Costs of concerts by foreign artists trouble for organizers after pandemic

MELİSA VARDAL

Concerts by foreign artists, interrupted by the pandemic, have returned to normal. World-famous names meet with the audience in different parts of Türkiye for concerts throughout the summer, but rising prices around the world make the organization of such big stars very costly.

The highly anticipated name of this year is Christina Aguilera, who will give her first concert in Türkiye. Having millions of fans around the world with her songs, dances and visual shows, Aguilera will give her concert tonight in the southern province of Antalya on the stage of Regnum Carya.

Among the other names, Monica Molina will take the stage at Maximiles Black Turgutreis Arena on Aug. 19; Robbie Williams at Bodrum LUJO Hotel on Aug. 17; French diva Imany at Turkcell Vadi Open Air Stage on Sept. 7; Finnish band Insomnium on Sept. 8 at Dorock XL Venue Taksim; Palestinian Le Trio Joubran at Maximum Uniq Open Air on Sept. 9 and Oscar and the Wolf at İzmir Arena on Sept. 21, Ankara ODTU MD Vişnelik Grass Amphitheater on Sept. 22 and Istanbul KüçükÇiftlik Park on Sept. 23. Gipsy Kings and Buika will be at Zorlu PSM on Sept. 19 and 26, respectively.

Taylan Özcan, the Founding President and CEO of TemaCC, who brought names such as Aguilera and Williams to Türkiye, says that the concerts promote the country to the world but adds that there is one important issue, which is the costs of artists.

Speaking to daily Milliyet, Özcan said, “After 2019, when we brought names such as Jennifer Lopez, Dua Lipa, Tom Jones, J Balvin, LP, Anne Marie, the pandemic started in 2020 and seriously affected the event and concert industry. The entertainment and event industry all over the world came to a standstill.”

Stating that while foreign and some Turkish artists generated income by giving digital concerts but the income of the organizers was zero in this period, Özcan said, “While the local concerts recovered quickly with the easing of the pandemic conditions, concerts by foreign artists could only be opened one and a half years after the pandemic ended. Türkiye was able to host medium and small-scale foreign artists in the last two years. There is a serious risk of rising inflation in the world. This causes the prices of artists to increase even more. In addition, the fluctuations in the dollar and Turkish Lira exchange rates carry the costs to a very high point.”

He also added that the stage, sound, light and led equipment list requested by the artist can sometimes reach higher budgets than the artist’s price.

“Since these situations increase the costs, tickets are sold at high prices. Looking at all these indicators, we can say that we will see more big artists in the venues with less capacity in the coming days,” Özcan said.