It looks like we should be glad Taylor Swift (and her promoter Anschutz Entertainment Group, popularly known simply as AEG) could not bother to do a concert here in the country anymore, unlike when she was younger in 2011 and 2014 and not the global phenomenon she has become these past few years.
If she and AEG would bother, it would have been announced very early last year yet so Pinoys and citizens of other nations could buy tickets fast to prove that we are a profitable market.
If we had been included in her The Eras Tour, maybe no live acts, foreign and local, would have been scheduled in the country this year.
Promoters and producers would sensibly suspect that potential viewers of shows scheduled in 2024 would start saving their money as early as they can in 2023 to afford a Swift concert in the Philippines the following year.
Seeing the prices of tickets in Singapore and Tokyo (the only other Asian country where Swift brought her The Eras Tour), if the Philippines was included, the lowest-priced ticket could be P20,000.
The Straits Times reported on Saturday (24 February) that negotiations to bring Swift to Singapore began in early 2023. A team flew to Los Angeles to meet leaders from the sports and entertainment world, just as Swift was about to start her massive tour in the United States. No international dates and venues were confirmed then.
A few months later, the Singapore team started working with AEG to bring Swift in for a six-night run of The Eras Tour in March 2024. Singapore is the only Southeast Asia stop on the global concert tour, and tickets for all six shows from 2 to 9 March have sold out by January 2024.
Keith Magnus, chairman of Kallang Alive Sport Management, the corporate entity managing the Sports Hub (which includes the Singapore National Stadium, venue of The Eras Tour) said KASM had initiated the idea to bring Swift’s tour to Singapore and had led the discussions.
“Once the discussion had progressed and we saw the opportunity of holding an only-in-Singapore event, we then thought it made sense to take a whole-of-government approach and brought in other relevant agencies to really have Team Singapore bringing in Team Taylor,” he told the newspaper.
In Singapore, the lowest-priced tickets are Side View, costing S$248 and S$108. For the restricted view, it’s S$88. Tickets started selling in July 2023.
Those who watched Coldplay last month at the Philippine Arena paid only P27,000 for the best seats. Tickets to the two-night concert started selling in June 2023 yet. Both shows sold out, even as the original plan was to have a concert for just one night.
Had the Philippines been included in The Eras Tour, no international promoter would have bothered to offer to bring to the country this year two foreign acts to be held this March though negotiated in 2023: the new Asian run of Miss Saigon and Ed Sheeran’s latest concert with mathematical symbols as titles.
Miss Saigon is coming to Manila on 23 March to kick off the series of shows to be held at The Theater at Solaire hotel-casino. And due to overwhelming demand during ticket pre-sale in early November last year, GMG Productions has announced that the Boublil and Schönberg musical is extending its Manila run.
The production, initially set to close on 21 April, will now run until 5 May 2024.
Ticket prices to Miss Saigon in Manila: VIP (Orchestra Center front and Premium Gold Center) — P8,464; A Reserve (Orchestra Center back, and Premium Gold Left, Right) — P6,348; B Reserve (Orchestra Left, Right back) —P4,761; C Reserve (Balcony front row) — P4,020; D Reserve (Balcony middle row) — P2,962; and E Reserve (Balcony back row) — P2,116.
Sheeran’s upcoming concert will be at SMDC Festival Grounds in Parañaque City on 9 March. Tickets started selling in 2023 October.
We suspect Pinoy theater companies would have not finalized in 2023 their major productions for 2024 if they knew early on that those who enjoy live grand shows were saving money for a Swift concert in the Philippines. We wouldn’t hear of the Philippine Educational Theater Association partnering with ABS-CBN to do a stage musical adaptation of the hit 2017 film One More Chance that topbilled Bea Alonzo and John Lloyd Cruz.
Tickets for theater plays are more expensive than those for films at the cineplexes. The best seats for musicals can go as high as P8,000. (Same is true for OPM concerts in theaters at hotel-resorts and hotel-casinos.)
A full year is needed to pre-schedule the likes of Alonzo and Cruz in a major production. By January of every year, they already know that they are 80-90 percent booked for major involvements for the year. But their director in One More Chance, Cathy Garcia-Sampana (formerly Cathy Garcia-Molina until she was widowed) happened to be available from February to April this 2024 to do her first theater directorial job, so she is it for the PETA-ABS-CBN collaboration of adapting a well-loved film into a stage musical.
Garcia-Sampana will direct stage thespians Sam Concepcion, Jeff Flores, Jay Gonzaga and Anna Luna, along with film-TV actors CJ Novato, Nicole Omillo, Kiara Takahashi and Sheena Belarmino. The top hits of the folk-rock band Ben&Ben will be integrated into the stage play.
The musical will run at PETA Theater Center in QC from April to June.
Full House Theater Company has also announced on that Buruguduystunstugudunstuy: Parokya ni Edgar Musical will premiere on 26 April at Newport Performing Arts Theater at Resorts World Manila.
The play will have an all-female lead cast since it is about the extraordinary journey of four women — a high school student, a matron, a scavenger and a lady guard — who share the same birthday on the 6th of December.
The film Bar Boys, directed by Kip Oebanda in 2017, will be mounted in May this year also as a musical. It starred Enzo Pineda, Carlo Aquino, Rocco Nacino, and Kean Cipriano. In the musical, the cast is led by Alex Diaz, Benedix Ramos, Jerom Canlas and Omar Uddin. Pat Valera, who directed the hit musical Mula Sa Buwan, will helm the Bar Boys musical about law students.