The link between gaming performance in casino resorts in Asia and concerts performed on-site by leading regional and international artists was discussed on Tuesday, during the first day of the Asian IR Summit. The three-day event, held in Macau, focuses on non-gaming elements in the Asia-Pacific land-based industry.
Inspire Entertainment Resort, an integrated resort (IR) complex with a foreigner-only casino at Incheon, South Korea, has been a leading exponent of concert business since it launched non-gaming in November 2023, and the casino in February 2024. The property has a 15,000-seater arena.
Wade Howk (pictured, second left), the property’s chief operating officer, gave some insight on the matter during a panel discussion at the Asian IR Summit. He discussed how the property’s management chooses acts to help support the gaming business, and also how to make concerts cost effective in supporting the whole of resort operations.
He was speaking on the panel “Opportunities and Challenges of Bringing Non-gaming Components to IRs in Asia”.
The Asian IR Summit – at the Galaxy International Convention Center at the Galaxy Macau casino resort – began a day before the Global Gaming Expo (G2E) Asia 2025 casino industry trade show and conference, being staged from May 7 to May 9 inclusive, at the Venetian Macao.
Mr Howk observed: “There are specific artists that I’m looking to book to draw the Japanese gaming customer. Same thing with the Chinese gaming customer. I have specific artists… that absolutely can draw in an entire arena.”
The Inspire COO stated that even before booking a concert artist, “our [gaming] business development guys will call out to their customers.
“They’ll find out, ‘Hey, if I book this act or if we have this act, will you come?’”
The marketing team will also want to know if the act will be appealing to other family members of the player, he stated. Questions might include: ’Will your daughter want to come watch this K-pop show?’
“If that’s the case, then it makes sense for us to go ahead and book” the artist, he said.
“So, before we even do the booking, we absolutely weigh out what’s going to happen from the casino perspective.”
Nonetheless the COO observed other factors had to be considered to ensure the act was a plus to the business overall.
Mr Howk stated: “In our property specifically, I maybe only bring in 100 to 300 [gaming] customers for each one of my events. I’ve got a 15,000-seat arena. So I also have to balance out how do I fill” the balance.
He added: “We actually have it broken down by type of act and the lift that it does to FB [food and beverage services], the lift it does to hotel, the lift it does to retail. So, if it’s a Western act, I know exactly what it should do to our property. If it’s a K-pop act, I [also] know what it should do.”
Jeffrey Kiang (pictured, left), an equity analyst at brokerage CLSA Ltd, gave some insight on concerts in the Macau context.
He stated that an ideal target audience was probably in the 50 to 60 years age range. That “means they can spend more money if they want to gamble,” he noted.
Additionally, the concert should be scheduled for an evening, “because you don’t want people just to show up for one night and then go,” without actually spending the night at the property.
George Choi, of Citigroup, mentioned in a Sunday note that Chinese mainland artist Han Hong’s recent appearance at MGM Macau might have lifted gaming business at the property.
Panel moderator Brian Wyman (pictured, right), executive vice president operations and data analytics at The Innovation Group, a consultancy covering the gaming sector, also gave some insights based on his background in marketing.
He stated the operator needed to understand “what kind of revenue lift” a particular artist could bring to a gaming resort, “and how do we balance that out over the course of a year versus the cost to bring the act, the cost to advertise the act.”
