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Everything you need to know about this year’s NDP in 60 sec

2016-07-13 , 4:45 pm

August is just around the corner and that only mean one thing to Singaporeans – Singapore’s birthday. With extravagant celebrations getting even more ‘wow’ year by year, both the spectators and participators who are taking part in the celebrations are surely looking forward to the 9th of August. If you haven’t been following the news lately, here’s a summarized version of what you should be expecting for Singapore’s 51st birthday.

It will be held at the National Stadium after 10 years

After yearly National Day celebrations at The Padang and the Marina Bay floating platform, news has been announced to say that the 2016 National Day parade will be held back at the National Stadium after 10 years. The last celebration held at the National Stadium was in 2006 and the team behind the planning has said that they are looking forward to the biggest celebration of the year. They hope to have it held at the 55,000 seater stadium instead of the Marina Bay floating platform as it has 30,000 more seats, so that more Singaporeans will be able to be part of the celebration.

The stadium will be leased at $10 million

For those that are always talking about taxpayers money, you’ll be glad to know that the initial fee for leasing the venue due to the requirement for extra rehearsal days was said to be a whopping sum of $26 million. It has since been negotiated down to $10 million for renting the National Stadium.

The logo is 4 shades of red created in a heart shape

Created by 19-year-old, Miss Lim Xin Chelsea, used 10 days to think of a design before entering the contest together with 250 other participants. Her design depicts a geometric heart with 4 shades of red – to represent the 4 races and religions in Singapore, with the number ’51’ in bold strokes. She won herself 2 pairs of tickets to the National Day Parade on the actual day where she intends to bring 3 of her grandparents who did not watch the parade live before. She mentioned that they were part of the pioneer generation who helped build our nation and she wanted to show her appreciation.

The theme this year is also created to sound more futuristic and is concentrated on ‘who’ and ‘why’ instead of just ‘what’ we are. Said to unite Singaporeans for the next step in building Singapore, the theme is decided on ‘Building our Singapore of Tomorrow’.

National Day Parade Funpacks

SAF soldiers packing NDP funpacks at Kranji Camp III in between regular military training. (Photo: Nadia Jansen Hassan) — Image: ndp.org.sg

Funpacks are definitely a major factor that spectators look forward to receiving. Filled with freebies, the NDP this year will be giving out 300,000 on 9th August. On top of their mandatory miliary training, with sweat and hard work, 280 Singapore Armed Forces soldiers were placed in charge of preparing the 300,000 funpacks. It has been said that the activity of assembling a funpack within 30 seconds has fostered greater teamwork among them. We must really thank them for their hard work!

Designed to be lightweight, waterproof and durable, the funpack isn’t an ordinary recycle bag to store goodies, this year in a translucent bag of either red or white to represent Singapore’s flag colours, spectators will find items such as a programmable LED wristband that will be wirelessly sync to the performance’s lights during the show, souvenir magazine with much attractive contents, the standard every year must-keep Singapore flag, a flip fan, a Singapore scarf and luggage tag. Snacks like Hello Panda biscuits, roasted peanuts, Nin Jiom herbal candy and NEWater will also be given.

National Day Performances

A favourite among Singaporeans that will surely make all citizens feel patriotic and proud, the celebration this year will include favourite National Day songs and performances that will last from late noon till night where beautiful light shows and fireworks would be on full display to conclude the night. Other activities that’ll make audiences both live and those watching through the TV go ‘wow’ are sky diving where the country’ air military will fly past the parade with their many milirary aircraft, a must-have performance, the flypast has been happening without fail every year since 1970. Choir, school bands performances and fun presentations are also part of the celebration. The National Anthem, mass pledge taking, speeches and marching in and out parades are surely not to be missed.

This article was first published on goodyfeed.com