Can’t Stop the Music

Last December, Marina Bay Sands in Singapore sold out the entire run of 500 tickets for Back to Live, a concert featuring up-and-coming local musicians. It was the country’s first large-scale live entertainment event since the beginning of the pandemic, though by then “large” was a relative term, given requirements for social distancing. The Sands Theatre normally has a capacity of 2,500.

“We worked with the Singapore Tourism Board and the Ministry of Health to figure out how to stage live entertainment in a way that’s safe, based on health restrictions,” says Adam Wilkes, president and CEO of AEG Live Asia, which produced the event with Collective Minds, an agency that has organised tours for the likes of American jazz musician Kamasi Washington and rapper Anderson Paak around Asia.

It was a rare opportunity for local artists who, due to travel restrictions, had the chance to be more than just opening acts for bigger international stars. For once, they became the headliners and took centre stage. As Singaporean pop singer Benjamin Kheng wrote on Instagram, “This moment was, which features lyrics in both English and Malay. Lim posted, “Thank you for making us feel alive again ... here’s to better times ahead.”