Asia News: Ultra Hits Singapore And Korea, AEG and CJ LiveCity Partner On Venue & More

Electronic dance music fans had plenty to complain about from Ultra Singapore festival June 8-9, according to local media. 

As reported earlier, concertgoers received their tickets less than a week before the gig and only then discovered that the event had been moved indoors and one of the stages had been axed. Then, when the set times were released June 6, fans found out that the headliner, Martin Garrix, was nowhere on the roster and the organizer provided no explanation. 

As it turns out, Garrix had a good reason for pulling out – a torn ankle ligament suffered during a fall in Las Vegas – but Ultra Singapore made no formal announcement to that effect. Consequently, many people with tickets didn’t know about the cancellation until they actually showed up for the concert. 

According to website Coconuts Singapore, “Fans weren’t too pleased with the lack of transparency on the end of Ultra Singapore organizers. 

Their main gripe was with the stealthy removal of Garrix’s name in the absence of an announcement or replacement, and the resulting paltry DJ lineup without a Phase 3 addition, despite the usual high prices. 

Some resorted to offering their tickets for sale on the Ultra Singapore Facebook page, hoping to score some money back a mere day before the event. Some launched a Change.org petition to call for a refund. Signatories complained of “false advertising,” “acting in bad faith” and pricey passes. 

Fans could have found out about the change if they followed Garrix on social media, because he announced it himself not long after he was injured, complete with a photo of himself with crutches and his leg in a cast. 

Attendees of Ultra Korea, which took place the same weekend, were a bit luckier in that organizers not only properly announced the Garrix cancellation but replaced him with DJ Porter Robinson, a huge draw in Asia. Robinson reportedly even played some of Garrix’s songs during his set. 

However, Swedish House Mafia, another highly anticipated headliner since the trio had never performed together as a unit in Korea before, canceled its appearance mere hours before it was set to go on stage June 9. The trio’s social media statement indicated that they were forced to cancel due to “unforeseen circumstances.” However, according to EDM.com, several days earlier one of the members, Sebastian Ingrosso, had missed a performance in Las Vegas due to “passport issues.” It’s not clear if this had anything to do with the Seoul cancellation. 

Other “hiccups” for the Korean festival, according to the Korea Herald, were a change of schedule on Day One because of a downpour that forced a delay in the construction of the main stage, and cancellation of the traditional after-party due to “concerns stemming from recent controversies about drug use at nightclubs.”

CJ LiveCity announced June 10 that it would cooperate with the sports and entertainment company Anschutz Entertainment Group to “build a cultural arena in Goyang, Gyeonggi Province, to host concerts and other live events,” according to the Korea Times.

The Seoul Metropolitan Arena will have 20,000 seats and feature a K-pop theme park, “combining CJ’s expertise in hands-on studio-produced cultural content, and a hallyu (Korean wave) themed waterfront park with AEG’s extensive venue management.”

CJ LiveCity’s CEO Kim Cheon-soo said in a statement that AEG’s participation was central to the “success of this arena construction project” and that the venue would present not only K-pop stars but “world-class artists.”

Adam Wilkes, the CEO of AEG Asia, said in his own statement, “It is great that our venue management has formed a partnership with the leader of the Korean entertainment industry. Together we will play a big part in the future of Asia’s culture complex and music industry.”

Projections for CJ LiveCity include more than 20 million visitors annually, 90,000 jobs, and economic value of about $1 billion. 

The plan for the venue was submitted in April to provincial authorities, who expect it to “aid [in the province’s] economic revitalization as a landmark venue…and tourism hub of Korea.” 

In essence, the stakeholders in the venue hope to attract at least a portion of the estimated 89 million fans of Korean popular culture from all over the world. 

The complex will be located 20 minutes by train from Seoul’s fashionable Gangnam District, a 40-minute drive from Incheon International Airport and a 20-minute drive from Gimpo International Airport.

Promoters, festivals and venues throughout Asia have been recently targeted by a sophisticated email phishing scam, China Music Radar has reported. 

Talent buyers have received emails soliciting offers for A-list artists, including Rihanna, Lady Gaga, Eminem and System of a Down, from purported agents of these artists.

One screenshot posted by CMR shows an email attributed to Hannah Edds, an assistant to Eminem’s agent, Steve Strange, inviting the receiver to submit an offer for an upcoming tour. 

If the message are able to successfully get a response, the fraudsters are able to respond quickly with follow-up materials, including riders and marketing resources. 

The aim is to collect deposits from talent buyers. In addition, the scammers have managed to send the emails from domains with names that are very similar to the real domains. 

For instance, the Eminem email originated from xraytouring.co, though X-ray Touring, for which Strange works, uses xraytouring.com. The fake domains are registered in China and are less than a year old. Other giveaways include generic salutations (“Dear promoter”).

The scam follows in the wake of similar schemes that targeted European and Latin American promoters in 2016 and 2017. Last year, the UK’s Entertainment Agents Association issued a checklist for promoters to use when confirming the validity of agents’ emails.