Asia News: Coronavirus, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Japan Tobacco International Singapore

In the midst of a wave of concert cancellations due to the Asian coronavirus outbreak, at least one major event featuring well-known foreign acts is going full steam ahead. 

Singapore Rockfest II, featuring Scorpions, Whitesnake and Singapore rock group Rockweller is still on, according to local promoter LAMC Productions, though the date and venue have been changed from March 4 at Fort Canning in Singapore to March 5 at the Star Theatre. 

According to a statement released by LAMC on Feb. 19, “Moving the show indoor to the Star Theatre will provide a better overall fan experience and allows us to offer a Category 2 option and additional group packages which we’re calling the ‘Horns Up’ group bundles.”

Another veteran rock act who seems to be unfazed by the health crisis is Bob Dylan. As more and more artists announce cancellations or postponements of spring appearances in Japan, Dylan just added a show to his April tour, which already boasts 14-count-’em-14 dates. The 78-year-old Nobel Prize winner will also play at NHK Hall in Tokyo on April 24.

Among the artists who announced cancellations and postponements of Japan and/or South Korea tours last week were Pixies, Mac DeMarco, Ruel, The Revolution, Tom Walker, Temples, Go West and Brooke Candy. 

In South Korea, where the crisis intensified more quickly in recent weeks, the ceremony for the 17th Korean Music Awards were cancelled and announcement of winners were made online, according to the music fan site Soompi.com. Also two of the biggest K-pop concerts set for Seoul in March, one for Twice, the other for Taemin of the boy band SHINee, were cancelled. 

BTS, meanwhile, is promoting its new album in South Korea with some shows but there will be no audiences. 

The group held a press conference to announce the shows, but beforehand their management released a statement that said, in part, “We have decided to fully cooperate with the government’s policy to refrain from holding events with a massive number of participants in order to prevent the spread of coronavirus. 

“We would like to advise fans to refrain from visiting the venue of the press conference for your own safety and ask you to support BTS by watching the press conference via livestreaming.”

In Japan, the popular punk power trio Wanima cancelled at least part of their ongoing arena tour after one female fan who attended their Feb. 8 concert at Marine Messe Fukuoka was found to be infected with the virus. 

In perhaps the oddest virus-related story, a fledgling all-female idol group in Japan decided to charge an extra 1,000 yen ($11) per ticket to fans attending a group event who did not show up wearing surgical masks. The management for the group, called 2o Love to Sweet Bullet, said the move was made to assist in the fight against the coronavirus. 

In a sense, this idea fits in with the general tenor of health measures being taken in Japan, where the government has been criticized for not doing enough to contain the spread of the virus. Though a number of public events have been cancelled, the more common approach as been to carry on while limiting contact somehow. 

The hit idol collective AKB48, which carries out daily meet-and-greet events at their dedicated theater in Tokyo, have done away with the “handshake” portion of their events. Media commentators say the reason for this subdued approach is to not attract too much attention to the danger of the virus as the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics approaches this summer. 

Dick Pound, a senior member of the International Olympic Committee, has said publicly that there is a chance that the Games will be moved if the crisis hasn’t abated by May.

Famed Japanese pianist and composer Ryuichi Sakamoto contributed a video to the Weibo account of the Beijing Contemporary Art Foundation to encourage parents and their children during the height of the coronavirus crisis in China. The video is of Sakamoto playing his 1999 song, “Aqua,” on the piano. 

According to CGTN, before he begins the song, Sakamoto delivers a message to juvenile viewers saying, “It’s sad not to be able to go out and play, but since you don’t have to go to school now, do your best to play at home. 

“Don’t just play games. Use that time to read a lot of books and listen to a lot of music. Painting, writing poetry, playing musical instruments, and watching movies are also good choices. And don’t forget to do some exercises at home. Let’s get over it!”

Many children in some parts of China are confined to their homes because fear of the virus’s spread has closed many schools.

Japan Tobacco International Singapore (JTI), one of the sponsors of the electronic dance festival Ultra 2016, was fined S$15,000 ($10,700) on Feb. 20 by the Singapore government for “distributing cigarettes…without a license,” according to Yahoo! News Singapore.

Ultra 2016, organized by Ultra Singapore, took place Sept. 10-11, 2016, at Bayfront Avenue. The manager of the event, PICO Art International, was tasked with finding sponsors and reached out to JTI the previous April. 

Yahoo reports that Ultra was at first unsure of the legality of the arrangement but trusted to JTI to ensure that its activities were within legal limits. As part of the arrangement, JTI would pay a S$20,000 sponsorship fee as well as an incentive that depended on the number of cigarette packs it distributed during the event. 

In return, Ultra allowed JTI to set up two booths on the grounds of the festival. The booths featured menus that showed the cigarette brands carried by JTI along with prices. Attendees would place orders for cigarettes using the menus at the booths and these orders would be conveyed to part-time JTI employees at nearby convenience stores, who would then buy the cigarettes and deliver them to the paying attendees. 

JTI ended up stocking booths with pre-purchased JTI-brand cigarettes already procured from convenience stores when smokers were waiting too long for deliveries. 

During the event between 1,300 and 1,600 packs of cigarettes were distributed in this fashion. Singapore police had mandated that no “open packs of cigarettes” be allowed into the event area to prevent illicit drugs from being brought into the grounds, so attendees were forced to discard any open cigarette packs before entering. Consequently, smokers would have to buy cigarettes through the JTI booths after they entered.

However, JTI was later accused of three breaches of the Tobacco Act for distributing cigarettes at a venue that did not have a tobacco retail license. Ultra and PICO were also cited. Lawyers for JTI argued that JTI’s actions were driven with PICO’s encouragement. PICO had “put together the first formal proposal of concerge services.”

In other words, had it not been for PICO’s approval of JTI’s proposal for selling its wares at the festival, JTI would not have become involved in the first place. In the end, however, PICO’s and Ultra’s fines were lower than the one levied on JTI. Though JTI insisted it was in compliance with local regulations, it respected the government’s interpretation and “decided to bring this three-year dispute to an end and settle the case.”