In recent years, the appearance of crowd-funding for the implementation of art projects has opened up a new and promising path for Vietnamese artists.

A scene from the crowd-funding film 'Ban cung phong' by Nguyen Le Hoang Viet 

Crowd-funding is a form of calling for financial support from the community (usually via the internet) for the implementation of art projects and products in the case of a lack of funds.

Three factors making up this model include: the initiator of the project, supporters and the environment to connect the parties. In the world, crowd-funding has existed for decades, but is still quite new in Vietnam. However, over the past few years, many art projects have been formed based on crowd-funding via numerous channels such as Betado.com, Fundstart.vn and Comicola.com.

In the field of publishing, the successful crowd-funding historical comic titled ‘Truyen thuyet Long than tuong’ (Legend of the Dragon General) has paved the way for many other publications such as comic ‘Mat ngot chet meo’ (Sweet honey kills cats), photo book ‘Buoc vao the gioi cua nhau’ (Step into the world of each other) and book ‘Det nen trieu dai’ (Sewing the Reigns). 

In addition, the band ‘Ngot’ (Sweet) has gained prominent successes for their crowd-funding album of the same name. Regarding cinema, the crowd-funding for making the film ‘Ban cung phong’ (Roommate) has opened up a new way for young filmmakers to realise their ideas. The film helped Nguyen Le Hoang Viet to win the best young short-film director award at the fifth Hanoi International Film Festival 2018.

The ideas for art works are introduced to the community and those who are interested in the projects will be sponsors. According to young artists, the development of the media makes it convenient for them in finding and approaching suitable sponsors for their projects. In addition, sponsors are individuals and organisations that understand and love the projects, therefore, creators can be assured of pursuing their goals. Crowd-funding also helps creators grasp the community’s acceptance for their projects and then enables them to make certain adjustments.

With the rapid and strong development of technology and mobile devices, Vietnam has been assessed as a young, dynamic and promising market for crowd-funding projects. Important elements helping creators and producers successful in mobilising capital are their prestige and reputation, as well as the attractiveness and feasibility of the projects and good communication. In fact, most of the crowd-funding projects in Vietnam have been created by young artists, so they faced numerous difficulties despite their unique ideas. Many of them are embarrassed to plan the implementation of their projects or specify the benefits for sponsors, therefore, several projects have been stopped due to a lack of funds.

In Vietnam, crowd-funding has not been popular in the past, so many people are skeptical about the feasibility and efficiency of new projects. There’s no guarantee that that art works funded by them will be introduced to the community. Meanwhile, the authorities have not promoted the management of the implementation of the projects to protect the parties’ interests, thus, crowd-funding still faces many barriers and is suitable only for art projects in need of a small expense.

In addition to creative, feasible, attractive and competitive ideas, creators should make specific plans. The relevant agencies should set out appropriate legal corridors and policies to encourage individuals and organisations to fund the projects. It is also crucial to improve the bases supporting capital callers in connecting with the community and closely monitor the process of the implementation of the projects.

Nhan Dan