KUALA LUMPUR, June 21 — Syed Saddiq Abdul Rahman said Malaysia has “missed an economic lottery” as Coldplay managed to sell out six shows in Singapore.
The Malaysian United Democratic Alliance (Muda) president said that the British rock band’s six-date tour has made a massive profit for Singapore, whereas Malaysia could only hold one date.
“Coldplay is doing a six-day tour in Singapore. Yesterday it was five days, today they added another date. Over in Malaysia, there are so many obstacles to hold just one concert.
“But what does the Coldplay concert in Singapore have to do with Malaysia? We actually missed the economic lottery,” he wrote in a Facebook post.
Syed Saddiq claimed that Singapore will collect ticket sales of RM180 million for the six-day concert.
He backed this claim by saying the Singapore National Stadium can accommodate 50,000 spectators at a time and the average price of a ticket is around RM600 with the collection to be generated amounting to RM30 million a day.
The Muar MP explained that Singapore will also receive an economic boost as fans from abroad will travel and spend time in the country during the Coldplay concert.
“Estimating that a person spends RM500 for one day. A total of 1,000 tourists equals RM500,000 and six days equals RM3 million. This is a huge amount of money that can be generated.
“My point is, when we argue about organising concerts in Malaysia, foreign countries are seizing a golden opportunity to generate an economic surplus,” he explained.
He said that Malaysia used to organise up to 50 concerts a year but now there are more and more obstacles and complaints.
He stressed that Malaysia cannot continue to miss the economic opportunities that can be generated because of organising concerts.
The British band will be performing at the Bukit Jalil National Stadium in Kuala Lumpur as part of its Music of the Spheres world tour on November 22.
Yesterday, organiser Live Nation Singapore said the sixth show would happen on January 31, after previously announcing shows for January 23, 24, 26, 27 and 30.
In Malaysia, the concert was met by opposition among others by Islamist party PAS over alleged links with the LGBT community.
