I’m Shiao-Chen Tsai, co-founder of Muro Box, and I’m excited to share my firsthand experience attending the KIKK Festival (Music × Technology Exhibition) in Belgium on October 21, 2025. Many long-time users and new friends lent their support throughout the event — it truly takes the help of many kind people to make an overseas exhibition like this a smooth and fulfilling journey. 😁
Too long to read? We’ve prepared a podcast version so you can listen and learn about the story of music boxes in Belgium.
An 18-Hour Journey—Bringing the Music Box Across the World
Photos of my two connecting flights from Taipei to Belgium, taken at Taoyuan International Airport in Taiwan. The boarding passes show the total flight duration.
Photo taken at the Muro Box office in Taipei before departure, showing all the luggage prepared for this exhibition.
I brought three app-controlled and programmable music boxes with me — the N40 Sublime, the N40 Standard, and the N20 Standard.
Departing from Taoyuan International Airport in Taiwan, I transferred in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, before finally arriving in Brussels, Belgium, after an 18-hour journey.
Siegfried — From Dreaming of Creating His Own Music Box to Becoming Muro Box’s Greatest Ambassador
Belgium’s multicultural background means it has three official languages: Dutch, French, and German. For someone like me who only speaks English, this trip was full of challenges.
Siegfried quickly became my most important partner in Belgium. He is one of our music box customers, and upon learning about the event, he and his father not only picked me up at the airport but also volunteered to guide me throughout the exhibition and serve as my French translator. During the event, he enthusiastically introduced Muro Box from Taiwan to every visitor at our booth.
Siegfried would first ask each visitor which language they were most comfortable with — French, English, or Dutch. If they preferred English, he would hand the introduction over to me. If they preferred French or Dutch, he would explain personally.
(Note: Belgium has regions for French, English, and Dutch speakers. The KIKK Festival took place in Namur, a French-speaking city, so most visitors preferred French. Many also took the French flyers that Siegfried had helped me translate and print. This gave me plenty of time to focus on photographing the event to write my reflection!)
Siegfried stood at the Muro Box booth during the 2025 KIKK Festival, enthusiastically explaining in French how traditional music boxes, which can only repeat a single melody, were redesigned into a programmable, automatic-playing instrument with a movable pin system.
In fact, Siegfried once dreamed of developing a programmable music box himself. Back in 2021, he first wrote to us, sharing that he was an amateur harmonica player. His desire for a musical companion to play along with sparked the idea of inventing an automatic-playing disc-style music box. Unexpectedly, that dream found a continuation through Muro Box, and he became one of the very first supporters of our N40 international Kickstarter campaign.
We invite you to read Siegfried’s user story, where you’ll discover that the design of the N40 Sublime’s comb and resonance box was influenced by his suggestions. You’ll also get to hear the N40 Sublime play some of Siegfried’s favorite classic movie tunes!
KIKK Festival: Opening the Door for Muro Box’s European Expansion
Augustin, who invited me to exhibit at the KIKK Festival, arranged for our booth to be closest to the main aisle with the highest foot traffic, ensuring we would become a highlight of the exhibition and attract the most visitors. He knew I was the foreign exhibitor who had traveled the farthest (and spent the most) to attend this event.
I really appreciate him securing such a prime spot for us. The only downside was that I forgot to mention before the trip that I would have preferred a quieter location for visitors to comfortably listen to the music boxes. However, a more secluded corner would likely have had fewer visitors, reducing our exposure. In the end, the current high-traffic location proved to be the best for attracting guests and fostering interaction.
Later, Siegfried and I asked Augustin to help find a nearby quiet office space where potential customers could listen to the music boxes in a calm environment. We’re very grateful that Augustin immediately coordinated with his superiors to let us use a small room on the first floor of La Bourse. Thanks to this, we were able to connect with a customer who truly loved our products: Carmelo!
I took Carmelo to the quiet small office on the first floor of La Bourse that Augustin had arranged, allowing him to carefully listen to the Muro Box-N40 Standard music box play a variety of classic pieces: Chopin’s Valse du petit chien, the theme song Golden by the Korean K-Pop Demon Hunters, and the Eagles’ Hotel California. He even tried controlling the N40 with the MIDI keyboard himself, and the music box responded instantly in real time.
I will never forget the sparkle of excitement in his eyes. At that moment, he decided to act quickly and immediately purchased our N40 Standard display model. He also shared his plans for future music creations, expressing interest in using the Open API, and even offered to help introduce European contacts to promote Taiwan-made smart music boxes.
Carmelo first met us on the opening day of KIKK. By the evening of the second day, he returned to purchase the Muro Box-N40 Standard display model. We are very grateful that he allowed us to keep the display until the final day of the exhibition, and then had his daughter come to the booth to pick up the music box in person.
Carmelo told me that he had once been invited by the Minister of Technology of the Wallonia region to help coordinate a special joint business project between Taiwan and Wallonia. In 2015, he even flew to Taipei for meetings at the Technology Building! He mentioned: “The year after my trip to Taiwan, you had just established Tevofy Technology Ltd. and decided to start a business centered on music boxes.” This shows that even before deciding to purchase, he had thoroughly researched our company.
Carmelo also invited me to join his LinkedIn network, and he welcomes other Muro Box customers reading this article to connect with him via LinkedIn.
KIKK Festival + Muro Box: The Wonderful Moment When the World Feels Small
On the first day of the KIKK Festival (October 23, 2025), I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Philippe Tzou, also from Taiwan. He is the Trade & Investment Commissioner of Wallonia Export-Investment Agency Hub. Brussels.
He is currently working in Belgium.
Before the festival, he had already seen our music boxes in Hsinchu (a city in Taiwan) through an introduction by Ray Dai, Vice General Manager of Mighty Net. Little did we know that our first in-person meeting would happen at the KIKK Festival in Belgium!
Meeting My Loyal Newsletter Readers at KIKK
Geert was one of the very first to support our N20 music box campaign on Indiegogo back in 2020. As our first customer from Belgium—and, to our knowledge, the only one who is visually impaired—he holds a truly special place in our journey. His heartfelt effort to connect with us across borders has meant more than words can express.
We are deeply grateful to Geert, who asked his friend Annick to drive 1.5 hours to pick him up and then travel another 2 hours to Namur for the KIKK Festival to meet me. Our team and Geert had been communicating online as friends for five years, and this year we finally met in person at KIKK. I only realized on the day we met that Geert is much taller than he appears in photos!
Whenever we announce in our newsletter that we’ve developed new methods to improve sound quality or launched new features in the app for testing, Geert proactively checks if there are any areas needing improvement. He ensures that all app buttons and prompts work seamlessly with Read Aloud software so that blind users can navigate them. Every time he writes, he sincerely thanks our team for continuously optimizing the product while keeping his accessibility needs in mind.
Each time we receive Geert’s suggestions and praise, I immediately share them with our designers and engineers. It’s thanks to their attention to small details that a customer on the other side of the world can truly feel the care and thoughtfulness we put into Muro Box.
I happily guided Geert’s hand to feel the design details of the Muro Box-N40 Sublime music box I had described in our newsletter. He was delighted to see that we had genuinely incorporated customer feedback into our subsequent product designs.
Many of the small suggestions he had given previously were implemented in the N40, such as his request to have the power and MIDI input ports on a protruding plate rather than recessed inside the wooden box, so he could easily locate them by touch.
After meeting Geert at the KIKK Festival, he continued to upload many musical pieces to share with me and other users. If you’d like to listen to his creations—Dutch- and English-titled children’s songs, church songs, and other music familiar to locals in Belgium—you can search for his name, Geert, in the Muro Box app.
Geert also messaged me via WhatsApp, saying that the N40 Sublime Edition sounds amazing—more beautiful than the previous N20, with a wider range that allows him to compose more complex pieces. He now experiments with many songs every day, uploading them to the Muro Box app so he can share his creations with me.
One of Geert’s arrangements that left the deepest impression on me is “The Muro Box Story.” Geert carefully created this piece to document every stage of the N20 music box development, including all the demo tracks we had uploaded on our YouTube channel.
Recently, he specially played “The Muro Box Story” on the N40 Sublime for me. As each section of the music played, countless memories of our early correspondence and the development journey of the music boxes surfaced, bringing tears of emotion to my eyes along with a smile.
If you’re curious to hear the difference in sound between the first-generation N20 music box from the Indiegogo campaign (2021) and today’s N40 Sublime Edition (2025), both playing “The Muro Box Story,” you’re welcome to read Geert’s N20 user story.
On October 27, 2025 (the day after the KIKK Festival ended), Geert shared with me via WhatsApp the audio file of the N40 Sublime Edition playing “The Muro Box Story.”
Note: “The Muro Box Story” is composed of highlight segments from the following six songs:
- Mozart’s Serenade – This was the key nostalgic piece in 2016, when the wish was made for my husband (Chen-Hsiang Feng) to develop a music box capable of playing multiple custom songs.
- Mary Had a Little Lamb – The very first Muro Box prototype in 2016 was an electronic glockenspiel, and this song was used to test that instrument.
- Vivaldi – The Four Seasons – This piece was used to test early-stage sample machines during the development process.
- Pachelbel – Canon in D – Later used as a live test for the N20 sample machine. Geert made slight adjustments to the original composition to incorporate it into this medley.
- Yiruma – River Flows In You – This song marked a major milestone in Muro Box production, as we significantly improved the sound quality on the sample machine.
- Ed Sheeran – Perfect – This was the first song demonstrated by our arranger to show how MIDI-input keyboards could synchronize with the music box for live play.
The Artist Met at the KIKK Left Me the Most Special Souvenirs!
At the booth to the left of our Muro Box display was Paulo, an installation artist skilled in using MIDI music to interact with visitors. His hand-drawn designs are full of personality, and the posters at his booth were improvised on the spot whenever inspiration struck during the exhibition. Unfortunately, when I visited him to chat and take photos on the first day, he hadn’t started drawing yet, so I didn’t capture the hand-drawn poster results that appeared later.
On his table were colorful small fish and 3D wooden coral sculptures, all handcrafted by him. Many adults and children enjoyed touching the fish to see what sounds they would make, and kids liked talking to the coral to hear how it would respond. (For a summary of his work, see the KIKK exhibition overview.)
On the last day of the KIKK Festival (October 26, 2025), my exhibition companion Siegfried had a sudden inspiration and went next door to ask Paulo to create a poster for me—a memento representing Muro Box’s participation at KIKK, to bring back to Taiwan. (If you’d like to learn more about Paulo’s creations, feel free to visit his Instagram: @nnnnmerci (non merci).)
I was deeply touched and thrilled to receive this gift because the poster will forever remind me of the talented young artist I met at the KIKK Festival, the ever-helpful Siegfried who went out of his way to secure opportunities for me, Geert, the blind customer who overcame all obstacles to meet us, Carmelo, who placed immense trust in and supported our Taiwanese startup company, and all the music artists, professors, and enthusiasts who willingly shared their real emails for future exchanges.
To ensure the hand-drawn poster wouldn’t get damaged on the trip back, Siegfried took the initiative to ask another Maker artist’s booth (Incubhaker ASBL) for some scrap materials—plastic tubes—to protect it. I felt a bit shy to ask, but he just smiled and said, “Leave it to me,” and I followed him to chat and exchange ideas with their booth.
I’m truly grateful for the generosity of the local exhibitors, who even went so far as to see the plastic tube to the perfect length so I could safely pack the poster and bring it back to Taiwan!
Music: Bringing Us Together Across the World
This journey began with the thoughtful airport pickup arranged by our long-time supporter Siegfried and continued through the heartfelt, detailed email from new customer Carmelo. Each story reaffirmed the very purpose behind founding Muro Box—to use music to bring the world closer together.
After the KIKK festival, Carmelo sent me a long email sharing his impressions of Muro Box. He explained why he is so captivated by it—not merely as a technological product, but as an instrument that “shines in four dimensions.” To him, Muro Box conveys genuine human emotion through melody, rather than being just a trendy, AI-generated audio-visual creation.
Carmelo’s email for me:
Dear Shiao-Chen,
First of all, I would like to say that it was a real pleasure to both discover the MuroBox instrument and to meet you and Siegfried.
Sharing a passion for rethinking how people experience life — in this case, through the field of music — was truly inspiring.
Music is timeless and a universal means of communication, allowing people to share emotions regardless of culture, origin, or background.
Throughout my career and numerous international journeys, I’ve been fortunate to encounter what fuels my passion for technology — not
only innovative ideas but, above all, the people who possess the strength, courage, and energy to bring ideas from the depths of their minds
and hearts into real, living products.
The road is long, and after reading several of your user stories, I can see that the team behind Tevofy — you, Siegfried, and all the talented
people around you — have succeeded in reaching this major milestone: being on the market.
I won’t go into my own startup experiences here (perhaps one day we’ll have time to chat about them), but one key lesson I learned is that
innovation must emerge not too early, not too late, but right on time.
Since the late ’90s, I’ve witnessed many technology waves, starting with Voice/Video over IP, Wireless communications as well including the
rise of IoT, which all occupied a few years of my professional journey. Today, while many are captivated by the AI trend — yet another
hype that will eventually become a new commodity — my own technological observations (and even what was showcased this week at KIKK)
confirm that the deeper goal remains: helping users feel emotion.
Whether it’s a mesmerizing image from Midjourney, a stunning video with DALL·E, or the expressive music generated by SUNO, the essence is emotion.
Discovering the MuroBox, I feel your team has arrived right in time with the concept. You’ve combined IoT, community sharing, and most
importantly — in a world increasingly dominated by intangible services — a physical, beautifully designed object that shines not only in 3D form
but also in “4D,” through the enchantment of its melodies.
I don’t yet know where my current “work in progress” idea will lead — combining MuroBox with my creativity and my ability to code its underlying
software interface. But I’m convinced that dedicating part of my time to transforming those ideas into a concrete, visible, and audible expression
— one that connects human emotion (captured via sensors) with the environment, nature, animals, and even the parts of the audio spectrum that
humans cannot naturally hear — will be worthwhile.
The challenges are broad, and AI will likely play a role among the building blocks.
I don’t yet know exactly where this path will take me — but I do know what I want to avoid: entering the vast sphere of digital artists who convert
any data into strange, non-melodic sounds under the banner of “artistic touch,” or the current trend of “data visualization” through sound for its own sake.
I’ll begin by learning how to orchestrate the MuroBox through software programming — the reason for my API access request — and gradually refine
my ideas to extract features that will make the generated notes form meaningful melodies that convey messages, not just sounds.
I would be glad to share this with you and the community. So, give me some time to meet the MuroBox and understand it from the operational point of view
(While off course enjoying ;p regularly all the vast library of melodies within Tevofy own app / community, and sharing its use with my son who plays
the transverse flute)
I wish you all a safe way back home and if you ever come back to Belgium, do not hesitate to ring me. I will be there being just for a sharing a cup of tea
as well as a more concrete business need in the EU.
I know you mentioned that LinkedIn is not widely used in your part of the world, but please feel free to explore my extensive global network. It is eclectic,
just as all my encounters with people have been!
technologist, artist, entrepreneur, politician, scientist, researcher, investor, venture capitalist, business executive, etc
I will not hesitate to introduce to those who might be helpful in the growth of the MuroBox
Best regards
Carmelo
Muro Box Music Boxes: The Ultimate Personalized Gift and a Platform Connecting Music Creators
This year’s KIKK Festival was more than just an exhibition—it was a journey of forging international friendships through music.
If you’re considering a unique gift for yourself or a loved one this holiday season, or a music box that can accompany you in playing and listening to melodies, Muro Box is the perfect choice to convey your heartfelt intentions. Every melody tells a story, and every story has the power to bring us together somewhere in the world.
This N40 Sublime belongs to our Swiss customer, Bendix. We thank him for granting us permission to share photos of his laser-engraved design.
