The Musical Mousetrap

Concerts by top local stars (and the sight of the occasional Bunny Girl) will create a Las Vegas-style anchor for Macao Studio City

One of the key things that could differentiate Macao Studio City from all the other ‘mousetraps’ vying in the next few years for visitors’ attention on the Cotai Strip™ is its ability to offer back-to-back concerts by stars who are genuine household names in China.

This is because one of the consortium partners, the entertainment conglomerate eSun Holdings, manages some of the top Hong Kong film actors and Cantopop singers.

Star billing

“We would be looking to follow the Las Vegas-type model and have a performer anchor our theatre and our integrated resort for several months at a time,” says Mr Hamilton.

“That’s often quite appealing to some of these acts. With the evolution of recorded music they are not making as much royalty out of that [as previously]. For performers to make money they need to do live performances. A lot of them get pretty ticked off with travelling [on tour] every week. So to be able to fix themselves to one place like Vegas, or in this case Macau, for two or three months, makes them think ‘Hey this is pretty good’,” adds Mr Hamilton.

“We very much want the entertainments to be high profile and highly sought after. People will travel to Las Vegas when the likes of Elton John or Céline Dion are performing. We think people may do the same if an act such as [singer and actor] Andy Lau from Hong Kong is on the bill.”

Staying power

Mr Hamilton says headline acts on extended runs could be an important way of pushing up length of visitor stay.

“Vegas in the last 20 years has really extended the length of visitation from one and a half nights to four nights. Here [in Macau] we’re back at that one and half nights. The entertainments and conventions are certainly one of the avenues to extend the stay.”

Macao Studio City’s theatre will seat around 2,500 people per show. The convention facility, though more boutique than The Venetian’s mass market offer, can nonetheless seat 4,500 people.

Hotels

“We’re also going to have a range of hotels to suit different price points,” says Mr Hamilton.

“We have a Ritz-Carlton Hotel of five stars, we have a Marriott of four stars, we have a Tang hotel with six stars and a W. hotel of five stars.

“It’ll be interesting also to see how the restrictions on IVS [China’s Individual Visit Scheme] will affect length of stay,” he adds.

“Some of our retailers are actually suggesting that if people can’t come as often, they might stay longer. If I can only come every three months, I might stay for three nights rather than one day.”