Macao has the potential to live up to its reputation as the Las Vegas of Asia, but first it must address a host of logistical, regulatory and infrastructural challenges that hold back its entertainment sector, according to live entertainment executive Anna Robb.
Speaking at the Asian IR Summit on Thursday, Robb noted that while Macao has strong foundations in luxury hospitality and gaming, its entertainment ecosystem faced significant operational bottlenecks that deterred international producers. Among her chief concerns were the absence of a flexible visa scheme for foreign talent – an advantage Dubai has – and the lack of affordable long-term accommodation for production crews.
Robb, executive producer at Our Legacy Creations and CEO of StageLync.com, was involved in the recent relaunch of City of Dreams’ landmark residency show The House of Dancing Water. Her speech at the summit was titled Unlocking Potential: A Collaborative Roadmap for Macau to Realise Its Vision as the “Asian Las Vegas.
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Other “laborious processes” bogging Macao down included bank account setups, compliance requirements and simply getting into the city, she said. Regarding the latter, Robb described the HZMB Golden Bus running between Hong Kong and Macao as chaotic and confusing for international visitors. She said the lack of ride-share apps was also frustrating.
“People’s entertainment experience is not just when they walk in the theatre,” she pointed out. “It’s how they come into the [city] … It’s how people are treated from start to end.”
Robb called for English to be more widely used across platforms and services, particularly on mobile apps, to better accommodate international tourists. Acknowledging Chinese and Portuguese were Macao’s official languages, she said that people expected English “if we’re talking about an international arena [and] shows that are of an international calibre.”
[See more: House of Dancing Water returns to City of Dreams with a star-studded premiere]
She also advocated for the introduction of “Western-style” cashless payment systems to supplement existing platforms like WeChat Pay and Alipay.
Education was another area ripe for improvement, according to Robb. “I really would like to see Macao grow in terms of its global pipeline for talent,” she said, emphasising the importance of nurturing local up and comers. “[There are] some intelligent, smart, wonderful people in this city who are ready to work hard and are really trainable,” Robb continued, noting that they were stymied by lack of access to training that could see them become skilled theatre professionals.
Despite the the name of her speech, Robb also stated that Macao didn’t “want or need to be Las Vegas” – a city famed not only for its casinos, but its glut of flamboyant residency shows. She noted that Macao had its own culture, drawing different audiences with different motivations.
Instead, she called on Macao’s integrated resort operators and policymakers to unify their vision, take creative risks, and develop a distinctive entertainment identity that could not be found anywhere else in the world. Robb recommended curating a permanent, unique collection of entertainment options meeting the needs of the SAR’s target audience.
