The Kaohsiung National Stadium hosted 18 concerts in 2023 and last year, collecting only NT$9.75 million (US$320,534) in revenue — an average of about NT$540,000 per event — due to the city’s preferential policies, a National Audit Office report showed. The report said the venue’s operations were financially unbalanced, and called for a review. However, the report overlooks the critical perspectives of economic benefits and urban governance.
While accounting focuses on financial records and reporting standards, placing emphasis on balancing income and expenditures, economics is concerned with resource allocation and decisionmaking, with emphasis on opportunity cost, incentives and maxim benefits. In other words, accounting is about the books, while economics is about the strategic thinking behind urban development. Measuring the value of concerts solely by the finances of a single venue misses the forest for the trees. Modern auditing should prioritize enhancing benefits over merely preventing losses, and adopt a more forward-looking perspective when analyzing investment.
National Sun Yat-sen University professor Chen Yi-heng (陳以亨) said that holding concerts at Kaohsiung National Stadium is not entirely free for the organizers, who must still cover basic public service costs, such as electricity, water and transportation. More importantly, the concert economy has become a mature model internationally. Superstar-level concerts not only promote tourism, and boost hotel and restaurant revenue, but also provide the perfect opportunity for international marketing and city branding. How can the value of such events be measured solely by venue rental income?
The city data speaks for itself. Kaohsiung hosted 117 concerts in 2023 with more than 1,000 attendees each, attracting 1.39 million visitors and generating an estimated NT$4.5 billion in economic output. That number increased to 157 concerts last year, drawing more than 1.71 million attendees and generating more than NT$5.7 billion. Just focusing on the Kaohsiung National Stadium events, its 10 concerts per year and 50,000 people per event means 500,000 attendees per year, generating at least NT$1.5 billion in business opportunities. The venue’s NT$40 million annual maintenance costs are minor by comparison.
The maintenance costs are not a direct result of hosting concerts. If no concerts were held at all, the city would lose nearly NT$10 million in revenue, but the maintenance costs would remain. In that scenario, the stadium would become nothing more than a white elephant — that would be the real waste. Do legislators and the National Audit Office truly wish to see an international-level venue sit unused for the sake of a neat-looking balance sheet?
The concert economy is a competition between cities and even nations. For example, Singapore has gone so far as to use national resources to subsidize concerts to attract top acts and promote its national brand. Operating within legal boundaries, the Kaohsiung City Government uses minimal administrative costs to draw superstars from the US, Asia and Europe — an effective strategy for stimulating the local economy.
Auditing should not be limited to checking accounts — it must evolve with the times and incorporate long-term thinking on economic and industrial policy. Measuring the value of the Kaohsiung National Stadium solely by its rental income is like measuring the ocean with a teaspoon. Looking forward, subsequent audits should adopt a broader view and recognize the larger urban strategy behind the concert economy, so as to prevent short-sighted numbers from misleading public policy.
Yeh Yu-chin is an administrator.
Translated by Kyra Gustavsen
In the past month, two important developments are poised to equip Taiwan with expanded capabilities to play foreign policy offense in an age where Taiwan’s diplomatic space is seriously constricted by a hegemonic Beijing. Taiwan Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) led a delegation of Taiwan and US companies to the Philippines to promote trilateral economic cooperation between the three countries. Additionally, in the past two weeks, Taiwan has placed chip export controls on South Africa in an escalating standoff over the placing of its diplomatic mission in Pretoria, causing the South Africans to pause and ask for consultations to resolve
An altercation involving a 73-year-old woman and a younger person broke out on a Taipei MRT train last week, with videos of the incident going viral online, sparking wide discussions about the controversial priority seats and social norms. In the video, the elderly woman, surnamed Tseng (曾), approached a passenger in a priority seat and demanded that she get up, and after she refused, she swung her bag, hitting her on the knees and calves several times. In return, the commuter asked a nearby passenger to hold her bag, stood up and kicked Tseng, causing her to fall backward and
In December 1937, Japanese troops captured Nanjing and unleashed one of the darkest chapters of the 20th century. Over six weeks, hundreds of thousands were slaughtered and women were raped on a scale that still defies comprehension. Across Asia, the Japanese occupation left deep scars. Singapore, Malaya, the Philippines and much of China endured terror, forced labor and massacres. My own grandfather was tortured by the Japanese in Singapore. His wife, traumatized beyond recovery, lived the rest of her life in silence and breakdown. These stories are real, not abstract history. Here is the irony: Mao Zedong (毛澤東) himself once told visiting
When I reminded my 83-year-old mother on Wednesday that it was the 76th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, she replied: “Yes, it was the day when my family was broken.” That answer captures the paradox of modern China. To most Chinese in mainland China, Oct. 1 is a day of pride — a celebration of national strength, prosperity and global stature. However, on a deeper level, it is also a reminder to many of the families shattered, the freedoms extinguished and the lives sacrificed on the road here. Seventy-six years ago, Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong (毛澤東)