Don't Let Taylor Swift's Case Repeat, Indonesia Is Ready To Collaborate With Singapore For A World-Scale Music Concert

JAKARTA - The impact of Taylor Swift's six-day concert in Singapore is not over yet. Indonesia doesn't seem to want to lose momentum and something like this will happen in the future.

Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy (Menparekraf) Sandiaga Uno also met with Singapore's Minister of Trade to explore the possibility of collaboration in presenting world-class concerts in Indonesia. The meeting took place when Sandiaga Uno visited Singapore on Friday, March 8 last week.

The meeting discussed the potential collaboration between Indonesia and Singapore which was seen to be able to present world-class events, especially music concerts.

The reason is, reflecting on Taylor Swift's concert in Singapore for six days, their economy has increased because concert audience spending is five times bigger than ordinary tourists.

Therefore, the Indonesian Government is currently preparing the Indonesia Tourism Fund (Indonesian Tourism Fund) as a provider of companion funds and incentives for parekraf actors in the country.

"The strategy is that we offer special incentives for promoters or event organizers that will bring international attractions in Indonesia," Sandiaga Uno said in a press release, seen Wednesday, March 13.

Sandiaga Uno said the existing incentives were not limited to organizing music concerts, but also for organizing cultural and sporting events.

The Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy said that his party will also work together across ministries and institutions to prepare supporting infrastructure, digitizing licensing, increasing human resources (HR), and eradicating brokers. This is important to increase Indonesia's competition with other Southeast Asian countries in presenting international-class events.

"We believe that by digitizing concert licensing or one-door licensing, the promoter will not experience difficulties and can spend cheaper costs during the permit application," said the man who is familiarly called Sandi.

"This mechanism will also cut the licensing flow and make the existing process more transparent," he added.

However, Sandi also emphasized that national musicians are no less qualified than international musicians. Moreover, Indonesia also has many music festivals spread across various regions for local musicians.

"Many Indonesian and international musicians collaborate such as Coldplay concerts in Jakarta and Jonas Brothers at ICE BSD. We must be able to increase the competence capacity of national musicians through the development of technology, access to digitalization, as well as innovative marketing strategies through the use of digital platforms," concluded Sandiaga Uno.