Concerts - após SR de Fevereiro 25
‘Concert economy’ boosts real estate transactions in Old Taipa
Macau’s concert scene has had a significant impact on the local real estate market, according to Centaline Property.
The number of concerts held in Macau has increased significantly in recent years, with an average of three to five concerts per week.
This has resulted in a surge of inbound tourists, with over 1.3 million visitors recorded during the recent eight-day Spring Festival holiday, including a record-breaking 219,000 tourists on the third day of the Lunar New Year.
“The ‘concert economy’ has driven business for companies around the venues, especially in the Rua do Cunha business district,” the realtor said in a press release.
According to data from Centaline, the number of purchase and sale transactions in Taipa last year increased by nearly 60% year-on-year, totaling around MOP642 million.
Investors have been particularly active in the Rua do Cunha business district, drawn by rental returns of around 3% to 4%, and individual shops reaching up to 5%.
By the end of last year, several “six-digit” rental transactions, ranging from MOP100,000 to MOP300,000, were recorded in the area.
“Amid a series of favorable travel news, the number of tourists visiting Macau is expected to show an upward trend,” the realtor said.
Moreover, long-term prospects for the Rua do Cunha business district are optimistic, with the entry point for investments ranging from MOP30 million to MOP150 million. VC
FEV25
Here’s why Macao won’t be able to host a Taylor Swift concert anytime soon
Experts say Macao needs to develop a local talent pool when it comes to event production, as well as be more open to overseas talent
ARTICLE BY
Kenny Fong
PUBLISHED
11 Feb 2025
As anyone who has been down the dazzling Cotai Strip can tell you, Macao is first and foremost a gambling city. In recent years, however, the tiny territory has been attempting to expand its repertoire as an international tourist destination by pivoting to non-casino offerings, chief among them concerts and cultural events.
In his 2024 policy address, the then chief executive Ho Iat Seng highlighted the government’s expedited efforts to turn Macao into a “city of performing arts” and a “city of sports.” He mentioned that the SAR “organised 60 large-scale sports events and 56 large-scale cultural and arts events, receiving more than 21 million participants” between 2020 to 2024.
Concerts have certainly become big business in Macao. The head of the Cultural Bureau, Leong Wai Man, recently told Chinese state media that the concerts hosted by the city’s casino-resorts attracted 10 million people in 2023, generating a box office of around 1.1 billion patacas (US$136.2 million).
But while Macao may be able to stage table tennis tournaments, regional regattas, and Chinese theatrical extravaganzas, it has yet to become part of a major global event on the same scale as Taylor Swift’s Eras tour. The latter saw the US popstar performing in enormous venues last year, before crowds as large as 96,000 people.
The benefits of attracting such a big name star to the SAR could be enormous, so much so that the portmanteau “Swiftnomics” has been coined to describe the American singer’s extraordinary ability to boost the economies of the places where she holds concerts. Analysts, for instance, estimate that the Singaporean economy gained as much as US$332 million from Swift’s six shows last March, while the Down Under leg of her tour helped to boost the Australian economy by over US$188 million. Small wonder Shanghai is now actively courting the star.
Few hotel rooms and even fewer concert staff A January 2024 concert by K-pop stars Seventeen at the Olympic Sports Centre Stadium in Macao highlighted the city’s inability to stage a major outdoor concert – Photo by shofiphoto
Despite the massive upside of staging a Taylor Swift-sized concert, there have been concerns over Macao’s capability to host such an event. The Seventeen concert is a case in point. Held at the Olympic Sports Centre Stadium in Taipa last January, the K-pop concert drew a total of 40,000 fans over the course of two days. While it certainly helped to boost the local economy, the enormous number of spectators also resulted in traffic gridlock, extensive damage to the pitch and noise complaints among residents living near the venue.
The fiasco prompted the government to consider alternative venues for large-scale events, culminating in the trial opening of an outdoor performance venue beside the Lisboeta on the Cotai Strip on 7 December. This new venue is designed to accommodate over 50,000 spectators, but it is by no means all that is required for the staging of a big international show.
“We don’t have [enough] hotel rooms,” is the blunt bottomline of Glenn McCartney, an associate professor in integrated resort and tourism management at the University of Macau (UM).
Government data indicates that as of the end of 2024, Macao had 146 hotels that offered 43,000 rooms, a paltry sum compared to Singapore’s 73,500 rooms and the 91,961 rooms that Hong Kong offered as of September 2024.
Lawrence Che Fok Sang, the founder and CEO of Chessman Entertainment & Production, a local events promoter that has helped to stage the concerts of talents such as Eason Chan and Mariah Carey in Macao, is more optimistic – but only guardedly so.
[See more: Concerns voiced over personnel and transport at Macao’s outdoor performance venue]
“If Taylor Swift really came [to Macao], she might organise 4 or 5 shows, with each one drawing perhaps 50,000 people,” Che says. “We might have just enough hotel rooms, if it’s all international visitors, coupled with [additional hotel rooms in] Hengqin.”
Then there is the shortage of local talent. “It’s not to say that Taylor Swift and other people wouldn’t bring their own talent to stage it, but we would also need a lot of local talent [in areas such as security and staging] to be able to integrate with that,” McCartney says.
Che agrees. While pointing out that Macao has pulled off concerts by the likes of Madonna and the Rolling Stones in the past, he nonetheless says “If we want to become a ‘city of performing arts,’ we really need to start from education and attracting talent.”
The entertainment production firm CEO points out that young people in Macao lack proper guidance on how to enter the event production industry. The lack of foundational knowledge within the talent pool is another major hurdle, although Che believes this can be ameliorated through education.
Che also highlights the need for Macao to attract more overseas talent, pointing out that these experts can “become Macao residents” and help educate local staff.
Can Macao even handle the logistics of a major event?
The practicalities of handling big international events are also a concern. McCartney says the SAR can handle arena shows, with crowds of 10,000 to 15,000 people, but a Taylor Swift-sized concert is a much more daunting prospect.
Simply moving large numbers of people around Macao could prove problematic. The city’s taxis are woefully inadequate, there are no ride hailing services available, the bus network is unfamiliar to visitors, and the train system does not connect the city’s main points of entry – the Border Gate and the ferry pier – to Cotai, where events take place.
Ha Chon Ieng, a representative of the Islands District Community Service Advisory Committee, has even mentioned the absence of “proper pickup and drop-off points” at the outdoor performance venue, following the staging of its first concert last December.
Similarly, the government was slammed for its poor crowd control decisions during the Seventeen concert, which included the temporary closure of the Light Rapid Transit (LRT) Estádio station and its connecting footbridge, a move that local lawmaker José Pereira Coutinho said not only severely delayed residents’ ability to return home, but also “made the situation even more chaotic.”
In preparation for a Taylor Swift-sized concert, McCartney points to the need for the city to “do a lot more work liaising over the border” as such an event would involve “a massive flow of people exiting” to and from neighbouring locations such as Zhuhai and Hong Kong.
“We just can’t let [there be] the mass exodus,” the academic says, noting that the city needs to consider “issues of queuing and processing a lot of people through immigration points.”
Is Macao’s outdoor performance venue a solution?
Prior to the construction of the outdoor performance venue, two of Macao’s largest concert areas included Galaxy Arena and the Venetian Arena, which can house up to 16,000 and 14,000 people respectively. While these venues are certainly world-class, they are physically unable to accommodate the enormous numbers that a Taylor Swift concert would attract.
Che is optimistic that the new outdoor performance venue “will change some of the ecology of Macao’s performance industry,” calling it “a very big positive for our industry’s [current] development.”
Major global artists “have a basic requirement for the venue to have at least 50,000 people or more,” Che notes. “We now fulfil this condition for the time being, so we can hold discussions with others [about staging such events].”
McCartney is more cautious, pointing out that “we need more time to assess” the outdoor venue because “ a venue in itself is not what makes an event.” The tourism expert mentions that issues relating to capacity, traffic and the experiences of attendees and the community all need to be considered together with the outdoor area.
But both agree on the industry’s need for more policymaking support.
The local concert economy can have a “powerful effect” in supporting the growth of the city, Che says, but he adds: “We really need to adopt many different policies, including those on the part of the government, which may need to take us seriously.”
https://macaonews.org/news/business/macau-events-production-concerts-macao/
jan25 Resultados Galaxy
Macau’s Galaxy Entertainment Group is expected to have increased its market share and outpaced industry growth in the three months to 31 December 2024, driven by a dynamic live events offering and the recent opening of revamped gaming supply, according to a note from Jefferies analysts Anne Ling and Jingjue Pei.
With the company due to release its Q4 results next month, the analysts are forecasting revenue of HK$10.9 billion for the quarter, up 7% quarter-on-quarter compared with industry growth of 3%, and Adjusted EBITDA of HK$3.10 billion, up 5% quarter-on-quarter. Galaxy’s Macau market share is seen increasing by 1ppt.
“This is driven by [Galaxy’s] rich offerings of events and concerts including Andy Lau (3 to 6 October), Dao Lang (8 to 9 November) and (G)I-DLE (25 to-27 October),” the analysts said, as well as “the continuous ramp-up of Phase 3 at Galaxy Macau and the upgrade of StarWorld’s level 3 that hosts the largest-scale Live Table Games terminals in Macau.”
https://asgam.com/2025/01/19/jefferies-galaxys-live-events-schedule-new-product-offerings-to-boost-4q24-earnings/
jan25
Lawmaker Ella Lei, representing the Macau Federation of Trade Unions (FAOM), has expressed concerns over the impact of the new Outdoor Performance Venue on the businesses of local small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
In a written inquiry to the government, the lawmaker expressed concerns about the fact that the new venue is located in Cotai due to the need for enough space, as well as traffic and noise concerns, which might not align with the purpose of increasing the business of local SMEs through the visitors attending the events.
Lei said that, according to government-provided information, the authorities have so far received around 10 proposals for events at this new venue scheduled to take place this year from organizers in Asia, Europe, and the United States.
https://macaudailytimes.com.mo/ella-lei-expresses-concerns-on-the-impact-of-new-outdoor-venue-on-local-smes.html
jan25
Lawmaker Ella Lei, representing the Macau Federation of Trade Unions (FAOM), has expressed concerns over the impact of the new Outdoor Performance Venue on the businesses of local small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
In a written inquiry to the government, the lawmaker expressed concerns about the fact that the new venue is located in Cotai due to the need for enough space, as well as traffic and noise concerns, which might not align with the purpose of increasing the business of local SMEs through the visitors attending the events.
Lei said that, according to government-provided information, the authorities have so far received around 10 proposals for events at this new venue scheduled to take place this year from organizers in Asia, Europe, and the United States.
The lawmaker suggested that the government take the initiative or encourage the event organizers to introduce schemes to allow visitors and residents participating in the performances or sports events to enjoy preferential discounts on community spending, among other measures, to attract those visitors to visit other places in Macau and spend at those locations too.
The same lawmaker also suggested that the government find attractive ways to extend the length of stay of tourists, revitalize the local community economy, and continue to promote the non-gaming elements to achieve the goal of diversifying the economy while benefiting local and traditional SMEs
https://macaudailytimes.com.mo/ella-lei-expresses-concerns-on-the-impact-of-new-outdoor-venue-on-local-smes.html
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