Singapore cements its Asian concert hub status with Coldplay, Taylor Swift gigs - if you can find a ticket

To help her fellow Swifties see US singer-songwriter Taylor Swift when she sweeps into Singapore, Joie Tan has been making TikTok explainers about the tangled ticketing system for the city's biggest live act in years.

Within a week, she had racked up hundreds of thousands of views from across Asia, as the hysteria for tickets to see the American celebrity's Eras Tour suddenly centred on Singapore.

Swift has made the city state her only Southeast Asian stop for the tour in 2024, nearly a decade since her last visit in 2015, a feather in the cap for Singapore as it vies to become Asia's tour destination of choice for top stars.

Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team.

While many across Southeast Asia have pleaded with Tan, a 28-year-old musician, for help to navigate the complicated ticketing system, some Singaporean Swifties have condemned her for not "gatekeeping" information from foreign fans and worsening the competition for tickets.

While many across Southeast Asia have pleaded with Tan, a 28-year-old musician, for help to navigate the complicated ticketing system, some Singaporean Swifties have condemned her for not "gatekeeping" information from foreign fans and worsening the competition for tickets.

But the grumbling has not slowed Tan down and her latest TikTok video garnered close to 670,000 views in less than a week.

"We are the only Southeast Asian stop and there were a lot of direct messages from fans from Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines," she told This Week in Asia.

"They're all trying to find more information," she said, likening her videos to what she described as a "public journal".

The confusion stems from the multiple routes to the coveted tickets, one of which involves preregistering interest before the general sale - although only selected fans who preregistered will receive a unique access code allowing them to purchase up to four tickets each.

Alternatively, UOB has managed to secure a promotion for its cardholders granting access to the presale, which led applications for UOB cards to surge "very significantly as compared to the daily average so far this month", the bank said in a statement.

Fans will have to spend at least S$108 (US$80) on the tickets, though those from abroad staying the night will have to dig deeper into their wallets, as the city state saw hotel room prices rising to S$259 per night in July last year, the highest in a decade.

Swifties are just the latest group of fans to be thrust into the take-no-prisoners battle in Singapore for limited tickets to some of the biggest live acts on Earth.

Fans of British rock band Coldplay broke the record for the most tickets sold in a day when the presale for their Singapore concerts went live on Monday last week, snapping up more than 200,000 tickets for the initial four dates in January next year.

Making Singapore the Asian go-to for A-list acts has long been the ambition of government planners who took over the 55,000-capacity National Stadium and Sports Hub last year, to draw tourists with greater spending power from neighbouring Southeast Asian countries and beyond.

Singapore's appeal lies in its infrastructure, geographical position in the centre of the region and - crucially - its stability, experts say, a combination allowing tour promoters to lock in dates several months in advance, without fear of protests or political turmoil disrupting finely crafted tours.

"Sceptics had asked if the government could do the job, or would be cool enough to attract marquee world-class events to the Sports Hub," said Edwin Tong, the city state's culture, community and youth minister, adding that the "numbers speak for themselves".

Travel platform Traveloka saw a 60-fold increase in the number of bookings for accommodation in Singapore during the Coldplay and Taylor Swift concert dates in March next year, its president Caesar Indra said.

Coldplay, set to perform six times after adding two extra dates, brought a surge in bookings from China, neighbouring Indonesia and Malaysia, while Swift's concert drew fans from China, Indonesia and Vietnam, he said.

The arrivals were likely to "turbocharge" the city's tourism industry next year, Indra added.

Malaysian Liyana Rahman, 38, is among the wave of fans planning to splurge on seeing both Taylor Swift and Coldplay live, setting aside around 5,000 ringgit (US$1,070) for each of the two concerts, which are scheduled roughly two months apart, and a short stay across the border.

"I just hope Malaysia can go back to before its MCO [Movement Control Order] when we had our own concerts back then," she said, referring to the country's pandemic response measures.

Malaysia had hosted concerts for groups like the Pussycat Dolls and Linkin Park in the past.

Though Malaysian Swiftie Katherine Kristine, 26, was "disappointed" that her favourite singer was not going to play in her country, it was no shock, given the vocal conservative forces at play.

"There are strict rules and regulations when it comes to dress codes here. Though she is not too revealing [in her wardrobe], for Malaysia, it might be too much," she said.

Pop star Beyonce met strong resistance from religious segments of Malaysian society back in 2009, who had cited moral concerns about her performance.

There is "huge pent-up demand" right now, according to Dennis Argenzia, president of Live Nation Asia Pacific Touring, with foreign concertgoers filling up to 40 per cent of Singapore's concert venues.

"Depending on the artist, we see between 10 and 40 per cent of fans travelling to Singapore for events and while a high percentage of these fans are from Southeast Asia, we do see people travelling in from around the world," he said.

He added that with the rejuvenation of live entertainment across Asia, there had been a 200 per cent increase in activity and the company saw "record ticket buying and attendance in all markets".

The overwhelming response to Taylor Swift and Coldplay playing in Singapore served as an "indication of the strength of the Southeast Asian market" with the city state at its heart, said Christopher Khoo, the managing director of MasterConsult Services, a tourism consultancy company.

"This plays into our overall image that Singapore is the centre of the region, with good connectivity, infrastructure and it's a 'happening' place," he said, noting that decades ago, most Western stars would focus on the United Stars and Europe for what they called their "world tours".

"Southeast Asia should not be neglected," Khoo said.

Dr Michael Chiam, a senior tourism lecturer at Ngee Ann Polytechnic in Singapore, said that given the city state's location and low crime rates, fans did not have to think twice about flying over for a concert.

Furthermore, Singapore's management of the pandemic and other major events such as the Formula One Grand Prix would add to the "confidence" event organisers had in the city to include it in their tours, said Song Seng Wun, an economist at CIMB Private Banking.

However, for "concert tourism" to add significantly to the economy, events should be clustered to tease visitors to stay longer, experts say.

"If the overseas visitors are specifically here only for the event and do not extend the duration of their stay or visit other tourist attractions, then the economic spin-offs may be more restrictive," said Selena Ling, chief economist at OCBC Bank.

Economics are far from the mind of Singaporean Swiftie Damian Lim, who is just happy that he might be able to catch the pop star live.

"This is considered a great achievement for Singapore and it definitely helps with visibility with other artists as well," he said.

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

Copyright (c) 2023. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.