Concert organization – potential economic sector for Vietnam

Blackpink’s two concerts have contributed to increasing Hanoi’s revenue, opening up many opportunities for Vietnam to become a music tourism destination like many countries have done.

Thanh Ngan (21 years old, in Ho Chi Minh City) had a trip to meet idols at the end of July in Hanoi . This time, in addition to 7.8 million VND for tickets to Blackpink’s concert and nearly 4 million VND for plane tickets, Ngan brought 5 million VND with 6 friends to visit Van Mieu – Quoc Tu Giam, Hoa Lo prison, “food” tour” around the old quarter, check-in the walking street and visit Uncle Ho’s Mausoleum together.

In Thailand, Pete Pitipon (27 years old, tour designer) still decided to book a plane ticket from Bangkok to meet his idol. Not counting the two-day ticket price to the concert, this guy spent nearly 15 million VND for the next three days to go around the streets of Hanoi and have a short trip in Ninh Binh.

Thanh Ngan and Pete Pitipon are two of the 70,000 people who attended the Blackpink concert at My Dinh National Stadium, according to data from the Hanoi Department of Tourism. Of which, 3,000 guests came from abroad, mainly mainland China, Canada, Hong Kong (China), Australia, Thailand, Taiwan, Japan, Malaysia, South Korea, Singapore and the Philippines.

Also in these two days, the total number of tourists to Hanoi reached more than 170,000, bringing about 630 billion VND in revenue. In which, more than 30,000 international visitors, with nearly 22,000 people staying. Hotels, famous landmarks or city tour services by double-decker buses all recorded double-digit increases in visitors.

The above figures show that the success of the two shows suggests a lot of potential from the concert industry in Vietnam.

In the immediate future, you can clearly see the direct revenue from ticket sales . Normally, the ticket sales of a concert will be divided according to the following ratio: About 15% is used to pay taxes, pay music royalties and divide profits for domestic ticket distributors. The rest of the ticket sales will be divided between the idols’ management companies and local organizers. The sharing ratio is agreed upon between the parties when signing the contract to organize the performance.

As such, the Vietnamese side will receive direct revenue including tax ( at 5% by law), profit sharing between ticket distributors and domestic organizers. According to the estimate of someone with experience in the music event industry, about 50-65% of the revenue will flow to the venue of the concert.

In addition to ticket revenue, performances by international stars can bring added value to related economic sectors. Dr. Daisy Kanagasapapathy – Lecturer in Tourism and Hospitality Management, RMIT University Vietnam, said that organizing large-scale concerts will attract a variety of domestic and international audiences, helping to increase tourism revenue for all whole field. The event also stimulated the economy from increased accommodation bookings, transportation utilization, dining and retail spending. This also generates many job opportunities and strengthens the local economy.

In mid-June, the Seen festival in Hoi An (Quang Nam) had the participation of Taeyang ( Big Bang ), Hyoyeon ( SNSD ), BoA, aespa and some other artists. Mr. Jackie Han – CEO of Vietnam Events, the organizer of the festival, shared with VnExpress that about 8,000 people attended the two nights. Along with the fireworks festival, the event helps bring Hoi An – Da Nang to the top of the most searched destinations in the first half of the year.

Vietnam Events added that on average, each audience spent more than 6 million VND for transportation, dining and shopping, excluding tickets to the show. With the number of 8,000 attendees, this unit is confident that Seen festival has brought in “not a small revenue for the locality”. Particularly, the resort that held the festival recorded about 400 bookings for combo tickets and hotel rooms, equivalent to more than 3 billion VND in revenue.

“Not only K-pop, but every art performance event of major artists is a ‘gold mine’ for the local economy,” commented Mr. Jackie Han.

In addition to the direct revenues mentioned above, the indirect impact of concerts also helps create intangible assets . According to Dr. Daisy, successful tours create a positive image of cultural vibrancy, position the organization as an attractive destination for music tourism, and contribute to the sustainable development of this industry. encourage investment and growth.

Music is a global language and people travel for fun. Therefore, music tourism is becoming a popular tool to diversify tourism products of countries. According to RMIT University lecturers, focusing on music tourism can help Vietnam attract more visitors, similar to how Malaysia, Hong Kong, India, Singapore, Korea and Thailand have done and succeeded.

In Korea – the cradle of K-pop, an average of hundreds of concerts are held each year, attracting tens to hundreds of thousands of fans around the world. In October 2019, BTS ‘s “Love Yourself: Speak Yourself” tour booked its last leg in Seoul with three concerts, welcoming about 130,000 people. The Korea Herald cited a report by Korea University as saying that this concert created nearly 923 billion won (nearly 17,300 billion VND) in direct and indirect economic effects.

Earlier this year, Blackpink had a tour in Bangkok, helping to generate revolving income for the tourism industry and the general economy, according to the Tourism Authority of Thailand . This agency assesses that the concert helps attract a large number of high-quality tourists in Laos, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, etc., contributing to turning the country into a “music destination” of the region. Meanwhile, Blackpink’s two concerts in Thailand recorded 66,000 attendees, less than 70,000 people in Vietnam.

In Singapore, The Star newspaper reported that the tourism industry has benefited greatly from the concerts of Coldplay, Taylor Swift and Blackpink. According to Agoda, the entire hotel will be fully booked during a concert by British rock band Coldplay in January 2024. Meanwhile, a month ago, Taylor Swift fans rushed to apply for a United Overseas Bank card of the country, in exchange for the right to buy concert tickets first.

Concert organization becomes a potential economic industry when the level of spending of Vietnamese fans is increasing . This week, Taeyeon (SNSD) opened a concert in the land of golden pagodas. According to the statistics of a fanpage in Vietnam, more than 400 Vietnamese fans will go to Thailand to participate at an average cost of 15 million VND each. A recent survey of NCT Dream’s fan community in Vietnam showed that more than 7,700 people are willing to spend money if their idols come to perform. The amount that they are willing to spend to buy tickets is the lowest 2 million, the highest is 6 million.