After Taylor Swift announced her global concert tour on Wednesday, fans in Southeast Asia took to social media to express dismay, with some calling it injustice and others blaming thorny domestic politics, over her only stop in Singapore.
Fans have criticized other artists like the American singer-songwriter: Coldplay announced two extra dates in Singapore for their Music of the Spheres world tour on Tuesday, bringing the total to six. The band will perform on more nights in Singapore than any other country next year.
How the little city-state of less than 6 million people become a top artist’s venue is obvious. Can Seng Ooi, a University of Tasmania professor in cultural and heritage tourism who studies Singapore’s tourism strategy, tells TIME that the government’s proactive approach to working with artists and concert organizers has led to Singapore’s international popularity for decades.
“Singapore is a destination, but an event in itself is [also] a destination,” explains Ooi. People come here for such reasons, thus they adore Singapore and spend a lot of money there.” By any measure, concert tickets are expensive, says Ooi. Whoever can afford it can fly to Singapore.”
Singapore has a government plan to become the “events and entertainment capital of Asia.” Since the 2000s, authorities have courted foreign performers to attract their fans to the city. Top officials have promoted Swift’s concert. Previous videos advertising Singapore’s attractions were made by the Tourism Board with American musician Charlie Puth and Hong Kong rapper Jackson Wang.
Singapore’s not simply importing Western concert stars. A Singapore Indoor Stadium event by Indian music producer and performer Anirudh Ravichander sold out in two days earlier this year. This month, K-pop star TWICE sold full two nights of gigs at the same arena later this year.
Concert organizer IMC Group Asia tells TIME that Singapore’s “good hospitality facilities such as hotels, food and transport” make it an attractive site for performers. The business said that tour members’ work permits and visas should be easy to get.
On Wednesday, U.S. ambassador to Singapore Jonathan Kaplan tweeted, “Big!!!” Swift will perform. BIG CONGRATS to everyone that made #TaylorSwiftinSG happen.”
Fans outside and locally frustrated by lack of access
Coldplay’s January concert presale on Monday broke the country’s ticket sales record with over 200,000 sales.
Fans from other Southeast Asian countries who had to fly to Singapore for the event were among the million virtual line numbers on the auction site that day.
This is the kind of travel the Singaporean government hopes to inspire with events like these, but some local fans have called for measures to limit foreign ticket sales, even suggesting using Singpass, a national identification app, to restrict ticket sales to Singaporeans.
But outside Singapore, the rage is even bigger. The government of Malaysia, Singapore’s neighbor with five times the population, has only one Coldplay performance scheduled, prompting some fans to criticize it on social media. After Chris Martin was caught waving the LGBT Pride flag, religious organizations and conservatives criticized Coldplay’s performance in the country.
One Twitter user explained why Swift did not visit Malaysia: “If she were to come to Malaysia, religious fundamentalists would make noise about her concert outfits and her support for LGBT rights.”
About Coldplay’s six shows in Singapore, Malaysia’s non-profit Arts, Live Festival and Events Association said, “it is a true testament and example when various government and private bodies work cohesively for the benefit of economies, job creation and tourism.” The organization also bemoaned “what could’ve been for Malaysia, which would’ve brought millions in tourist income and benefit hotels, transportation, food and beverage, retail and more.”
Wednesday’s social media video by Malaysian lawmaker Syed Saddiq stated: “While we are arguing amongst ourselves, Malaysia is losing economic opportunities at home.”