From Ed Sheeran to Taylor Swift, more Indians travel for the live music experience

Experience the rise of music tourism in Asia with fans traveling to catch their favorite artists live in concert.

Through the first week of March, strains of ‘Cruel Summer’ and ‘Karma’ have echoed through the streets of Singapore. “It feels like a Taylor Swift festival here. I can hear her songs everywhere,” says Shreya Sridhar, a marketing and communications consultant who flew down from Chennai to Singapore, to attend the singer’s The Eras Tour concert. A day before the concert, which she describes as “incredible”, Shreya says she went to the National Stadium, and saw Swifties lining up, lounging around on picnic blankets, and listening to music. In several spaces, there were corners dedicated to fans making bracelets to be exchanged — a Taylor Swift:The Eras Tour concert tradition  

It has been hard to miss the deluge of reels, posts, and updates since the year started, from fans at Coldplay’s Music of the Spheres tour which toured Singapore and Thailand in January and February, and subsequently, from Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour where the singer performed to packed audiences from March 2 to 9 in Singapore. Closer home, Mumbai is gearing up to host much loved English singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran on March 16. It was just a couple of months ago that the city played host to Sting, Keane, Halsey, the Jonas Brothers and more at Lollapalooza 2024. 

Given the array of music acts to catch both in the country, and other parts of Asia, an increasing number of Indians are travelling out of their cities to catch their favourite music acts. With both Coldplay and Taylor Swift having tour stops in South-East Asia, the timing for music tourism, also known as gig tripping, has never been better. 

“While Singapore has been a stop for many international acts over the years, what has changed is that more people are exploring travel as a feasible way to watch their favourite music acts live. Concerts are becoming just as good a reason to take a holiday as anything else, and we are hearing of a tangible uptick in interest from our partners,” says Renjie Wong, area director, India, South Asia and Middle East(Mumbai), Singapore Tourism Board. 

He indicates that even though January is traditionally not a high season for travel to Singapore, there has been an increase in Indians searching for flights to Singapore through the time that Coldplay had their concerts there. “India is a key priority market for concert promoters, and is well connected. For travellers heading to Singapore, options are plenty to explore as well as a packed events calendar to choose from,” Renjie says. 

With ticket bookings that open nearly six months in advance for big concerts in most South-East Asian destinations, there is a fair bit of planning involved — as to how to navigate virtual queues, and having multiple people try their luck. Sanjana Shankar, a law student from Chennai,says that when tickets opened for The Eras Tour’s Singapore leg in July 2023, she and a few friends braved the virtual queue for around four hours and finally managed to get tickets. When tickets go on sale, fans try their luck by logging into the ticketing platform and wait in a queue of sorts where they are told how many people are waiting ahead of them to book tickets.

“Having wanted to see her perform for nearly a decade, we were thrilled. Singapore worked for two reasons — the fact that it is more accessible than the US or Europe, and the ease as well as cost of tickets compared to the USA or other destinations,” she says.