Over 1 million visitors to Sports Hub in first 3 months of 2024, driven by top-tier concerts

Concerts by A-list acts in 2024 have so far not only drawn higher than-usual numbers to the Singapore Sports Hub, but also given the Republic's economy a significant boost.

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Driven by top-tier concerts, the number of visitors to the Sports Hub in the first three months of 2024 exceeded one million, which was more than the 700,000 visitors in the second half of 2023.

The concerts alone - by Coldplay and Mayday in January, Ed Sheeran in February and Taylor Swift in March - drew a combined total of around 840,000 visitors. The shows were held at the 55,000-capacity National Stadium.

The figures were shared by Minister for Culture, Community and Youth Edwin Tong, who was personally involved in securing a deal to bring American pop star Swift and her globally successful Eras Tour to Singapore. Swift's concert was a coup for the Republic as it was her only stop in the region.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) noted a "surge in tourism" that boosted Singapore's economy in the first quarter of 2024 - largely due to the Coldplay and Swift concerts in its macroeconomic review published in April.

Coldplay was estimated to have brought in over 200,000 fans over six shows in January, while Swift drew more than 300,000 fans to her six shows in March.

According to estimates by private-sector analysts, these largescale concerts could have generated tourism receipts of between $350 million and $450 million, MAS noted, with estimates differing depending on assumptions such as the proportion of foreign visitors among the concertgoers and their length of stay in Singapore.

The economic injection Singapore saw is on track to meet these projections.

"The numbers are probably in the ballpark of the private-sector estimates... subject to STB's (Singapore Tourism Board) evaluations, we're probably around there," Mr Tong told The Sunday Times at the National Stadium after the HSBC SVNS Singapore rugby tournament kicked off on May 3.

Swift's run of March concerts seemed to also boost visitor arrivals.