Our Ministers Are Taylor Swift Fans

OK, so everyone is talking about Taylor Swift these days. Honestly, I need to do a little research to find out who she is, what she does and the The Eras Tour, which according to Wikipedia, is the ongoing sixth concert tour by the American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift.

Consisting of 152 shows across five continents, the tour commenced on March 17, 2023, in Glendale, Arizona, United States, and is set to conclude on December 8, 2024, in Vancouver, Canada. With a global cultural impact, the Eras Tour became the first tour to surpass $1 billion in revenue, making it the highest-grossing of all time.

Now for the controversy.

On 20 February, the Singapore Tourism Board said it “supported the event through a grant”, but did not reveal the size of the grant or any conditions attached to it. Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin was quoted as saying last month that Singapore had brokered a deal to pay the pop star up to US$3 million for each of her six concerts – in exchange for keeping the shows exclusive to Singapore in Southeast Asia.  

PM Srettha said he had heard about the arrangement from concert promoter AEG (Anschutz Entertainment Group, world’s second-largest presenter of live music and entertainment events). This has also triggered criticism from our other neighbours like the Philippines. However, our very own Minister Edwin Tong insisted that the amount is “nowhere as high as what is being speculated.” AEG has kept mum, apparently refusing to confirm or deny Mr Srettha’s claims. The company’s inaction is “understandable” but doubts remain. Imagine if a Singaporean had said that. Can they POFMA him/her without revealing the actual figure corroborated by AEG? Meanwhile, CNA suggested a figure of SGD2-3M for all 6 concerts. They were not POFMAed, which is interesting because if true, AEG would have accepted peanuts in return for exclusivity. And the most interesting part is, if Thailand’s PM Srettha had not made his claim, we would not even have known about the government involvement. Still, it may not be just the money. A decade ago Taylor Swift cancelled her shows in Thailand because of the military coup and street protests.

Taylor Swift has fans across South East Asia, home to roughly 700 million people. Her music can be heard from alleyways in Hanoi to shopping malls in Bangkok. Changi Airport is going to be packed with concert fans for a whole week. Hotel rooms are going to be filled up quickly and it doesn’t matter if it’s all a rip off. Certain kinds of spending will make perfect sense only to fans. I’m just worried that some of Taylor Swift’s foreign fans may come up with dodgy ways to save money. The government has assured us that Swift’s tour will bring certain economic benefits to the country. Interestingly, Singapore’s tourism board had refused to reveal foreign visitor estimates. Are we getting bang for our buck? Let’s rewind a bit and learn from recent “history”.

In Australia, the leg of the tour preceding Singapore, officials estimated that the tour had provided a A$145m “uplift” in consumer spending. More than 570,000 tickets were sold across seven nights in Sydney and Melbourne, nearly double the number sold for Singapore’s six shows.

KPMG’s chief economist Dr Brendan Rynne estimated that over 90% of concert attendees were local. In other words, the money was just circulating internally. Only foreign visitors would have been adding to the books – and they accounted for just 2% of visitors, he estimated. After doing the maths he projected Swift had added only A$10m to Australia’s GDP.

The point to note is, Australia didn’t use public funds to have Swift play in the country, state government officials confirmed to the BBC. Neither did Japan, the only other Asian stop on the tour. Why do we need to eh … AEG to hold 6 concerts here excluding neighbouring countries? Aren’t the Singapore brand and reputation good enough?

Another lesson from history:

Singapore’s Formula One Grand Prix only saw 49% of spectators from overseas in 2022, with a record 300,000 crowd.

Did any regular guy like me experience a windfall from F1? The more positive economists postulate that while Taylor Swift’s presence may give very little economic gain, it could give a strong endorsement for Singapore. It’s a bit like the way our government gives all kinds of incentives for MNCs to move their operations here. But then, Taylor Swift concerts come and go really quickly and there is no sustained benefit.

Two factors that has been left out in all the “intellectual” discussions are the emotional factor and the political mileage. All of a sudden, our ministers are Taylor Swift fans. Like a case of 将错就错, Minister Edwin Tong publicly claimed responsibility for securing exclusive Taylor Swift concerts for Singapore. A young fan of Taylor Swift posted this and I replied.

These youngsters must be so thankful that our ministers are Taylor Swift fans too. Maybe our PM should start singing Taylor Swift’s songs instead of 新谣。It seems that our MIW have figured out what makes PLPs tick – ong lai and Taylor Swift. After being embarrassed by the Thai PM, they managed to turn the situation in their favour and projected themselves as heroes fighting for Taylor Swift fans. That’s simply brilliant as far as the local electorate is concerned. I don’t know what’s coming up in 2025, but it will be along those lines targeting the kiasu, kiasi and gian png.

Finally, let’s not forget the pushback from our neighbours. Rightly or wrongly, some people see the statements from Thailand and the Philippines as “sour grapes”. Doesn’t matter if it’s perfectly above board. Minister Tong has every right to make those decisions and take those actions. It’s just that we have hurt our neighbours’ feelings and we may see some very unpleasant repercussions further down the road.