Chapter 498: Tickets Sold Out

Chapter 498: Tickets Sold Out

Entering December, for the entire entertainment industry, this was a busy month, a month for making money and grabbing attention. If done well, the coming year would be worry-free in terms of food, clothing, and exposure. Various New Year's Eve galas, company annual parties, year-end events, and other commercial performances all awaited them this month.

Shi Shiwu was also very busy this month, having accepted three galas alone: one live New Year's Eve gala, one recorded New Year's Eve gala, and another live gala on New Year's Day night. In addition, there were Double Twelve performances, Christmas performances, various annual party performances, and year-end events for major brands.

Plus, there were two days of variety show recordings this month. According to Shi Shiwu, the only free time he'd have this month would be enough for some late-night gaming sessions; nothing else could be done.

After finally getting some free time following New Year's Day, he accepted Meng Fan's invitation to be a guest performer at his concert. Not only that, but he also had to serve as the concert's music director and even arrange the music for Meng Fan's concert—it was absolutely killing him!

After dozing off for a while and waking up when Meng Fan had almost finished negotiating, Shi Shiwu found himself already assigned tasks. With a helpless expression, he thought it over carefully and held up one finger: "I have only one request!"

Meng Fan asked, "What is it?"

Shi Shiwu then held up three fingers.

"Three nights with you?"

"...Well, it is three nights, but not for that—accompany me for all-night gaming sessions."

"Not for that? Uncle Fifteen, besides all-night gaming, did you have something else in mind? Uncle Fifteen, your thoughts are very dangerous!"

"...Get lost!"

Meng Fan got lost, and Shi Shiwu, yawning, headed off to Blue Whale TV. In two hours, he had to record a show—well, in those two hours, should he sleep a bit or play a game? That was the dilemma.

Shi Shiwu's team didn't leave Hangzhou; they started calling to book time with some musicians. The concert definitely needed a live band. Shi Shiwu's team had a band, but not enough people to support a full concert, so they needed to borrow more. Additionally, another team quickly joined Meng Fan's concert crew—Jin Xiaowen's team. Jin Xiaowen was also responsible for arranging the music for Meng Fan's concert.

For roles like concert director, Shi Shiwu's team had people who could handle it; if not, they would invite others.

As for concert guests, Meng Fan invited five people: Shi Shiwu, Jin Xiaowen, Bai Zhi, Su Qingcen, and Qin Jing. Five guests for one concert was certainly a lot, but considering how few times Meng Fan had been a guest at others' concerts recently, it was still modest. If not for worrying about the concert's time constraints, Meng Fan could have turned his solo show into a mixed concert, all with big names.

Inviting five people was actually the result of discussions between Meng Fan and his team. The main reason was that Meng Fan had only released one album, plus anime songs and covers, which could barely sustain a concert. Inviting five guests was meant to eliminate that "barely" and enrich the concert's content.

Meng Fan also received many invitations for New Year's Eve galas and year-end events, as well as a few commercial performances for annual parties. As for gala invitations, they were definitely for singing. Meng Fan didn't reject all of them; he accepted one from Mango TV. This wasn't just because Mango's New Year's Eve gala had high ratings, but also because he had once promised Teacher He that he would appear on their live show. This time, Teacher He invited him on behalf of Mango, so Meng Fan didn't refuse again.

Of course, Mango's appearance fee was quite generous.

Although Mango TV's New Year's Eve gala had been running for many years with very good ratings, almost always ranking first among the live New Year's Eve galas of several satellite TV stations, it was only "almost." In recent years, it had been surpassed once by Blue Whale TV, and other stations like Tomato TV and Lychee TV were closing the gap in ratings each year.

To boost ratings, they definitely needed to invite big-name stars—not just one, two, or three, but a cluster of them. And they needed at least one or more heavyweight stars to anchor the show and increase viewership.

Among domestic stars, who had the highest popularity and the biggest traffic? That was hard to say and controversial, since mentioning traffic inevitably involved water—without water, it couldn't flow—but when it came to who could best drive ratings, it was undoubtedly Meng Fan, without any dispute.

Why?

Because he had a huge number of casual fans!

No matter how many fandom fans there were, they could boost popularity, trending topics, traffic, clicks, and various metrics, but the live online viewership numbers couldn't be easily manipulated—at least not too much.

And Meng Fan? He had too many casual fans. Just the fact that he was an Olympic gold medalist who sang was enough to attract a large portion of viewers, even though he had already sung at the National Day gala and the Double Eleven gala after the Olympics. The key was that he sang well, and even more importantly, he was so good-looking!

After the Double Eleven gala, several major TV stations had been eyeing Meng Fan early on. Hey, kid, didn't you say you didn't do commercial performances? Turns out you could. So during this period, invitations kept flying to Meng Fan, all with hefty appearance fees, each higher than the last, even surpassing what Double Eleven had offered.

Competing for Meng Fan had become the focus of this year's New Year's Eve galas for several major stations. Whoever got him would see a significant boost in ratings—that was the consensus among the stations.

In the end, Mango got him, naturally bringing joy to one and sorrow to the others.

Speaking of which, news of Meng Fan participating in Mango TV's New Year's Eve gala hadn't yet spread—the concert preview and lineup were basically announced after the 20th—but news of Meng Fan's concert first came out on December 15th. He announced it on Weibo himself, revealing the concert time, location, ticket purchase method, and sale start time.

Concert tickets went on sale at 10 a.m. on December 18th. The ticketing website implemented a real-name system as per Meng Fan's request, with a limit of two tickets per person, essentially to prevent scalpers from snatching and hoarding tickets. Although this couldn't completely stop scalpers' business, it could at least curb it to some extent.

Given Meng Fan's popularity, concert tickets selling at super-first-tier prices were no problem at all. And since the concert was a 10,000-seat venue, it would sell easily—no fear of not selling out. However, Meng Fan set the price low, equivalent to quasi-first-tier, even slightly below first-tier singer ticket prices.

A total of 8,000 tickets were available on the ticketing website; the remaining 4,000 were not sold online—some were reserved for giveaways, some for lottery draws.

At 10 a.m. on the 18th, the ticketing website opened, and in 29 seconds, all 8,000 tickets were sold out.

By "Meng Fan time," that was less than 10 OKs.

Soon, a new trending topic appeared on Weibo, not #MengFanConcertTicketsSoldOutIn29Seconds#, but #MengFanSecondConcert#.

Of course, it wasn't that Meng Fan had announced a second concert; rather, netizens were urging him to hold one.

Previously, when comics, albums, and such sold out, they could be reprinted. Concert tickets sold out couldn't be reprinted, and extra seats might not be possible, so the only option was to urge Meng Fan to add more shows.

(End of chapter)