Concert pipeline pinched by war, SARS and sky-high fees
By Rosli Abidin Yahya 

Star performances and concerts by foreign artistes are currently seeing a lean period with only two concerts slated for regional artistes until the end of the year. A few days ago, the management of JPCC Amphitheatre, Jerudong called all active concert organisers for a meeting to discuss the situation as to why the concert industry is having a lean period especially this year.

Apart from several international and regional performances in January and February such as Ronan Keating, Jacky Cheung, Malaysian groups Spider and Boboy, and Indonesian dangdut stars Jihan Amir, Septy Sanustika and Yuli Citra as well as Chinese artistes, the industry saw a decline after the cancellation of international group Blue's concert in March.

Blue did not give a reason for cancelling their March Asia tour though it was believed it was due to the US-led war on Iraq. Being a UK-based group and UK was also in the coalition that attacked Iraq, the group might have thought their security was being undermined.

However Blue may be making an Asian tour at the end of the war but it is not known whether they will be performing here. Organisers were left to shoulder the return of tickets to fans as well as bearing the initial expenses as a result of the cancellation last March 22.

In March and April, there were no international and regional artiste concerts here and it will only be at the end of May before local fans are treated to another concert featuring regional stars.

The performances, entitled the 'Sensational Concert' will see Malaysian top artistes and group namely award- winning Siti Sarah and Yasin, Misha and rock group Def-Gab-C performing for the public on May 31 at the JPCC Amphitheatre in Jerudong.

After the May 31 concert, there is only one booking for the JPCC Amphitheatre where Indonesian artiste Kris Dayanti may be performing in August.

Organisers who attended the meeting with the JPCC Amphitheatre management said the latter offered to work out cooperation with the organisers as they fully understood that regional artistes had been asking for sky-high fees to perform in Brunei Darussalam.

"Regional artistes always have this mentality that Brunei is rich and so they charged exorbitant fees on themselves. But in reality, some organisers have lost as much as $40,000 to $80,000 per concert when fans desert their idols.

"But bear in mind that organisers still need to pay the regional artistes as well as other charges regardless whether the concert hall is full or empty," they said.

The organisers also attributed the global outbreak of SARS for the decline since they themselves have been reluctant to venture overseas to negotiate concerts of regional artistes.

Courtesy of Borneo Bulletin