Just last week, Coldplay announced that they will be doing 4 shows in Singapore which got many of us in Malaysia simultaneously jealous and excited. If that wasn’t exciting enough for Singaporean fans, the band recently announced 2 additional shows at the Singapore National Stadium.
While this may be thrilling for fans in the neighbouring country, it got us wondering why the Grammy-winning band will be doing 6 shows there but only 1 show here. Thankfully, one netizen provided some insights on why this may be the case:
Why is Malaysia getting only 1 show from Coldplay? Earlier today (Tuesday, 20th June), Twitter user @lancelot_se, briefly explained why the UK act decided to add more dates to their “Music of the Spheres” World Tour in Singapore. According to the netizen, concert organisers, record labels or the acts themselves would have to fork out thousands of ringgit for the permits for each foreign performer, technician, and crew member.
The fee must be paid based on the number of performances and in order to do two shows, they’d have to obviously, pay double the amount. Whereas in Singapore, foreign performers can perform at any venue with an entertainment license. Simply put, it’s cheaper to do more shows in Singapore compared to Malaysia.
Here’s the list of how much a permit cost depending on which country they’re originated from:
Another netizen also pointed out that applying for a license in Singapore can be done online for as low as SGD$30 and will take only a few days to wait for approval. While in Malaysia, the procedure is more tedious. To add another perspective, the image above is the list of how much it would cost per person for 1 concert date in Malaysia, according to the Application Center for Filming Foreign Films and Performances of Foreign Artists (PUSPAL).
The Arts, Live Festival and Events Association (ALIFE) suggested the reason Malaysia is not getting a second show is probably due to the protests by certain political/religious groups. This has no doubt left “a sour note with the artist, organiser, and especially international concertgoers”, as seen in the screenshot below.
What we can conclude from these findings is that it’s easier for international acts to do more concerts in Singapore as the procedure is more smooth, the fee is not as costly, and the acts are welcomed by the people and government with open arms. Plus, Malaysian Ringgit pales in comparison to the Singapore dollar.
While we may not know everything that goes on in the neighbouring country, these findings alone are enough to answer our questions about why any act would skip our homeland during their world tour. What do you think?
