A True Move to Paris

 What do you do if you want hundreds of thousands of Thai and foreign songs on your smart phone?
 Many Thais would download the free music apps available on App Store and Android Market. One such music application is H Music, which stores more than 480,000 free songs and music videos. But music lovers don’t just meet their favourite idols through music videos on their devices only. These days, online music app operators and their users get to meet as often offline too.
Blending concerts with sightseeing and technology is now part of a new lifestyle choice among the younger-generation music fans. Cashing in on these trends are mobile phone operators with music apps such as True Move H, Thailand’s mobile network and wireless Internet provider.
True Move H and H Music recently teamed up with Universal Music Thailand to take about 60 music lovers and hard-core Madonna fans to Paris to attend her “Fly Away in Paris” concert at Le Stade de France. Sixteen of these were lucky winners from an H Music competition.
“We are taking Thai music fans to take part in music activities overseas. Music and travel can go together. That’s what youngsters love to be doing. Besides attending overseas concerts by their favourite idols, we are teaming up with our partners in countries like France to take our fans here again and participate in music festivals and get some professional training at workshops or masterclasses in these events. I think music fans want more than going to concerts. They want some good experience and a new lifestyle choice,” says Rungfa Kiatipoj, director of brand management and marketing communications at True.
True Move H has paid more attention to music because it has found that more and more consumers tend to use their smart phones for listening to music and watching music videos than watching movies. These consumers also love taking overseas trips for leisure.
So the recent trip to France was a dream come true for many young music lovers like Kwan, who was decked out in pink for the Madonna concert in Paris.
One of the lucky H Music winners, Kwan, a 24-year-old student, has been a Madonna fan for six years. Then she started singing Madonna, and learning the lyrics in English inspired her to pick English as her major at university.
As for the Paris show which featured songs from Madonna’s latest album, “MDNA”, Kwan was pleased with the selection, saying the concert was much better than Lady Gaga’s show in Bangkok in terms of dance, production and presentation.
“This is the most important concert I’ve ever been to and I’ll remember it for the rest of my life," she said.
Other young winners attending the concert used to brush up their English through Madonna’s songs, and a few are also English majors.
As well as their English, online music has taken them far. In Paris they did just more than seeing the concert. Courtesy of True H, the fans took in quite a few sights.
After their arrival in the French capital by way of Vienna, right on Bastille Day, the fans went straight for a city tour to see a military parade at the Place de la Concorde and pay respects to the late Diana the Princess of Wales at the Flame of Liberty, which sits above the exit to the Paris tunnel where the princess died.
For the fans, it was their first time in France, so they were flabbergasted to see major attractions such as Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe, the Louvre, Notre Dame Cathedral, the Sacre Coeur and Montmartre, Pantheon, Madeleine, D