KUALA LUMPUR: The Youth and Sports Ministry is developing an online booking system to ensure transparent management of its venue facilities.
In response to a supplementary question from Khoo Poay Tiong (PH-Kota Melaka), Youth and Sports Minister Hannah Yeoh said concert organisers often found it challenging to book the National Stadium Bukit Jalil, which was one of the popular venues at Kuala Lumpur Sports City (KLSC), due to limited availability.
To address this issue, she said the ministry, through Perbadanan Stadium Malaysia (PSM), was focusing on digital transformation as the best solution.
"The question now is how to meet the demand of concert promoters. I believe the answer is digitalisation. Last year, starting on June 15, PSM introduced online booking and payments for recreational and sports facilities at KLSC.
"Currently, PSM is developing an online booking system for large-scale events, which is expected to be launched by 2025. This is because the manual booking system has been seen as less transparent.
"In my discussions with concert operators, 16 companies have expressed interest in making more bookings. But they were told that the slots were already full and they were unclear on who made the bookings," she said.
Khoo had inquired about the steps taken by PSM to accommodate the high demand for concert venues, particularly at the National Stadium Bukit Jalil.
Besides the National Stadium Bukit Jalil, other venue facilities at KLSC included Axiata Arena, National Hockey Stadium, National Aquatic Centre, the National Squash Centre and the INFRA outdoor event space and Sri Putra Hall.
Yeoh said up to last month, the KLSC had recorded a venue rental collection of RM10.647 million, which was the highest ever recorded.
"This year, the venue rental revenue for sport events recorded RM2.147 million involving 26 sports events. Over the same period, non-sport events such as concerts recorded RM8.5 million rental revenue involving 54 events," she said.
The collections from sports events at National Stadium Bukit Jalil with a capacity of 85,000 spectators stood at RM1.97 million; Axiata Arena with a capacity of 13,000 spectators was at RM875,000; and the National Hockey Stadium with a capacity of 15,000 to 20,000 spectators was RM75,000.
"For non-sport events, Bukit Jalil National Stadium recorded a rental revenue of RM1.8 million; Axiata Arena at RM6.4 million and the National Hockey Stadium recorded RM210,000 in revenue.
"This means the most popular venue for non-sports events is Axiata Arena," she said.
Yeoh said to meet the demand for organising concerts, the ministry had implemented several initiatives to improve services, such as diversifying the functions of the National Hockey Stadium.
Yeoh added the cultural diversity had made the country one of the prime locations for artistes all over the world to perform or hold concerts.
She said discussions with concert organisers had shown that Malaysia was capable of bringing in many artists or singers from various other countries.
"Although we may not have Taylor Swift, due to the diversity of the population here, we can host artistes from Hong Kong, China, India, Indonesia, Korea, Japan and Europe, as well as the local artists. This is because the market here is large."