Each year, Taiwan’s Golden Melody Festival conferences, which take place before the Golden Melody Awards, bring together local and international music industry experts across a series of keynotes and panels covering topics ranging from the global market and music production to extended economic value and industry trends.

The festival’s first market presentation, titled “The Rise of Asia’s Live Music Economy,” featured Justin Sweeting, co-founder and head of music at Hong Kong’s outdoor music and arts festival Clockenflap, and Mia Min Yen, founder of Woozi Studio, LLC, an agency that bridges the gap between East and West, who shared their perspectives on the evolving landscape of Asia’s live music market.

At the presentation, Sweeting made the structural case for Asia as a key touring destination. Rising costs in Europe and North America are pushing artists and promoters to look eastward, while the region’s geographic proximity and well-connected transportation networks make multi-country routing far more practical than it once was. Collaborative projects like Sunset Rollercoaster’s AAA Tour, he noted, have shown how teams across Asia can pool resources, align on market strategies, and collectively expand what is possible for touring across the region. He also stressed that government support, solid infrastructure, and cultural awareness – knowing when not to schedule, whether around Lunar New Year or Ramadan, and when to lean in during peak festival seasons – are just as critical to long-term success.

“The pandemic reset many people’s relationships with live music. I’d argue there’s a depth of appreciation now which was amplified after being taken away for so long,” Sweeting tells Variety.

Sweeting painted a picture of a region whose time has come. “Broadly speaking, Asia is very much a growth story and I’d say this is the result of several factors coming together. On the audience side, the region has a massive, youthful middle class across Southeast Asia, China, South Korea and India with rising disposable income and a genuine hunger for live experiences,” he says.

Yen agrees the ground has shifted. “Fans’ listening habits and ways of discovering music have evolved, driving a dramatic shift in festival curation over the last ten years. Today’s audiences prioritize community, shared identity and experience, over traditional, commercial, or genre-based lineups,” she tells Variety.

That emotional investment has translated into higher spending and higher expectations. “No longer is a fan just buying a ticket, but investing in a memory. From the queue experience to merch offerings, everything needs to be considered and to feel special,” Sweeting adds.

On the question of sustainable growth, Yen is direct. “I think there needs to be room for local promoters to thrive. The live music industry cannot be a monopolistic market. Furthermore, a clearer division of labor is essential, and the role of Asia-focused booking agents/agencies will undoubtedly become more prominent,” she says.

Sweeting is equally candid. “Asia is not homogeneous, and it is its diversity that presents both challenges as well as what makes the region so exciting. Distinct cultures, languages, geopolitical factors, currencies, tax and visa regulations and more, mean that there are complexities throughout,” he says.

Looking five years ahead, Yen says: “The Southeast Asian market is set to bloom, language barriers will continue to diminish, emerging sounds from this region will become increasingly prominent, [and] more Western artists will be drawn towards this market.”

Families watched in horror as a skydiving plane crashed in France moments after takeoff Sunday, killing all 11 people aboard, according to French officials.

The single-engine Pilatus PC-6 crashed shortly after taking off from the Nancy-Essey Airfield near the city of Nancy in northeastern France. Officials said the victims included five skydiving instructors, five first-time jumpers and the pilot.

French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said some victims’ relatives watched the aircraft fall from the sky.

“Some of the victims’ families witnessed the aircraft falling with their own eyes,” Nuñez said. “So there is tremendous emotion and an even greater psychological trauma.”

MISSOURI SKYDIVING PLANE CRASH THAT KILLED ALL 12 ABOARD IS A ‘DEVASTATING LOSS,’ COMPANY SAYS

Meurthe-et-Moselle Prefect Yves Séguy said the aircraft suffered an apparent malfunction and “fell almost vertically,” narrowly missing a populated area after crashing roughly 300 yards from the runway.

Flight-tracking data from Flightradar24 showed the aircraft banked left after takeoff before disappearing from radar less than a minute into the flight.

France’s Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety (BEA), the country’s aviation accident investigation agency, said on X that it had opened a safety investigation into the crash involving the Pilatus PC-6. The agency said four investigators and one first-response investigator were dispatched to the scene.

MISSOURI SKYDIVING PLANE CRASH THAT KILLED ALL 12 ABOARD IS A ‘DEVASTATING LOSS,’ COMPANY SAYS

Authorities have not determined what caused the crash, and officials cautioned that it is too early to speculate while investigators examine the wreckage.

Nancy Mayor Mathieu Klein called the crash “an immense shock that has plunged the Greater Nancy area into mourning” in a Facebook post, offering condolences to the victims’ families and those who witnessed the tragedy.

Klein said he visited the crash site alongside regional officials and praised the “remarkable professionalism and commitment” of rescue, medical and security personnel. He also announced that Greater Nancy would open a gathering space at Marcel Picot Stadium where residents could pay their respects and show solidarity with the victims’ families.

MISSOURI SKYDIVING PLANE CRASH THAT KILLED ALL 12 ABOARD IS A ‘DEVASTATING LOSS,’ COMPANY SAYS

The Meurthe-et-Moselle prefecture said it activated a public information center Sunday afternoon to assist victims’ families and said the hotline would reopen Monday morning as recovery efforts and the investigation continue.

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Transport Minister Philippe Tabarot described the crash as the country’s deadliest skydiving aviation accident in roughly three decades.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

BANGKOK (AP) — Vietnam is increasingly using broadly written laws to arrest activists, dissidents and others that authorities consider a threat to the Communist Party’s rule, according to a new analysis released Monday by a human rights group.

The 88 Project, which focuses on rights issues in Vietnam, documented 56 such arrests in 2025, the third consecutive year of increases and double the number in 2022. The report includes only arrests where the defendant could be identified by name and the case tracked, and the actual numbers are believed to be much higher, said Ben Swanton, co-director of the group.

The report says the country under leader To Lam “routinely weaponizes criminal law” to quash dissent. To Lam, the country’s former top security official who has served as general secretary of the Communist Party since 2024, was also elected president earlier this year.

The arrests are largely driven by fears of an uprising against the leadership in a so-called “color revolution,” like the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine, or the 1986 Yellow Revolution in the Philippines, according to the report.

It is a fear shared by the Communist Party in neighboring China, which has been accused of using similar tactics to stifle critics. Though competing maritime claims have led to confrontations between the two countries and a tense diplomatic relationship at times, China and Vietnam were able to agree earlier this year to together “prioritize political security and enhance efforts to prevent and resist color revolutions,” the Chinese state-run Xinhua News Agency reported.

“With the ascendancy of To Lam, the country has become a literal police state that tolerates no dissent,” Swanton said.

“This represents a serious regression from the period of relative openness in the 2010s when some dissent was tolerated and civil society groups were able to engage in policy activism.”

Vietnam’s Foreign Ministry did not respond to requests for comment on the findings of the report.

The report found that authorities are relying increasingly on Article 331 of Vietnam’s penal code, which makes it a crime punishable by up to seven years in prison to “abuse democratic freedoms to infringe upon the interests of the state.”

Previously little used, “authorities have enlarged the scope and application of Article 331 so that it reaches further into society, beyond human rights and democracy dissidents … to all those who voice any grievance with state or local Communist Party and government officials,” New York-based Human Rights Watch wrote in a report last year.

“The Vietnamese authorities’ increased use of Article 331 is a little known facet of the government’s expanding crackdown on ordinary people who are seeking to use social media and other peaceful means to publicly raise important social issues, including religious freedom, land rights, rights of Indigenous people, and government and Communist Party corruption,” Human Rights Watch wrote.

Among those arrested under Article 331 last year were three men behind the YouTube channel “Nguoi Da Tin’ — The Messenger — on allegations that videos they uploaded were ”distorted content” that violated the statute, The 88 Project reported.

The report provides details of every arrest identified as politically related in 2025.

Those also included an activist for the minority Montagnard group who was arrested in Thailand and extradited to Vietnam, a dissident writer accused of spreading “propaganda against the state,” and a man who helped residents of Ha Tinh province file complaints demanding fair compensation for land expropriated for a new highway.

“The Vietnamese government has dealt alarmingly severe punishments to longstanding targets like journalists and human rights activists, while displaying an increasing willingness to attack groups previously thought safe, such as political exiles and legal petitioners,” the report said.