Inside Asian Gaming

INSIDE ASIAN GAMING | November 2013 28 So is the logistics a real challenge? Definitely. It’s really challenging. What for you is a successful show? Obviously a lot of them are sold out, but beyond ticket sales, what makes a successful show for you? It’s all about the interest and the buzz that it creates. It’s all about how many social media “likes” we get. Even people in other parts of the world that are not coming for the show, at least they know that the show came here, was a success because the people who do attend they comment, they Tweet, they Weibo, they Facebook, all of that. It’s about awareness. There are a few shows that are really successful in terms of crowds attending, but I would say that nearly every show that we do is very important for us in terms of just showing people that they can come and visit because there’s definitely something to do here and something to see. Getting back to the past, when there were some events that weren’t so well attended, what were some of the early mistakes that Sands China may have made, and how did you fix them? We need to put it in perspective and look at what were those times. In a very immature market as it was and still is, it’s going to have to be trial and error. Some of them you’ll get right, and for some you won’t have any explanation why they didn’t work. I would say the No. 1 concern would be picking the artists. You have a lot of big artists that work in Europe and work in the States, but they don’t work here because people are not familiar with them. You need to be very careful about who you pick to perform. I think we corrected that. There are a fewmeasures that you introduced to get people from Hong Kong and elsewhere to come to Macau for the shows, such as selling tickets in packages with ferry tickets and with hotel rooms.What else do you do tomake it more attractive for people to come over? Our commitment is pleasing visitors to Macau and our guests, making sure that we can offer them a comfortable way of coming here and enjoying themselves. For the Manny Pacquiao boxing fight, for instance, which is early in the morning on a Sunday because it has to be broadcast on US television, we had to create not only additional entertainment throughout that weekend but also different kinds of packages that involved all our properties to make it more attractive for people to come over because it would mean having to stay for at least a couple of nights, whereas most people normally come for a show only for one night or even just for the day. That’s why we’re having the Alicia Keys concerts that same weekend and we’ve created a much larger amount of hotel packages. Insights “They’re very careful about their productions, massive stages, lighting, and pyrotechnics. All these shows have been quite a surprise for me since I got here. For instance, last month we had a concert by Taiwanese artist Show Lo. He’s an amazing, very talented artist. I was very impressed.”