I caught a play “Recalling Mother” a couple of weeks ago. It was staged in an art gallery housed within a warehouse.

Not only did I find the play entertaining, clever and moving – it was basically a conversation between two women, Claire Wong and Noorlinah Mohamed, talking about their mothers – but I found the use of space clever and creative.

The play by Checkpoint Theatre was held at Valentine Willie Fine Art Gallery housed within Artspace @ Helutrans. Sounds very fancy but it’s basically hidden among stacks of containers and warehouses near the port area of Singapore. Quite difficult to find but once you get in, the sense of light and space is overwhelming.

In a city as tiny as Singapore, you’ve got to be creative about space and this collaboration between a theatre company and an art gallery in a warehouse is ingenious.

The staging was minimal. Actually you could say it was non-existent. Just two chairs for the actors and a bunch of chairs around them, seating 80 people. It’s story-telling unplugged – like sitting around a campfire and listening to stories.

Nothing about the art gallery was embellished. The same pictures hung on the walls. The same installations stood where they were, and you could, while waiting for the play to start, view the pieces.

And then for about an hour, the art gallery was transformed into an intimate theatre and you forgot where you were but in the story.

It made me think of the spaces we have in our industry – our hotels, our ballrooms, our conference centres – and it made me realise how much more creative we need to be with the spaces we have to cater to a changing customer and changing needs.

Why does a ballroom always have to look like a ballroom? I remember when we were holding our inspiration and mentoring event, WIT*e, at Novotel Clarke Quay and my first comment was, “Can you make it look as unballroom-like as possible?” And all credit to the hotel team, they did.

Bean bags instead of conventional chairs on the stage for the speakers. Lounge seating scattered throughout. A nice bar set-up. Soft, purplish-tinged lighting to soften the mood and to reflect our branding.

The F&B team, once they got into the spirit of things, even created a special “Tough Love” cocktail for us, which became our signature drink. One of those and I was ready to take on any interview …

Today, event organisers are spoilt for choice when it comes to events – and I am not talking about the thousand-plus type events that have to go into convention centres and such – but the smaller functions that want to do something different. Shopping centres, movie theatres, museums, restaurants, bars, cafes, parks, car parks …

When a friend of mine who runs a small company wanted to have a boardroom meeting and asked me for suggestions, I recommended a café which has a stand-alone pod-like structure and as long as you order coffee and food, you get the space for free.

A hotel in Malaysia which wanted to hold an event in Singapore asked me too for a suggestion and I recommended the Peranakan Museum. Even though the hotel had a sister property in Singapore, it wanted something different as well.

So imagine if we in the industry are ourselves looking for venues with a difference, what must our customers be doing?

On the rooftop of the Fullerton Hotel the other day, I looked across the road to the ocean and I saw the making of a public space fronting the waterfront – Clifford Place – which will be unveiled later this year.

My imagination ran riot. And so must venue providers in our industry if we want to compete for space in this area ….