Madonna, Chris Botti+Sting test Manila’s concert market with $1,200-level tickets
Tickets for the Madonna and the Chris Botti+Sting concerts for this week and next will test Manila’s appetite for topnotch foreign acts with top-tier prices to match.
And for the first time in two decades since the record Luciano Pavarotti concert in 1994, the VIP tickets for the back-to-back shows have both breached the $1,000-range.
Entrance to the Feb. 24-25 Madonna concert at the 20,000-seating capacity Mall of Asia Arena will cost anywhere from P3,150 (about $65) to P57,750 (about $1,203).
On the other hand, the more intimate March 3 Botti+Sting concert at the Marriott grand ballroom will lighten one pocket’s anywhere from P11,000 (about $229) to P60,000 (about $1,250).
The organizers are not saying it, but the Botti-Sting’s published prices are apparently rack rates, since those opting to pay by Citi card will automatically get 20 percent discount.
The ticket prices, especially for the more popular Madonna concert, have prompted bewailing from the blogosphere since last year, echoing the righteous indignation in 1994 when then Senator Blas Ople, God bless his soul, thundered about sending government officials who will watch the Italian operatic star to jail for “ostentatious display and conspicuous consumption in times of calamity”.
At that time, a front-row ticket for the Pavarotti concert, originally scheduled for President Ramos’ birthday, went for P25,000, when the exchange rate was hovering in the P26-$1 range and the GDP per capita income, despite the tigerish sloganeering of Malacañang, was unqualified Third Worldish at $939.
By 2014, the Philippine per capita income, according to the same World Bank data expressing the GDP figures in current US dollars, had mercifully but ever so slowly tripled to $2,872. Now back to the concerts. Yesterday, a check with the respective ticket websites showed that the general admission (P3,500) and upper box side view (P8,400) tickets for the Madonna performance had all been sold, while the lowest-priced bronze (P11,000) and silver (P17,000) sections for the Botti-Sting show still had a number of seats available.
Surprisingly, the P60,000 tickets, limited to 10, had apparently been sold out or spoken for right away.
Called Stage VIPs, 10 big spenders bought their way, as the concert title suggests, “Up Close and Personal” presence, seated on the stage alongside the musicians, while Botti+Sting perform “our most popular songs.”
As to the songs, a concert official, claiming he was bound by confidentiality, would reveal only three hits that Sting will perform during the two-and-a-half hour show: Desert Rose, Fields of Gold and Every Breath You Take.
Downside to the P60K-seat? The ticket holder will be looking at Chris Botti and Sting from behind, facing the audience for the show’s duration. Unquantifiable upside: Botti and Sting may stop by to greet, meet and even pose for selfies with the stage groupies.
As to the Madonna concert, while local fans can expect a “characteristically theatrical spectacle” with emphasis on Madonna’s latest Rebel Heart album, there are apparently not too many 1980s-era hits in the repertoire.
“We paid P57,750 to hear the Madonna songs of our youth,” grumbled businessman Noel Onate, specifically citing Like A Virgin, Material Girl, Papa Don’t Preach, Crazy for You and Borderline. “Most of her 45-to-65 year old fans will be watching her because of those songs.”
Well, the good news is, if the Wikipedia entry on the Washington DC leg of the global Madonna tour is an accurate guide, at least two of those songs, as well as Holiday, should also be in the set list for the Manila show.
Heard through the grapevine
Cebu Pacific has recruited eight more foreign pilots after the past two weekends of job interviews in Makati and Cebu for qualified local flight officers for Airbus A320 and A321 failed to make the number.
Amid the worldwide shortage of pilots, even China’s lowcost carrier Spring Airlines has been forced to look abroad for A320 captains, offering annual salaries starting from $214,000.
E-mail: cocktales_tv5@yahoo.com