As global acts redraw Taiwan’s live-music map, Kaohsiung is betting concerts can reshape its economy and identity — if the gains can outlast the spectacle.

When South Korea’s BTS, which in the past decade reached global pop icon status, performs in Taiwan later this year, the group will follow a pattern set by other superstars in recent years: bypassing the capital in favor of a large-scale venue in Kaohsiung.

Chen Chi-mai, whose term as mayor will end a month after BTS’s November 19, 21 and 22 shows at Kaohsiung National Stadium, has on several occasions talked up the city’s “concert economy.” The day after South Korea’s TWICE concluded their November 22 and 23, 2025 concerts, Chen told media that the girl group’s tour stop had lured 180,000 fans to Kaohsiung, generating more than NT$500 million in extra revenue for the city’s businesses.

Drawing on data from the Kaohsiung City Government, Business Insider Taiwan reported on January 2 that 117 concerts in 2023 drew 1.39 million attendees and generated roughly NT$4.5 billion in revenue. In 2024, 157 music events attracted 1.71 million people, with spending estimated at NT$5.7 billion. In the first 11 months of last year, 105 events drew a combined audience of 1.44 million, generating more than NT$4.6 billion.

These revenue numbers are based on an “attendance multiplied by average spending” formula, with each visitor assumed to have spent a little over NT$3,000 in Kaohsiung, explains Li Yi-min, a professor in National Kaohsiung University of Applied Science’s (NKUAS) Department of Tourism Management.

For those who stay overnight, total spending — including accommodation, dining, and shopping — likely exceeds this average. By contrast, local residents may spend only a few hundred Taiwan dollars on snacks and transportation, Li says. The impressive tallies aren’t exact tax-invoice calculations, he stresses, but “optimistic yet reasonable estimates.”

Kaohsiung Metro, which has struggled with profitability for most of its 18-year history, is one beneficiary of such influxes. When TWICE’s stadium performance coincided with a sold-out concert by veteran Taiwanese rocker Wu Bai at Kaohsiung Arena and a show by Kaohsiung-born singer May Sun at the Kaohsiung Music Center, daily ridership soared to 350,000 — roughly one-third above average. For the convenience of fans arriving in the city just before the curtains rose and those planning to leave right after, the metro operated a staffed luggage storage area at its Zuoying station, the interchange hub for high-speed trains and Taiwan Railway services.

High occupancy, higher costs

For accommodation providers, major musical events are a goldmine. “Due to our proximity to the KMC, events held there consistently boost our booking volumes,” says a spokesperson for Fullon Hotel Kaohsiung. “We see strong demand from fans on weekends and from production crews and staff during the week.” The 250-room property is less than 700m from the KMC’s Hi-Breeze Square (an outdoor performance space which can accommodate up to 10,000 people) and the center’s Hi-ing Music Hall (capacity 4,000 to 6,000), in which both Sting and Westlife have performed in recent months.

Fullon Hotel Kaohsiung is located 10 km south of Kaohsiung National Stadium, yet large events held there pull in so many out-of-towners that “the entire city benefits from high occupancy, with demand overflowing to hotels in the south,” the spokesperson says. Noting that there’s always a flurry of reservations as soon as concert tickets go on sale, Fullon’s representative adds: “Benefiting from the momentum of Kaohsiung’s concert economy, we expect to outperform our targets in the coming year.”

Saturday night rates at Fullon Hotel Kaohsiung for a deluxe twin room with a city view climb from NT$5,433 in July to NT$10,780 on November 21, when BTS will be performing, based on reservations made through Booking.com.

The hotel emphasizes that its dynamic pricing model complies with all municipal and national regulations. Kaohsiung City Government’s Tourism Bureau conducts regular inspections to identify properties that overcharge when accommodation is in high demand, and it has fined a small number of establishments up to NT$50,000 for illegally inflating room rates. Even so, the cost of lodging is something both Taiwanese and foreign visitors complain about, and perceived price gouging (as well as complaints that their confirmed reservations were mysteriously canceled just days before a show) has surely soured some concertgoers, making it unlikely they’ll return to the city.

Managers of With Inn Hostel, about a half-hour walk from the Kaohsiung Music Center, say that on concert days, “we do see a noticeable increase in bookings, and we also make small price adjustments during these peak periods.”

Almost all music fans who stay at With Inn Hostel come from other parts of Taiwan, and they usually book just one or two nights. “Occasionally, international visitors travel here specifically for a concert, and they tend to stay longer and spend more time exploring the city,” says the hostel’s managers.

Managing momentum

The city government’s Bureau of Cultural Affairs serves as the central liaison point for large-scale concerts. In a statement emailed to Taiwan Business TOPICS, the bureau describes its role as “integrating cross-departmental resources such as transportation, security, fire safety, environmental protection, and tourism to provide one-stop administrative assistance, improve efficiency, and reduce the burden on organizers.”

The bureau says concerts aren’t merely a means of boosting tourism and consumption, but also “help shape Kaohsiung’s diverse, open, and internationally visible image as a city of culture.” By leveraging such events, it hopes to “transform short-term visitor flows into long-term cultural energy and urban identity.”

The city government’s support for the concert economy goes beyond coordination and handing out NT$50 coupons (redeemable at night markets and certain stores) to ticket holders. Some of its gimmicks have gotten islandwide attention, such as Chen sharing photoshopped images of himself with pink hair in the runup to Blackpink’s October 18 and 19, 2025 concerts.

Whenever a superstar visits, the authorities should try to build a celebratory atmosphere across the city, says NKUAS’s Li. According to With Inn Hostel’s managers, when several of Kaohsiung’s landmarks were temporarily turned pink to promote Blackpink’s shows, “fans stayed longer to take photos and check in at these locations, and this boosted surrounding businesses.” During TWICE’s visit, eight locations were lit up with the words “Twice <This Is For> World Tour,” and the group made a cameo appearance on the metro’s arrival announcements.

Li hails Kaohsiung’s achievements, but he thinks there’s room for improvement when it comes to getting concert attendees to stay longer. At some shows, up to 70% of attendees have traveled from the north of Taiwan, and he suggests various strategies to reduce the proportion who head straight home as soon as the event is over.

“Coupons encourage spending, but they do little to extend stays,” he says. “Kaohsiung could reference the Las Vegas model by creating a fan village or district during concert weeks, combining pop-up shops, support walls, and local cultural workers, turning the entire city into a theme park for the artist.” The authorities could design concert-plus travel packages, offering free in-depth tours of other attractions in Kaohsiung (such as Qijin or the Pier-2 Art Center) to those holding concert tickets, he adds.

Hotels could also do more. Li lists off ideas: “Fan-friendly flexible services, such as late check-out, dedicated shuttle buses, and partnerships with taxi fleets. Themed lobbies, photo walls, or check-in installations. Small in-room support gifts, such as hand warmers, throat lozenges, or branded coasters. Hotel bars could offer signature cocktails named after the artist’s songs. Restaurants might adjust operating hours, launching quick-seating options on concert nights to capture hungry, emotionally charged crowds.”

Public trade-offs

Li argues that Kaohsiung’s transformation “from a polluted industrial city into Asia’s performance hub” amounts to a “brand image shift” that is helping the city attract high-earning young people, such as engineers, who might otherwise settle elsewhere. The free exposure the city gains by hosting major concerts must be balanced, however, by costs that are often overlooked.

These include venue maintenance and depreciation — in the 12 months to September 2024, NT$43.44 million was spent maintaining the national stadium, while it generated just NT$9.75 million in revenue — as well as administrative support for police, traffic volunteers, and cleaning staff, crowded metro trains, noise and other environmental impacts, and surging lodging prices on concert days, Li says.

For residents not involved in the hospitality, restaurant, or retail sectors, these amount to negative externalities. Yet the city government appears to have public backing. In December 2025, a poll conducted on behalf of ETtoday found that 72.9% of Kaohsiung citizens believe concerts contribute to the city’s economic development. A TVBS survey later that month identified a very similar level of support.

As Kaohsiung leans more heavily into concerts as a driver of growth, the strategy is drawing both praise and skepticism from policymakers and commentators.

In a 2024 op-ed for the Liberty Times, Yeh Yu-chin expressed no doubts that attracting international performers to Kaohsiung has brought the city considerable economic benefits. Rebutting complaints from some city councilors that the municipality’s policy of waiving venue rental fees was denying Kaohsiung necessary income, Yeh argued that “the concert economy is not just a competition between cities and counties, but a contest between nations.” Noting that Singapore paid several million US dollars (the exact figure hasn’t been disclosed) to monopolize the Southeast Asia leg of Taylor Swift’s 2024 Eras Tour, he characterized Kaohsiung’s loss-leader approach as “a viable strategy.”

Contrasting Kaohsiung’s focus on concerts with Taipei City Government’s efforts to attract NVIDIA’s Taiwan headquarters, Cheng Wen-hsiang in the United Daily News last year asked: “Are there other advantageous and powerful industries that could help Kaohsiung to steadily develop beyond the concert economy? And if other cities catch up, how can Kaohsiung maintain its leading position in the concert economy?”

Competition intensifies

In one important sense, Taipei has already caught up. When Coldplay fans packed Kaohsiung National Stadium on November 11 and 12, 2023, it was the only venue in Taiwan capable of holding over 50,000 people. The following month, Taipei Farglory Dome finally opened after years of political and safety-related delays. With a capacity of up to 58,000, it’s now the largest indoor concert venue in Taiwan.

Since December 2024, Taiwanese pop titans A-Mei, Jay Chou, and Jolin Tsai have performed at Taipei Farglory Dome five, four, and three times, respectively — but not once in Kaohsiung. This March, TWICE achieved a triple-night sellout at the dome.

It’s not obvious if Kaohsiung has a game plan for outmaneuvering the capital when it comes to attracting A-list acts, but Li says that if the city government offers a highly professional single-window service — in contrast to Taipei, where processes are scattered across multiple departments — “administrative efficiency can be converted into business competitiveness.”

He advises Kaohsiung to position itself as a tour stop that can help artists meet their carbon-neutrality goals. Kaohsiung National Stadium, widely cited as a leading example of sustainable venue architecture, integrates 8,844 solar panels into its roof and incorporates rainwater harvesting. The city could also deploy electric shuttle buses and offer incentives for fans who use low-carbon transportation.

Another differentiation strategy, he explains, would build on the stadium’s semi-open design. As an indoor venue, Taipei Farglory Dome strictly limits the use of drones, lasers, and pyrotechnics. Kaohsiung should leverage this advantage and encourage producers to stage spectacles that cannot be replicated in Taipei.