Asia News: Fuji Rock Down; Indonesia Ticket Tax; 2NE1 Plots Reunion Tour

JAPAN

Fuji Rock Attendance Down

The Fuji Rock Festival celebrated its 25th anniversary at the Naeba ski resort in the mountains of Niigata Prefecture in northern Japan, where it moved to permanently in 1999, the weekend of July 26-28, welcoming a total of 96,000 revelers.

Attendance was down considerably from last year’s number, 114,000, which was hailed as a return to normal following the COVID pandemic. Compared to before the pandemic, when attendance often reached 130,000, this year’s edition clearly suffered from a fall-off in ticket sales that local media has been explaining in different ways.

The most obvious change is that regular attendees of the festival since its beginning, the so-called Fuji Faithful, have aged out of the constituency for such events and haven’t been replaced by a comparable number of young people.

One of the problems is rising costs that have affected the entire concert business in Asia and the world, and which have been exacerbated by the punishing exchange rate in the last year, which favors the dollar. Consequently, ticket prices have risen out of the reach of most young Japanese, who would rather spend their money on festivals featuring local performers.

A case in point is the late May cancelation of SZA, who was originally scheduled to be the headliner on Friday night. She is the kind of foreign artist who should appeal to a younger demographic, and was instead replaced by another major veteran rock act, The Killers. No explanation was ever given for SZA’s cancelation.

The weekend was blessed with mild weather. As has been the case in recent years, a good portion of the attendance was made up of fans from greater Asia taking advantage of the exchange rate, and a lot of them brought their families.

As usual, attendance peaked on Saturday with 30,000 people when Kraftwerk headlined with a custom-made show that featured a cover of the late Ryuichi Sakamoto’s theme from the film “Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence.” Sakamoto’s music was greatly influenced by Kraftwerk.

The festival took place only several days after the death of veteran British blues musician, John Mayall, who performed twice at Fuji.

Festival founder Masa Hidaka, who said that Mayall’s first Japan tour in the early ‘70s made him want to go into the music business, led a tribute to Mayall in the company of two of Mayall’s sons, Jason and Gaz, who are perennial regulars at Fuji as DJs. Jason, in fact, works for the UK affiliate of Smash Corporation, the organizer of Fuji Rock.

INDONESIA

Govt. Eyes Concert Ticket Excise Tax

The Indonesian government plans to impose an excise tax on concert tickets, according to Tempo.co. The minister of tourism and creative economy, Sandiaga Uno, responded by saying that his job is to attract foreign tourists to Indonesia and concerts are considered one of the most effective tools for doing that.

The minister said he was waiting for a final decision on the matter, though he hoped the government would do a more thorough analysis of the situation.

“Are there other products or services that could be subject to excise instead?” he told reporters.

Indonesia’s director of communication and guidance for customs service users clarified that the excise tax proposal was still under consideration, and that the government is “open to suggestions” from academics.

Tempo.co says that the Indonesian government is looking for additional ways to generate revenue, and new excise taxes are the most feasible.

KOREA

2NE1 Plots Reunion

Veteran K-pop girl group 2NE1 has announced it is reuniting for a world tour that will start this fall.

Though the group disbanded in 2017, they got together for a surprise performance at Coachella in 2022. So far, only South Korea and Japan shows have been confirmed.