Thai roker Sek Loso fails to pull in the crowds in Lao

A large-scale concert was held in central Vientiane last Sunday featuring an advanced lighting system and popular rock bands from Thailand, but only about 1,000 people showed up to watch. 

The show was a Lao-Thai friendship concert staged at the Chao Anouvong Stadium but the audience was small compared to previous friendship concerts. The stadium can hold 6,000-8,000 people.

According to artist Tee Oudalay, who was the Master of Ceremonies at the event, “It was a really great concert bringing the full stage system to Laos for the first time as well as popular rock n’ roll bands like Loso from Thailand to rock with his full team.”

“But the audience was smaller than expected because of an advertising failure and a sponsor who had no experience of this type of event,” he explained.

The concert featured songs by Lao country singers Ms Moukdavanh Santiphone and Mr Daodin Thinchamphone, before a performance by the famous Thai rock star Seksan Sukpimai, also known as “Loso”, as the headlining act.

Tee said both local singers are popular within the country genre but didn’t fit the atmosphere when paired with a rock n’ roll band.

“Laos has plenty of rock bands but the organisers selected these two country singers. I have no idea why. The organiser, who is a former member of the Lao band Dok Mai Daeng, asked me to help change around some details, but I told him I couldn’t because there was such a short time between then and the concert. The promotional posters had already been distributed,” Tee explained.

The organiser would learn from this experience when arranging another concert in the future, he added.

“The organiser invested a large amount of money in this concert but fewer than 1,000 tickets were sold,” he said.

According to a record company staff member who asked to remain anonymous, “The sound and light system were really great compared to what my company has because everything came from Thailand and was really high quality.”

“Throughout my experience working as an event organiser I have never seen such a huge budget,” he added.

One concert goer, Mr Sacksith, said it was the best rock concert he had ever seen in Vientiane, but the ticket price of 120,000 kip was quite high relative to what students could afford, and they would normally make up the bulk of the audience.

“Yes, I could afford it because I have a business but it is generally young people who like rock. If they want more concert goers from a younger age bracket, it would make sense to sell tickets for US$10 or less to get more people into the stadium,” he added.