The concert market is not booming as expected.

Korean boy band TEMPEST wearing conical hats at their first live concert in Vietnam in June 2024 - Photo: @kang_2703/X

After more than a year, this industry is still vibrant and attracts many foreign artists to Vietnam, as well as recording a "reverse wave" of a few Vietnamese artists going abroad to perform their own music shows, but it is not as vibrant and has not achieved the great effect as expected.

Foreign shows in Vietnam: many but hard

The first half of 2024 marked the boom of small and medium-sized K-pop shows in Vietnam; fancon events (meeting fans combined with singers' concerts) with an audience size of approximately several thousand people; fanmeeting (meeting fans, musical performances by actors) with only a few hundred or less than 1,000 people.

Those are the shows of Super Junior-D&E, Super Junior-LSS (both are sub-groups of Super Junior), and the big group Super Junior (through the concert series Super Show - Spin-off).

These shows are all at the scale of Phu Tho and Rach Mieu stadiums with thousands of spectators but not full.

Or the show of the band TEMPEST with Vietnamese member Hanbin at Phu Tho stadium also did not sell out because the group is still new and does not have many popular hit songs in Vietnam.

Those are Kim Jae Joong's (former main vocalist of DBSK, current member of JYJ) solo concerts at Military Zone 7 Stadium and he also promised to return soon as part of his tour;

Baekhyun - considered the most famous member of EXO, with two nights at Phu Tho stadium; singer Daesung - member of BigBang at Military Zone 7 stadium...

These shows were organized fairly well, leaving a good impression on the audience, although not every show was sold out.

The common point of solo singers coming to Vietnam is that they are all the main vocalists, leading vocalists in their groups, so they sing very well and can carry the whole concert alone, with a music catalog that includes both their own hits and the group's hits.

Kim Jae Joong, former member of the boy band DBSK, came to Vietnam in April and will return with a solo concert in September.

Their group also has a solid position, even considered a K-pop legend, so many long-time fans want to see their idols perform. Shows with a few thousand spectators are not considered too much for these names.

Currently, there are rumors that the long-standing girl group 2NE1 will have a concert in Vietnam around the end of this year, on the occasion of the group's return to group activities after many years of absence.

2NE1 visited Vietnam twice in 2011 and 2014, and group leader CL performed separately in Vietnam in 2022.

Besides the shows that took place with certain difficulties and challenges, foreign shows in Vietnam this year also had shows that had difficulty selling tickets and had to be canceled, such as the fan meeting of actor Kim Seon Ho (Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha), or the fan meeting of actor Lee Jong Suk (Big Mouth) held at a wedding center with a rather small scale, considered not worthy of his name.

The sad echo from 2023 still remains when the K-pop Christmas show called Open Air #2 X-mas Festival in Hanoi by Bom Entertainment was suddenly canceled. This show was scheduled to be held on December 23 and 24.

A series of Korean singers and bands were upset and canceled their shows because the organizers did not follow the contract agreement, regretting that they could not come to Vietnam to perform, such as Infinite, The Wind, Highlight, Kim Jae Joong, Nichkhun and Jun.K (2PM), TRI.BE... as well as Vietnamese singers who announced their show cancellations, such as Toc Tien, Tang Duy Tan, Chi Pu, Duc Phuc...

So much so that when he came to Vietnam in April 2024, singer Kim Jae Joong said he was still sad about the cancellation of this show and organized a separate concert to make up for the pain of his fans.

That shows that Korean singers still want to come to Vietnam. When they come here, they often praise the friendliness, closeness and attachment of loyal fans.

At the press conference for TEMPEST’s concert in Vietnam, the representative of the concert organizer also admitted that the organization encountered many difficulties and received doubts and concerns from the audience. The organizers also faced financial and operational capacity problems.

Currently, audiences do not believe too much in the appeal of foreign concerts in general, and K-pop concerts in particular (because they are the largest in number, accounting for the majority) in Vietnam, largely because there are no artists that attract the attention of a large part of society, making non-fans excited and eager to buy tickets.

On K-pop forums, when asked which names will create a fever like BlackPink last year when coming to Vietnam, the answer still revolves around two globally famous K-pop groups, BTS and BlackPink, and somewhere around G-Dragon - who is known as the king of K-pop but has not been active in music for several years.

Vietnamese shows abroad: not yet very attractive

Regarding Vietnamese music shows abroad, Ha Anh Tuan brought his own brand of music nights, Sketch a Rose, to famous auditoriums around the world: Esplanade durian theater (Singapore) on June 11 and 12 and soon The Sydney Opera House (Australia) on September 29.

With 3,200 seats in Singapore and 2,600 seats in Australia, these are much smaller concerts than the singer's domestic concerts.

These music nights also need the support of businesses close to Ha Anh Tuan, and do not depend entirely on ticket sales.

Singer Ha Anh Tuan Ha Anh Tuan organized two full nights of his own Sketch a Rose show in Singapore, a collective effort.

Besides the main singer, all the guest singers in the show in Singapore were Vietnamese (including Phan Manh Quynh, Vu. and Tran Duy Khang - lead singer of the band Chillies), so the influence on international audiences was not high.

Some audiences commented that the sound quality in the Esplanade Theater is too good, which is also a challenge for Vietnamese singers in singing live, making it difficult to hide the shortcomings.

In the near future, when Ha Anh Tuan comes to Australia, the audience is expecting a change in guests to make the show more international.

This is not an unfounded hope, but the reason is that Ha Anh Tuan once invited Kitaro - a Japanese music legend - to perform in two Radiant Horizon music nights in Ninh Binh in 2023.

However, Ha Anh Tuan’s boldness in bringing his own concert abroad, attracting Vietnamese audiences to foreign countries, and facing challenges in ticket sales… is also a great effort that deserves recognition. He also inspires other singers in their dream of organizing shows.

Singer Phan Manh Quynh, a guest at the show, shared: "I, like Vu or Khang, am a junior generation and am very happy to have such a special occasion. It was also difficult for us to come here, it was the effort of many brothers. To have today's program, everyone did a lot of work."

Meanwhile, with a "lighter" scale of about 800 audiences, Van Mai Huong's music night, TKO Concert 01 - "Huong" Live in Tokyo, took place properly in Japan in April. The organizers admitted that even though the event was finished, they still felt that holding the concert in Japan was a risky decision.

Because lead singer Van Mai Huong was still able to perform, but an incident occurred that caused some guests to miss their flight to Tokyo, singers Hoang Dung and Lam Bao Ngoc could not participate in the show.

In addition, there are difficulties that are easier to encounter when organizing a concert abroad than in the country, such as the audience having to fly abroad and encountering visa problems, being stuck with work near the date and unable to go, and reselling tickets to others is also more difficult than in the country... so many people have to consider.

For Vietnamese audiences living in the country where the concert is held, not everyone is a fan of the singer, so buying tickets is more difficult.

Ha Tran's cancellation of two shows celebrating her 30th year of career was a big shock not only to her but also to the performance industry.

Concerts of domestic singers also face difficulties

Regarding the challenges of organizing a private concert for a singer at the present time, longtime singer Lam Truong told the press: "Having a show is not difficult in terms of execution, but selling tickets is very stressful.

That is a real problem that everyone faces. Many of you accept that the investment will be more than the revenue you will receive, but I believe that you are worried about whether there will be enough audience to listen to your performance.

Now all shows have sponsors, some units have their own stable customer base. Young singers also have enough material to make shows."

Singer Ha Tran's live concert Tinh Khoi Galaxy initially had to change location in Ho Chi Minh City on August 10 from Military Zone 7 Stadium to Hoa Binh Theater because the crew gave the reason that they wanted to set up a stage on water.

But there is also a difference in capacity between these two venues, specifically a reduction from 4,000 - 5,000 seats to just over 2,000 seats. Therefore, many audiences speculate that the crew wants to reduce the pressure on ticket sales.

But in the end, even more regrettably, at the end of July, Ha Tran and the crew were forced to announce the cancellation of two shows of Tinh Khoi Galaxy in Ho Chi Minh City on August 10 and Hanoi on August 24 without a new schedule, along with a promise to refund the audience.

These moves narrow the possibility of live concerts being held in the future.

Not only Ha Tran, singer Trung Quan's live concert 1689 this year was also held in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi, following live concert 1589 last year, but it is said that ticket sales were much slower.

In the final stages, the show had to be postponed twice due to the schedule overlapping with the national funeral, which made the crew passive. However, in the end, Trung Quan and the crew still finished the show and did not "break down halfway".

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/thi-truong-concert-khong-bung-no-nhu-mong-doi-20240829110737906.htm