PREVIOUSLY known as CloudTheatre, CloudTix, and CloudTheatre Revive, 'CloudJoi' was launched at GMBB on October 19. Along with the rebranding, a new website and mobile app with enhanced features, a community platform to bring everyone in the community closer, and a new online arts festival JoiFest to facilitate global arts exchange were also introduced.
Dennis Lee, co-founder and managing director, said at the launch there are three main goals. Firstly, to foster a thriving performing arts ecosystem by connecting the dots within the community. Secondly, to expand the market size of the performing arts industry by reaching out to the younger generation. And thirdly, to propel Malaysian arts to the rest of the world through international collaboration and exchange.
CloudJoi, which was also co-founded by William Yap and Kevin Teh, aims to spread the joy of theatre through ticketing and streaming. The word 'Joi' is a combination of the words joy (happiness) and join (coming together). CloudJoi.com will serve as a consolidated platform for all the products. It will include all on-ground, on-demand, and online shows. It will serve as a central hub for shows, venues, organisers, theatre practitioners, and audiences. It’s also available in three different languages: English, Bahasa, and Mandarin.
The new home page simplifies the process for discovering new shows, it also recommends shows users might be interested in. It has an updated search engine built-in for audiences to search through the entire database by show title, organiser, or venue, and get instant results, even shows in the archive.
The website also added new filters so audiences can filter shows by location, time, genre, and type. And now, audiences can favourite a show and get back to it easily later. With their existing super-fast and easy-to-use ticketing system, audience will now be able to find the shows that they want and buy tickets faster than ever.
And to make it even easier for audience to discover shows and buy tickets, a brand-new mobile app, the CloudJoi app has been created. Now audiences can retrieve their purchased tickets in the app without needing to search for the confirmation email anymore.
CloudJoi also aims to build a community. A community of theatre practitioners and audiences where they will be able to connect with each other, get updates, checkout each other’s profiles, organise watch parties, and more. For each show, organisers can add profiles like cast, creative, and crew to the show page.
CloudTheatre will become a digital theatre venue under CloudJoi. A digital venue transcends geographical boundaries and brought Malaysian shows to audiences from over 70 countries during the pandemic. CloudTheatre has now become a global arts exchange platform where shows can 'tour' to different countries without actually spending the touring cost. They are now in talks with a few more countries and cities like Korea, Japan, Germany, and LA to establish more CloudTheatres around the world.
The first ever online arts festival, JoiFest was announced during the launch with the theme of Broadway Month. The line up of over 20 Broadway and West End titles includes plays, musicals, ballet, and documentaries like The Last Five Years, Bandstand, The Sleeping Beauty, Romeo & Juliet, Hamlet, and Macbeth.
JoiFest will run from November to December. It will be available on CloudTheatre Malaysia and CloudTheatre Taiwan. – The Vibes, October 21, 2022
