Inside Asian Gaming

November 2013 | INSIDE ASIAN GAMING 29 We’re thinking, “Wait a minute, so they’re going to come for the weekend, the fight is in the morning, so what will they do the previous night?”So we’re creating a few parties in our Bellini Lounge, we’re having the Alicia Keys concert, making sure that we have enough offer for people to enjoy. They can also go to the Ice World as well as the Winter at Cotai Strip that weekend. The casino is open, of course, but we want to offer them diversity when they come here. There’s going to be a lot happening. What is Sands China’s vision for entertainment in Macau? What will you add to the mix at your new properties? It’s about making sure we have enough diversity for people that visit us. In the past we did a fewwestern acts, some of themworked really well, some of them not so great. We then kind of put them on pause and started focusing mainly on Asian artists. Now we’ve got a mix of both and we have almost tripled the number of events we do in our properties a year. The Asian artists, especially the Canto pop and Mando pop artists, as well as the K-pop, are of course very important. But we’re definitely going to add more Western acts. We’ve also added the fighting. There are the boxing matches. We started with UFC last year and we are going to continue with it next year, and will probably add Muay Thai. So, as I’ve been saying, it’s all about diversity. We presented the Nitro Circus, the Harlem Globetrotters. We’re also very committed to cultural events and also showcasing the culture of the region, especially mainland China. We’ve brought the Chinese National Symphony Orchestra, the National Ballet of China and the Shaolin Monks performed their amazing stunts here. We’re also very committed to support and sponsor local community groups with the facilities and resources that we have. We have been sponsoring the theater to the Macau Orchestra. Last month, we had the Patua [a creole language previouslywidely spoken by the Macanese community of Macau] show, held for the first time in our theater, sponsored by us, as well as the Macau Literary Festival. We want as diverse a mix as possible and we’re going to keep increasing the offer. We’re now continuing to build the theater on parcel six at Sands Cotai Central. The Parisian [Sands China’s sixth Macau resort, scheduled to open in late 2015] will also have a theater. So we are very committed to bringing to Macau first-class entertainment of all kinds. Insights “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.”