More than 1.6 million Lady Gaga fans flocked online to grab presale tickets for the Grammy Award-winning pop star’s concerts in Singapore in May, the only Asian stop for her Mayhem Tour.
Presales for the four concerts in Singapore’s National Stadium from May 18 to 24 opened on Tuesday morning for Mastercard cardholders with, with queue numbers going well above 1.6 million. There are three more rounds for presales, including one for members of Singapore Airlines’ frequent flyer programme, before tickets are offered to the general public.
The rush follows the wildly successful Eras Tour by Taylor Swift last year in the city-state, which prompted economists then to raise their first quarter growth forecasts. Retail sales rose 2.1% when Swift came to Singapore in March 2024, and Bloomberg Intelligence (BI) said last week that Lady Gaga’s concerts will boost tourist spending.
In another report this week, BI said Singapore Airlines would get a boost to revenue and profits in the fiscal first quarter thanks to the four mega concerts.
“Such mega events have in the past provided holiday-like boosts to the city-state’s inbound tourism demand,” BI analysts Eric Zhu and George Ferguson wrote. “Redemption of KrisFlyer points for tickets could buoy earnings, as loyalty programmes are generally among global airlines’ most profitable businesses.”
The concert fever has helped to revive the Mice — meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions — sector, and turned Singapore into a destination of choice for concerts after the pandemic. Singapore media reported that overseas fans have booked flights and hotels to the city-state before even securing the concert tickets.
Thailand has been trying to bag some mega-concerts of its own in order to stimulate tourism. The Tourism Authority of Thailand said recently that it would submit a proposal and a request for funding to the cabinet for consideration.
