The aggregate of shows being hosted by two Macau gaming concessionaires that specialise in large-scale concerts by touring artists has already risen year-on-year in the first quarter, reveal checks by GGRAsia.
Galaxy Entertainment Group Ltd and Sands China Ltd between them have held 66 shows in the January to end-March period, up 34.7 percent on the final figure of 49 staged in the same time frame last year.
Nonetheless, when the output of the two large-arena operating concessionaires is analysed separately, Sands China’s first-quarter tally went down 14.8-percent year-on-year at 23 shows, versus 27 for first-quarter 2025. Of those figures, Sands China’s Venetian Arena hosted nine shows in the first quarter, versus 10 shows in the same period last year.
Galaxy Entertainment’s first-quarter tally nearly doubled, to 43 shows, from 22 in the same period last year. Of those numbers, the operator’s Galaxy Arena was host to 19 shows in the first three months this year, versus 10 shows in the prior-year period.
Galaxy Entertainment and Sands China respectively have large-scale arenas – namely Galaxy Arena and Venetian Arena – with seat capacity in five-digit figures, in addition to smaller-scale performance venues.
During the first quarter, Cotai properties of other operators – namely Melco Resorts & Entertainment Ltd’s Studio City; SJM Holdings Ltd’s Grand Lisboa Palace; Wynn Macau Ltd’s Wynn Palace; and MGM China Holdings Ltd’s MGM Macau – hosted a number of shows, including concerts and magician acts.
The first-quarter review excludes entertainment performances either at private banquets or invitation-only events not accessible to the general public, and sports events. Resident shows, such as ‘Macau 2049’ at MGM Cotai. and ‘House of Dancing Water’ at the City of Dreams complex of Melco Resorts, are also not counted.
Programming strategy
Investment analysts covering the Macau gaming sector have spoken about the likely role of big-draw touring artists in boosting the gaming business of Macau operators.
The city’s gaming operators are now looking to “improve event effectiveness” in support of their business, based on several years of operational experience. That is according to banking institution UBS in a recent memo on industry cost control.
Kevin Kelley, chief operating officer – Macau at Galaxy Entertainment, talked about his firm’s events strategy during a recent results briefing.
He noted the company had aimed to “be strategic” with major offerings, in order to “spread out demand throughout the whole year”.
Mr Kelley made reference to market rival Sands China’s National Basketball Association (NBA) preseason games held at its Venetian Arena during a weekend in October last year, concurrent with Galaxy Entertainment hosting pop artist Jackson Wang for concerts at Galaxy Arena.
Both sets of events were sold out, he said, noting that Sands China was probably the only Macau operator able to compete with Galaxy Entertainment for big name, large-scale offerings.
Some artists appearing in Macau are specifically booked for their appeal to non-gaming clients, as they can also boost foot traffic and resort revenue, said Lawrence Che Fok Sang, of Macau-based Chessman Entertainment & Production Co Ltd, in a recent interview with GGRAsia.
Throughout 2025, Galaxy Entertainment and Sands China collectively hosted an aggregate of at least 292 shows, with the second quarter and third quarter having the peak volume.
Most of the offerings were concerts. The rest were general entertainment such as stand-up comedy acts, magic shows, variety shows and pop-artist ‘fan meetings’.
