National Day Parade, 2007

The National Day Parade 2007 (NDP07) was a national ceremony held on 9 August 2007 at the The Float at Marina Bay to commemorate Singapore's 42nd year of independence. For the first time, the event was held in the Marina Bay area.

Venue
NDP 2007 was the first National Day Parade to be held at Singapore's Marina Bay, at the The Float at Marina Bay which took over as the main venue for the annual National Day Parade from the old National Stadium that has since been torn down for future purposes. The floating stadium, the largest in the world, will be used for National Day Parade for the next five years till the new Singapore Sports Hub at Kallang is built.

Logo
The parade's logo for the 2007 celebrations embraces the theme "City of Possibilities". The logo centres around the prominent and easily recognizable Marina Bay Skyline.

Dynamic of five stars represents Singapore's core values and celebrates our people living in harmony amidst ethnic and religious diversity.

The colour scheme of the NDP logo was deliberately created to be in line with Urban Redevelopment Authority's (URA) Marina Bay logo, creating a greater sense of connection between NDP and Marina Bay for years to come.

The wave motif on the right side of the logo serves to add sense of movement and vibrancy to the water depicted logo. The wave motif on the right side of the logo also helps to off-center the letters "NDP" that form the main body of the logo, thus adding a touch of balance to the logo.

Flowing waves below the skyline of Singapore represents the vibrancy of our global city. Outline of the buildings form the word "NDP @ Marina Bay". It links NDP celebrations with the new venue at Marina Bay and provides a consistent brand logo for future NDPs to Marina Bay.

The orange on the logo represents the passion and determination to build a dynamic city of possibilities. Purple embodies dignity and hope as Singaporeans come together to celebrate the nation's independence. Blue signifies confidence in overcoming challenges and adversities. Blue reflects the grace and harmony of Singapore as a "Garden City".

Highlights
Unlike previous year of mass display acts, the 2007 parade's show titled “PossibiCity” — in line with this year’s NDP theme “City of Possibilities” — was broken up into five segments: "Sea", "Earth", "Sky", "People" and "Fire". The elements are a representation of Singapore's past, growth, technological advancement, dreams and passion. The wet touch was the main highlight during the "Sea" segments of the show. The "People" segment, paid tribute to Singapore pioneers; and "Fire" was the element that lighted up the grand finale. The fireworks display, lasting slightly over three minutes, was synchronised to a specially composed piece of music and integrated with water effects, flames, lasers and lights.

Another main highlight was the largest orchestra ever put together for the National Day Parade. The NDP 2007 Orchestra was made up of 240 musicians from the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, the Singapore Chinese Orchestra, Malay and Indian Ensembles and the SAF Central Band. The NDP 2007 orchestra reflected the multi-ethnic element of Singapore.

The National Day Parade featured a brand new one-hour pre-parade segment showcasing the best of dance, theatre and the arts in Singapore, but the organizers still retained an all-time favourite showcase by the SAF Red Lions in the segment.

Some new highlights includes:
 * Transformations by the various contingents to form the words “NDP 07”, “NS 40” and “SINGAPORE”.
 * The 21-Gun Salute which was executed in full view of the spectators.
 * The National Flag Fly-past, featuring a CH-47 Chinook carrying the Flag of Singapore, being escorted by AH-64 Apaches. The flag appeared 4 times bigger as compared to previous years due to flying at a much lower altitude.

Schedule
NDP @ Marina Bay 2007 Programme schedule on 9 August 2007:

9 August (National Day) 10 August
 * 0000 hrs - Groundbreaking Established
 * 0600 hrs - Sign-on a National anthem
 * 0601 hrs - Completed
 * 0800 hrs - News on Channel 8 : Morning News
 * 0805 hrs - National Day
 * 0900 hrs - News on Channel 8 : Morning News
 * 0905 hrs - News Coverage Buletin Actual Special Report Live National Day
 * 1000 hrs - Opened Completed National flag an National anthem
 * 1001 hrs - Declaration of Independence
 * 1002 hrs - Ceremony Marches of National Day
 * 1200 hrs - Ceremony Marches of Singapore Police Departement
 * 1300 hrs - News on Channel 8 : Midday News
 * 1400 hrs - Ceremony Marches of Drum Band
 * 1700 hrs - Renovated
 * 1800 hrs - Parade & Ceremony
 * 1801 hrs - Opening Ceremony
 * 1830 hrs - News on Channel 8 : Singapore Today
 * 1900 hrs - Closed Returned National flag an National anthem
 * 1901 hrs - Show
 * 2000 hrs - News on Suria : Berita
 * 2030 hrs - News on Vasantham : Vasantham Tamil News
 * 2100 hrs - News on Channel NewsAsia International : Primetime News
 * 2100 hrs - News on Channel U : News Business at 9:00 pm
 * 2130 hrs - News on Channel 5 : News 5 Tonight
 * 2200 hrs - News on Channel 8 : News in Mandarin
 * 2300 hrs - News on Channel U : News International at 11:00 pm
 * 2300 hrs - Singapore National Day 2007 (National anthem)
 * 2301 hrs - Crowd at National flag
 * 0000 hrs - President
 * 0100 hrs - Closing Ceremony
 * 0101 hrs - Sign-off a National anthem

All times indicated are Singapore Standard Time.

Broadcast
For the first time, NDP 2007 was recorded in 3D. However, it would not be broadcast in 3D. Instead, for the first time in local television history, the 'live' telecast of the parade was in True High Definition and 5.1 Surround Sound on MediaCorp TV HD5.

Television channels
As a national event, the parade was broadcast "Live" from 12.00 am to 12.00 am (SST) across MediaCorp for MediaCorp TV channels. The commentary on MediaCorp TV Channel 5, MediaCorp TV HD5, MediaCorp TV TVMobile, MediaCorp TV12 Central (MediaCorp TV12 Kids Central, MediaCorp TV12 Arts Central) and MediaCorp News Channel NewsAsia International was in English, MediaCorp TV Channel 8 and MediaCorp TV Channel U in Mandarin, MediaCorp TV12 Suria in Malaysian and MediaCorp TV12 Vasantham Central in Tamil.

Radio
MediaCorp Radio stations covered the parade "Live" over 938LIVE, Capital 95.8FM, Ria 89.7FM, Lush 99.5FM and Oli 96.8FM in English, Mandarin, Malaysian and Tamil respectively.

Online
"Live" webcast was shown on the official NDP website, MediaCorp NDP webpage and Channel NewsAsia Live.

Outdoor Digital Media
'Live' screenings of the parade was available on the outdoor digital screens managed by MediaCorp at ION Orchard and Orchard Central malls. Digital media screens managed by SPH MediaBoxOffice in 313@Somerset and HDB Hub also screened the parade "Live.

Tickets
As in previous years, Singaporeans had to e-ballot to obtain tickets for the preview and parade. Applications for e-balloting were made through SMS, telephone, the Internet, and self-service automated payment machines such as "AXS" or Self-service Automated Machines ("SAM").

Nearly 470,000 applications were received when the 10-day application period ended on 28 May. This was the second highest record since the e-balloting system was launched in 2003.

Funpack
The National Day Parade 2007 Funpack was named the Assembly Bag. For the first time, a professional designer, Hanson Ho, was commissioned to create the bag.

The bag comprised strips of fabric panels which can be detached and reassembled. Spectators could create their own design and customise the bags into different sizes by trading panels among themselves.

A total of 160,000 bags were given away to spectators during the three NDP previews, full dressed rehearsal and on August. There were altogether 28 items in the funpack. Some of the items in the bag included a light-emitting electrical fan by Akira, a range of sun visors and a white panel strip.

Songs
For the second time in NDP history after 1998, there were two official theme songs instead of one. The first theme song was "There is no place I would rather be" performed by Kit Chan. The other song, "Will You", was performed by eight local singers of different music genres: Janani Sridhar, Asha Edmund, Emma Yong, Lily Anna Rahmat, Jai Wahab, Shabir Mohammaed, Sebastian Tan and Gani Karim. Both songs were composed by singer-composer Jimmy Ye. But recently at the 2012 National Day Parade, there were also two songs being used instead of one--They are Love At First Light by Olivia Ong and also the new version of the National Day Ceremony song, My People My Home.

Unlike previous years, there were no Mandarin versions of the theme songs.

The theme song "There is no place I would rather be" was originally written by Jimmy Ye for Singapore Polytechnic's Musical Superstar: The Pop Musical and was originally sung by Project SuperStar finalist, Kelly Poon.

Flags
During the celebration period, residents were encouraged to hang the national flag. The national flag was also allowed to be flown outside government buildings and private properties.

However, hanging flags on vehicles was prohibited at all times. In recent years, the Singapore Government allowed mini flags to be flown on taxis, buses and private vehicles. In 2006, 10,000 taxis and 2,500 buses from ComfortDelGro (Citycab, Comfort and SBS Transit) were selected to fly a mini version of the nation's flag on it. Private vehicles were also allowed to fly mini flags or put stickers featuring the nation's flag on their vehicles.

Security
In the event of a chemical or bomb attack, the Singapore Civil Defence Force and Singapore Police Force had prepared stations outside the stadium as a precaution. Evacuation routes were planned and if such an attack were to happen, spectators were able to evacuate in an orderly manner. Sharp items such as knives and scissors were not allowed into the stadium and were confiscated. For security reasons, X-ray scanners and metal detectors were put in place at the stadium.

Since the parade was held by the bay, waterways in the bay were out of bounds to the usual sea craft and bumboats ferrying tourists along Singapore River.

Blogging
In 2007, the web committee picked 3 bloggers (known as the NDP Anchor Bloggers) through a nationwide search, to blog about topics relating to the Singapore culture. There are a total of 12 weeks and 12 different topics. The public will then take part in a competition, known as Blog Battle, and blog about the same topic, and the committee will then shortlist the top entries of the week. The public will get to choose their favorite entry and pick the winner.

The winner and winning voter will win home Samsung products. Anchor Bloggers 2007: Eileen Lee Yi Hui (19), Kane Raynard Goh Rong Wei (13) and Daphnie Chong Jiawen (23).