International News: Music Biz Uses Aus. Election To Rally Reforms; Coldplay In Hong Kong & More

AUSTRALASIA

by Christie Eliezer

AUSTRALIA

Music Biz Uses Election To Rally Reforms

Seven live sector bodies including Live Music Office, Australian Live Music Business Council, Live Music Venues Alliance, Association of Artist Managers and Australian Festival Association were among 19 signatories to a music biz-wide open letter to political parties contesting the May 3 federal elections.

Calling them “a critical moment for the future of Australian music”, the Vote Music 2025 campaign called “for the next Parliament to build on recent progress and take the next big step so that Australian music is heard, valued, and supported across the country and globally.”

Other signatures were from labels, publishing, music rights, screen composing, wellness, First Nation, export and producer sectors.

The live sector wanted tax rebates for venues, festivals, and touring artists; an arena tax to help grassroots venues; and an under-25 ticket pass.

It called for Revive Live, which provides financial relief to artists to extend to festivals, regional touring, venue infrastructure and all-ages gigs.

There was a push for strengthened copyright, AI transparency, more royalties from radio, quotas for streaming platforms, more funding for mental wellbeins and public liability reform for venues.

Ideas on Government’s role in exporting music included export grants and visa support, reciprocal cultural programs strengthening ties with Indo-Pacific music markets, and diplomatic and regional deals around the world to “leverage global networks to promote Australian music.”

It wants more acts to repeat the current international success of The Kid Laroi, Kylie Minogue and Dom Dolla.

NYE Festival Returning To Bondi Beach

Sydney’s iconic Bondi Beach will host a new year’s eve music festival since 2014 after the Shore Thing finished its nine-year run when promoters Fuzzy Events and mi9 quit.

With headliners as David Guetta, Fatboy Slim, Snoop Dogg, Calvin Harris, Flume, Groove Armada and The Presets, it drew 15,000 a year and was a cash cow for Waverly Council. 

Council began March 18 to “find a suitable partner to run the event.” 

It is not known if Fuzzy, whose festivals include Listen Out, Field Day and Harbourlife, will apply.

It was in March tapped by Waverly Council to run the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras’ beach party after a drop in attendance and loss of $1 million (US$628, 640).

Executive Moves

Live Nation has closed down Village Sounds (which it acquired as part of a 2016 buy-out of Secret Sounds) with its agents Evan Davis and Andy Gumley setingt up Cornershop Agency.. 

The Superjesus’ singer, guitarist and role model Sarah McLeod is new chair of Australian Women In Music. She will address gender research gap and expand the organisation’s profile beyond its awards, First Nations showcase and conference.

Kristy Rosser, Live Nation’s SVP of marketing solutions, becomes SVP, head of media and sponsorships, helming partnerships for brand division Connect replacing Greg Segal.

NEW ZEALAND

Nominations Unveiled For Aotearoa Music Awards

R&B singer Stan Walker and Persian-NZ rapper and electronic producer CHAII led nominations for the May 29 Aotearoa Music Awards in Auckland with five gongs apiece.

Other nominees with a global presence included electro-reggae band L.A.B., country singer songwriters Kaylee Bell and Tami Neilson, singer-songwriter Georgia Lines and Aaradhna whose soul music has an Indian/ Samoan twist.

Two times Grammy winner Lorde, whose collaboration with Charli xcx, “Girl, So Confusing” is up for single of the year, in mid-April teased a 15-second snippet of a new song on TikTok featuring herself marching through NYC’s Washington Square Park.

ASIA

by Phil Brasor

JAPAN

Blackpink Ticket Prices Raise Eyebrows

In February, Blackpink announced their first world tour in two years. In the meantime, the K-pop girl group’s four members concentrated on their solo acts, so a return of the whole package is a big deal, especially in Japan, which was one of the first countries outside of Korea to embrace Blackpink in a major way. On April 8, details were revealed for the Japan shows of the tour that will take place at Tokyo Dome on January 16, 17 and 18, 2026. 

However, the women’s weekly magazine Shukan Josei expressed shock at the exorbitant prices of the tickets. A stadium box for four is going for ¥200,000 ($1,400), a “premium seat” near the stage will cost ¥45,000 and the special “Blackpink Seat,” which is even closer, is ¥50,000. The cheapest seat, which is ¥15,000 ($105), is located at such a distance from the stage that Shukan Josei says it will make it “almost impossible to see the faces” of the artists on stage, “let alone their expressions.”

Since the end of the pandemic, tickets for foreign pop artists in Japan have been very expensive, but K-pop artists have tended to temper their prices because Japan is their most important market outside Korea, so the high prices have come as a blow to Blackpink’s fans. The most expensive ticket for last year’s Japan tour of Twice, another very popular K-pop girl group, was only ¥23,000. The highest price for Blackpink’s Tokyo shows in 2023 was ¥33,000—and that included premium merchandise not offered for the upcoming tour—but inflation has raged in Japan over the last two years, cutting deeply into people’s spending, especially young people’s spending. Shukan Josei scanned social media and found numerous posts of fans who say they’ve already given up on buying tickets because they can’t afford them. 

The tickets for Blackpink’s Seoul concerts, which will launch the tour, are also being slammed as too much by Korean fans, but at the equivalent of ¥27,000 they’re much cheaper than the ones for Tokyo, so some Japanese fans are wondering if it’s not worth it to try to see the group in Korea. Most, however, are wondering why there’s such a big price discrepancy. Shukan Josei quoted one fan as saying, “Are they making fun of Japan?” 

In any case, tickets for Tokyo will be available through a lottery system starting in mid-April.

Rain Mars World Expo Open

The opening of the 2025 World Expo in Osaka, Japan, on April 13 was plagued by bad weather, but the rain was not the reason that “saitei no banpaku,” which translates as “the World Expo sucks,” trended on X with over 18,000 mentions following the event, according to the news website Unseen Japan. 

Though advanced ticket sales have not been encouraging to the operators of the Expo, large crowds showed up for the first day, as they always do in Japan for a major event. Because of limited transportation to the site, which is on a man-made island in the middle of Osaka Bay, visitors had to purchase tickets for specific days and times so as to alleviate any congestion. Consequently, the organizers were promising a “line-free Expo,” but that wasn’t the case at all. The wait on April 13 just to get through the entrance was between two and three hours owing to security checks and congested cellular data access, which was necessary to download QR ticket codes for entry. Many visitors said they couldn’t get cellular service at all. 

Once inside, visitors found it difficult to escape the rain because of sparse shelter. The only place to keep dry was under the famous Wooden Ring that encircles the Expo, but it wasn’t big enough to accommodate everyone who needed it. Lines for food service proved to be interminable and the official app of the Expo was difficult to navigate since it tended to log off after 5 minutes of inactivity. 

The organizers have promised to solve all these problems as the Expo continues. It will run until October 13.

SINGAPORE

KFC, Live Nation Team Up

KFC Singapore has entered into an exclusive promotional partnership with Live Nation Singapore to attract concertgoers to their fast food eateries. Customers who spend at least SG$15 ($11) at KFC will be eligible to win prizes related to upcoming concerts organized by Live Nation, including tickets, backstage tours, access to VIP suites, sound test passes and early venue entry. The promo will be run on a monthly basis, with customers scanning a QR code and inputting their receipts in order to participate in each month’s draw. 

HONG KONG

Coldplay A Hit In Hong Kong

Hong Kong media have hailed Coldplay’s four-concert stand at the new Kai Tak Sports Park in early April as a resounding success. As the series was the first big concert test for the stadium, its significance is important for the future of the city as the Asian Capital of Events, which is what local leaders are trying to achieve. The park’s management announced that about 200,000 people from the city, mainland China and overseas attended the concerts. 

Consequently, the management of the park went the extra mile to ensure that all security arrangements and post-concert transportation information was in place so as to facilitate smoother operations, thanks to close coordination between the organizers, government departments, public transport providers and stakeholders. Dimsum Daily reported that the 50,000 spectators who attended each night were able to exit the main venue within 20 minutes of the end of the concert. 

John Sharkey, the CEO of the park, released a statement lauding the work of everyone involved, saying that the success of the concerts proved that the venue could accommodate “world-class sports and leisure entertainment events” in Hong Kong. 

The only negative news related to the concerts was the arrest of three men who illegally entered the audience sections of the stadium using staff wristbands. One of the men owns a cleaning company that has a contract with the venue. Security noticed the men while they were enjoying the show outside the designated work area. 

MALAYSIA

EDM Fest A Big Success

The Malay Mail also reported that the Neon Music Festival 2025, which took place April 11, was a big success. The event was notable as being the first major EDM music festival to take place in Malaysia since the Pinkfish Countdown 2024 New Year’s Eve concert, where four attendees died from drug overdoses. In the wake of that tragedy local police had temporarily suspended concert permits for Selangor State, where Neon takes place. 

As a result the Neon team had implemented stricter crowd control protocols modeled after world-class EDM festivals like Ultra and Tomorrowland, including monitoring of crowd density on a continuing basis, securing emergency access lanes throughout the audience areas, clear signage and sufficient personnel to ensure smooth mobility and pre-event safety drills with local medical agencies. 

The festival included a mix of local artists and world-famous DJs, including Hardwell, who headlined the event.