As the hype intensifies in the region with her Eras Tour making it to Singapore after Tokyo and Australia, it seems like everyone wants a piece of Taylor Swift these days, even Filipino lawmakers.
While ‘Swifties’ have been clamoring for the Philippines to be part of the blockbuster tour that is projected to generate almost a billion dollars in revenue for the pop star, even Filipino lawmakers are complaining these days, as the chair of the House committee on ways and means, Rep. Joey Salceda, has asked the Department of Foreign Affairs to send a note verbale to the Singaporean Embassy in Manila to explain the reportedly exclusive deal between the country and the production company behind Swift’s massive worldwide tour.
Salceda is asking the embassy to explain the exclusivity terms in the grant given by the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) and the Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth (MCCY) to AEG Presents, which prevented Swift from taking her “The Eras Tour” elsewhere in Southeast Asia.
Singapore will be Taylor Swift’s only stop in the region, where she will perform in six sold out shows, selling more than 300,000 tickets where a massive number of fans from all over the region will be flying into the city-state for the concerts.
Both STB and MCCY confirmed that the tour got a grant from Singapore, after estimating that their tourism sector would benefit from it. The terms were first made public by Thailand Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, who said that the Singaporean government offered at least $3 million in grants to AEG.
It would seem that Salceda is salty that the Philippines and the entire region got out hustled by Singapore, who was not only able to offer a better venue, logistics, safety and security, as well as ease of doing business, but even sweetened the pot with the grant that no other country obviously thought to offer.
If you come to think of it, there is no reason to complain because if I were Taylor Swift, I wouldn’t even consider the Philippines as a venue when there are so many better options out there in the region. The recent case of the Philippine President needing an entire chopper squadron to fly him and his party to the Coldplay concert at the Philippine Arena in Bulacan, in order to avoid the massive traffic jam, is proof enough that we are neither competitive nor ready for such concerts.
In the recent TS concert in Melbourne, Australia, Americans on social media were perplexed at how the venue didn’t have a giant parking lot, even if the venue had a capacity for more than 100,000 people. The secret sauce, of course, is access to an efficient public transportation system, which is something the Philippines doesn’t have. All we have is the giant parking lot that the NLEX transforms into every time a big concert is held at the Philippine Arena. The Singapore National Stadium, is of course, also highly accessible via public transport. So even if the Philippines had $3M to burn to bag a TS concert, it would still be a nightmare compared to holding it in a developed country like Singapore.
There is also the factor of logistics and red tape, which a concert as big as Taylor Swift’s that comes with its own equipment, will have to face. Any Filipino who thinks we can actually be competitive in any bid to host a concert as big as an Eras Tour concert, even if we factor in our sizable Swifty population, must be dreaming.
Maybe Singapore was “cheating” when it tied up AEG to an exclusive deal, but the long and the short of it was that they were simply competing at a high level while we are just not that competitive yet. They offered much more than we ever could, so they got the deal. The Filipino politico who has mastered the inner workings of rigged biddings should be the last to complain if they are outbid. I guess the only thing that hurt more than losing for them was that they got outsmarted and outmaneuvered by a country that has a much lower corruption perception index.
If the Philippines wants to be competitive, we have to be ready to compete at all levels. In the case of a Taylor Swift concert, that means from the bidding process, to logistics, to security, and even the convenience of the concert-goers, which is a factor for the producers and the superstar who will ultimately make up their minds based on all those factors combined. Because even if we could afford to make a bigger bid in terms of money, Singapore still would’ve been the first choice for a concert, simply because the country is head and shoulders better than ours in so many measures, and in this case, when it comes to doing business.*
