Pacquiao to go Back to the Philippines on Monday, After Cancellation of Hawaii Concert

Posted by FJ Parlan on 03.19.2010

Pacquiao's drawing power for his fights doesn't quite translate for his concerts, reports say.

After drawing in almost 51,000 people for his unanimous decision win against Joshua Clottey last Saturday, welterweight titlist Manny Pacquiao was unable to fill enough seats for an 8,500-capacity venue in Waikiki, Hawaii.

Clearly, the pound-for-pound king's skills on a concert stage isn't remotely as good as his skills in the ring. But to be fair, none of his other so-called skills are.

Pacquiao is well-known to be a man of many endeavors, doing singing, acting, modeling (commercial) and even politics aside from his boxing career.

Citing poor ticket sales for his scheduled concert to be held in "The Shell", Ryan Chang of Island Fire Productions, the promotional company to organize the event, has thrown in the towel to stage the concert.

According to numerous reports and to Chang himself, only 603 tickets have been sold days before the event.

"The Shell holds about 8,500 people and we only needed to sell about 2,500 tickets to break even and we would have been happy," said Chang. "But I can't risk losing that much of our investors' money on walk ups and late sales this week. A good walk up is about 500 people. As it stands I'll be taking about a $50,000 loss."

Pacquiao is expected to earn more or less than $20 million for his fight purse and PPV shares from "The Event" from last weekend, and for the Waikiki concert, Pacquiao is set to be paid $100,000.

"I don't know what to say about what happened," Chang said. "We thought Hawaii would appreciate bringing him in and 25 bucks is pretty cheap and reasonable. We needed to either pull out now or make about $175,000 to break even. I couldn't risk dropping that much for my investors."

The Filipino all-around talent was going to sing for an hour with his MP band and would have given away an autographed replica of the IBO belt he won against Ricky Hatton in their Jr. Welterweight clash last year. More than 20 other performers, including musicians, deejays, jugglers, dancers and magicians, were scheduled to take the stage of the Shell.

Tickets for the concert ranged from $25 to $150, with the highest-priced seats including a meet-and-greet with Pacquiao. Ticket refunds began to be issued Thursday, at the point of purchase, Chang said. If you haven't already gotten your money back, you can contact Island Fire at [e-mail].

Pacquiao is set to go back to the Philippines on Monday, where a parade and a ceremony awaits him after his victory, as usual.