosphere honestly has been very lively and like you mentioned, there has been performances every day at the um the baza since we opened, and I think that brings like the people together. And because during this first weekend, uh, fasting hasn't officially started yet, so there were many people coming by to try the food before fasting started and we We did get quite a number, uh, we did get quite a big crowd over on Saturday on Friday and Saturday.
Oh wow,
we understand that this is your 3rd year at the bazaar, but it's the first time you're running the stall for a full month. previous two times were only about 5 days. Why have you decided to run the shop for the entirety of the bazaar duration?
So, um, in, yeah, like you said, this is my 3rd year at the bazaar. So for the 1st 2 years when I was there, I had a pretty small space as I was just doing Hanna, and, um, you know, the Geylang Bazaar is one of the biggest events that we see in Singapore each year and um as part of like, you know, a natural progression in my business since I do Hanna, um, for me, I really wanted to be there and I, and I thought that was
like the mark of like success. So for the 1st 2 years when I was at the bazaar, it was a very rich. Experience, um, and I just wanted to see if I can kind of pull it off for the whole month, uh,
because we have the space for the whole month. Um, this time around, you know, since it's my 3rd year at the bazaar, you know, we're bringing something new for customers to come in and try and, um, you know, at each week because Hanna is typically not the um thing that people do first, it's always the last in their minds before Hari Raya. So this time around, you know, we are running a bit of like promotions and discounts so that we can get.
People to come by to get their Hannah done earlier as well.
OK, how long does a henna tattoo, by the way?
So henna tattoo typically lasts around 5 to 7 days. People will start getting their henna done about 3 to 4 days before the festival and then it will darken on the day of the festival itself.
So Peak Inc is about that time, about the time that Hari Raya is. OK. Um, let's go back to how you're setting up a shop there. Talk to us about the process of applying and securing a spot at the bazaar. Is it competitive? I mean, 500 stalls is crazy. Is it competitive, difficult to get a spot, especially since, as you said, Ramadan and the Geylang Bazaar, I mean they go hand in hand and it's super popular.
Yes, you're right. But I would say it is a fairly simple process because what I did was um I just had to go down to the location to take a look at the space and um they already have the map set out for you, so you can pick which stalls you want. But it is competitive because a lot of the stalls can get booked up as early as 2 to 3 months before the bazaar. So for myself, I booked my spot sometime in January, and I did go down multiple times to see, um, you know, which, um, spots were available,
you know, have they been taken up? What were alternatives I had if they were to be taken. up. So um these are things I had to keep in mind when I was applying and trying to secure the spot.
Shire, we're just curious, you spoke about this quite briefly, but you know, we want to get more from you. How much does the exposure from setting up shop at the bazaar help to drive your business in general?
So currently my business um Indianings is mostly social media driven, but having a space at the bazaar gives us this opportunity to connect with those that are not on social media. Um, so a lot, a lot of times what has happened, um, at least what I've noticed in the last 3 days since I've set up the booth, is that many people do come by and they stop and they go like, Oh, you're Hannah Booth, and I'm like, yes.
Mahana booth and they take my card and then they tell me that, oh, we'll come by, you know, when it's closer to Haria so that we can get Hannah done from you. So they have not seen my brand or my business before, the very fact that I've been there from the start kind of tells them that, OK, I'm still going to be here at the end of the month, and then they will come by. So that's the kind of exposure that we get.
Yeah, and I think that's a good call that you made to, you know, be there the entire month instead of just the 5 days at least, you know, you don't have that bottleneck to deal with and people remember that you're there exactly what you said, right? So what do you do then the other 11 months of the year when there's no Geylang Serai Bazaar? What what do you do with your henna tattooing?
So, um, besides Geylang Bazaar, the other biggest bazaar we are at would be the Deepa Valley Bazaar, so that's October, but a lot, um, throughout the year, we are mostly at pop-ups, uh, and events, so there can be events that happens, you know, like markets, festivals and things like that that happens throughout the year and we'll definitely be there because I think the idea is that we don't want Hannah. To just be linked with um only the festival period.
We do want it to be like an all year staple where people can come by and get done anytime. Over the years since I've started, um, I think there's been a really good like uh push for it. So many, many times when people do come down, they're like, oh my God, I can't believe I get to do Hannah. I only get. I only get it done, you know, in school when you're in or um, you know, during the bazaar, but now I can get it, you know, at any point of the year. So that's OK.
Shireen, so we talked about how competitive it can be, especially when choosing the sports that you want. What are the top three challenges you would say that you that you face setting up shop at the bazaar?
I think the biggest challenge, um, for me would always be um footfall in the early years, because like I mentioned before, it is not, uh, people don't usually come by to get um Hannah done early. So, uh, for us, you know, to navigate the footfall and to ensure that, you know, people still stop by is something of a challenge. Um, and secondly, this kind of leads to, um, I guess like the second point. So I do have a team of artists that I work with and
Um, for us, you know, we do enjoy drawing. So when there are times where, you know, these are slower, um, you know, that kind of affects morale sometimes. So in those days, you know, what we try to do is that because we have the space, we make use of the space to create like content, to create videos, you know, to explain more about Hanna, and also like, um, just general things that people should know when they come by.
So this looks like videos about how to get to, you know, Geylang Baza itself, you know, what's the food that you can try there, and these are sort of like informational like topics that, you know, people will be generally interested in and that kind of makes us a familiar face that, you know, we are already at the bazaar and you can still come down to. Yeah,
that virality actually gives you a sense of uh productive, it's a productive use of your time also to to kind of You know, people think about chasing virality on social media like it's a bad thing, but you know if you're doing cross cross promotional stuff like this, it's a great use of your time while you're there, especially on slower days. Um, so there are going to be 500 stores. I I think I can't say this enough. Offering a range of uh goods, food options, lots of
shopping to be had services as well. I think sometimes I've seen cars there, carpets and cars in the same place that it's a uniquely Singaporean Geylang Serai experience. So even. Even for yourself, uh, there are other stalls offering henna services as well. So how do you set yourself apart then? I mean, you talked about, I guess social media being one of those ways, uh, but on the ground, how do you make sure that you stand out from all the other similar uh Hana providers?
So I think there was a, there's a couple of things to this. Um, so firstly, because we were number one, we are familiar face, having been at Gillam Bazaar for the last 3 years, um, a lot of people do come back looking for us, and I've had situations where um clients would, um, message me online asking like, oh, are you going to be at Geylang Bazaar this year again? Um, so it's kind of nice to see that, you know,
people still look out for us being there. But, um, I think secondly, the most and this This is the most important thing is that I don't really see like similar stalls as competition. It's always about collaboration. So, um, like for, for many years, um, what happens is that we have uh many people coming down to Geylang Bazaar, and I think if you've seen the reports, Geylang Bazar brings down at least like 2 million people a year.
I know and um as as a Hanna artist, you know, there's there's only like a finite number of people that I can draw Hanna for in any given. So we all look at it as collaboration. So, um, I think one of the, uh, one of the examples I would give you is that, um, if there's like a really long queue at like my, my, my store, you know, I will kind of tell my customers to, um, head down to a different store where I know that
a friend of mine is, um, doing it. Um, so this kind of brings this sort of like community um of artists together, because we do know one another and then you know, we've been in the scene for quite a while. So we do want to make sure that Everyone succeeds at the end of the day. So and at the end of the day, we also don't want our clients to wait so long just to get their place where we can, you know, send them to that's
what we try to do. So but for this year specifically, um, I think something to set my apart from the rest is that we've actually partnered with a photo booth company called AI Pho Booth. So this is to make like the buzzer experience more lively and engaging for everyone. Down. So I think every year, um, we, we, when we think about the bazaar, we only think about food and we think about Hannah and we think about shopping for, um,
you know, the higher festivities. But this year, you know, with, with, um, the idea I had was that if we had a photo booth um inside the shop, you know, um, people can come down with their friends, their family, you know, and on top of doing all the usual things, you know, they can snap a picture of the memories they make at Geylang Baza, and that's something that they can bring. And then this is just like a little fun activity to just, you know, make it really nice engaging for everyone.
Yeah, and it's a little, it's more than just your, you know, on your hand or your limbs, but it's also a little momento that you can take home with you of your experience there. Shereen, I, I wish you, we wish you all the very best at the Geylang Bazaar. Uh, I do apologize if you don't see me there because it's not something I. you a visit. I'll probably take my friends there. We might, we can go viral on her Instagram. Yeah. Uh, all
the best, uh, for this Ramadan. I hope you get lots and lots of hands to tattoo on and uh, yeah, Salam Ramadan to you and your followers as well.
Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having
me. That's Shereen Begum. She's founder of Indian Incs and you can find her on social media as well as the Geylang Serai Bazaar.