Asia News: KCON Saudi Arabia Uncertain; Fuji Rock Streaming; Ticket Surrogates

KOREA

KCON Saudi Arabia Uncertain

KCON, a K-pop music festival produced by Korean entertainment giant CJ ENM, will not take place in Saudi Arabia this year as originally planned, according to the Korea Herald.
The company previously announced KCON 2024 would take place in Hong Kong, Japan, Los Angeles, Europe and Saudi Arabia.

A source “with knowledge of K-pop concerts in the Middle East” told the newspaper on July 9 that “KCON Saudi Arabia has been cancelled due to internal conflicts.” No further details were provided.

However, CJ ENM “maintains that Saudi Arabia KCON is still in the works” without confirming when it will be or where it would take place. An official of the company told Korea Herald, “We are still in discussions with our counterparts in Saudi Arabia and cannot confirm whether it will be held this year.”

A different Middle East promoter told Korea Herald that the likely reason for the cancellation was “the lackluster lineup for the 2023 KCON concert in Saudi Arabia,” which reportedly disappointed local fans.

This contrasted with the 2022 edition, which featured big names like ATEEZ, NewJeans and Rain. The biggest group in 2023 was Super Junior, “who were more popular four years ago.”

PHILIPPINES

Stadium Near Clark Airport Planned

Clark International Airport and Corporation (CIAC) in Manila is planning to build a stadium that will be able to “host concerts of mega artists like Taylor Swift,” Philstar.com reports.

The company’s president and CEO Arrey Perez announced that the proposed venue will be built within walking distance of Clark International Airport (CRK) in Pampanga, a municipality on the northern shore of Manila Bay. The purpose will be to “boost traffic to Clark International Airport.”

The stadium will be part of an entertainment and events center that will be completed sometime in 2028, covering 40 hectares and costing about 32 billion Philippine pesos ($544 million). The idea for the stadium project began last fall after CIAC started talking to local and international developers.

During an infrastructure forum in New York City on July 12, Perez said to reporters, “When we host big events, we always use the Philippine Arena [if you need a 55,000 seat venue] but it always causes a lot of traffic. Besides, Clark really needs more attractions so that we can draw more passengers, more airlines to the airport.” The CIAC oversees all functions of the Clark International Airport.

The project has attracted interest from companies in Singapore, the U.S. and the Philippines, and Perez says it will be a public-private partnership project. Various entities associated with tourism and aeronautics also met on July 11 to “discuss strategies and foster greater collaboration among government agencies and private stakeholders to push for greater awareness and promotion of Clark as a major gateway for international and domestic tourism,” said Philstar.com.

Augusto Sanchez, the chief strategic communications and events officer of CIAC, told Philstar.com that it is the project’s express intention to build a stadium large enough to attract major pop stars “like Taylor Swift,” and even said they would “try to court the artist.”

Swift bypassed the Philippines and, in fact, all of Southeast Asia except for Singapore during the “Eras Tour.”

JAPAN

Fuji Rock Streaming

Selected performances of the Fuji Rock Festival, which takes place July 26-28 at the Naeba Ski Resort in the mountains of Niigata, Japan, will be streamed worldwide, Smash Corporation has announced.

Streaming will be free of charge on Prime Video for subscribers, as well as on Amazon Music channels on Twitch. The main headliners are The Killers, Kraftwerk and Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds.

SINGAPORE

Need A Ticket? Hire A Surrogate

The increasingly competitive nature of securing tickets to popular concerts in Singapore has invariably given rise to a service called Help To Buy, which involves hiring surrogates who will get the tickets for you online.

According to an article in Channel News Asia, the mere act of entering a ticketing site “requires [a] serious strategy” that many buyers don’t have the wherewithal to come up with, and so they turn to professionals who will do it for a price.

The founder of one such service called Queuetie, who refused to give her real name, told CNA, “Recently, there has been a very huge trend of young teens attending concerts, but they have lots of roadblocks, such as they don’t have credit cards.”

These youngsters often turn to their parents, who in turn know nothing about ticketing platforms and systems and, in order to please their children, the parents engage HTB services.

Another anonymous spokesperson for a different HTB service said that many of their customers “have not bought a ticket in their life,” and thus don’t know how to navigate the often circuitous sites or what to look for.

Usually they don’t even know that they need to set up an account. HTB services will do it all for them. Another common customer is someone who has the knowledge and the cash, but not the time.

CNA goes on to point out that HTB is essentially the online equivalent of “professional queuers,” meaning people you would hire to stand in line to buy physical tickets for you for a fee.

HTB services usually come in two forms. In the first, the HTB team uses its own ticket service account to buy the tickets for the customer. In the other, they access the customer’s own account to purchase the tickets.

The second option is preferable since it provides more security for receiving a ticket under the customer’s name. However, this option also requires that customers change passwords and other customer information (and that the HTB service discards such information in their own records) after the transaction is completed.

One service said that the first option may be preferable to some people since the service’s various accounts provides for a greater selection of seats, so the customer is better able to get the seats they want. Some HTB services can even buy tickets to concerts overseas.