By Jill Alphonso

FIRST, the bad news: Highly- anticipated Australian indie festival Laneway will not be coming to Singapore next year.

But we do have good news to give you. The hot acts that were in talks to be in the festival will be visiting Singapore for shows.

This means that on Feb 7, Mercury prize-nominated British group Florence And The Machine will play a show at the Esplanade Theatre. Also on the bill will be British minimal dance rock band The xx, who will open the show. And Echo And The Bunnymen, the iconic post-punk group from Liverpool, will be visiting around that time as well.

You can thank a new concert promoter on the scene, Chugg Entertainment, for these tours.

Laneway would have happened "if we'd had two or three more quality acts", said the company's chairman, Mr Michael Chugg, who added that the indie festival will definitely come to Singapore in 2011.

An Australian who started his business in 1999, Mr Chugg is no newbie on the concert scene here. He's had a hand in bringing to music-lovers here acts like Jason Mraz - for the Singfest two-day festival last year - as well as Motley Crue, who played a Fort Canning gig last year.

While those were joint promotions with the respective Singapore- based concert promoters, he's got big plans for Singapore next year, he told my paper in an interview yesterday at the Hyatt Hotel.

He's keen on bringing more indie acts into the country, but is also in talks to host A-listers (no names were dropped, such is the sensitivity of such news within the concert scene, lest the act gets stolen by another promoter) here around the middle of next year.

Mr Chugg, 62, is currently touring artistes like AC/DC, Al Green and Rufus Wainwright in Australia.

Based in Sydney, he was also named International Promoter Of The Year last year by Pollstar, an renowned American trade publication covering the worldwide concert industry.

It is the second time he had received the award, and he was up against promoters like Live Nation, which famously struck a deal withMadonna, giving it exclusive touring rights for her concerts.

Here's the good news for concert- goers: Mr Chugg - who set up the Asian arm of his company in Singapore two years ago - intends to keep costs here as low as possible.

The Florence And The Machine and The xx gig tickets start at $55. The highest-priced ticket will be $80. Tickets will go on sale later this week.

"I've always read about the outrageous cost of tickets here," he said. "Those costs actually hold the market back. I'd say the cost of the Florence And The Machine gig is a fair price for a concert-goer to pay for a show."

Part of his plan is to also make Singapore and the surrounding region part of the regular touring circuit for artistes travelling to Australia.

"It used to be that Asia was a one-stop place, that concert promoters wouldn't sell Asia as a place where Western acts could build a career. That's changing," he said.

And home-grown artistes, take note. He is interested in turning you into a bona fide international act.

Earlier this year, Chugg Entertainment booked Singapore's Electrico for its inaugural One Movement For Music festival in Perth. That two-day festival saw a total of 187 acts, with an audience of 52,500 people. Malaysia's Bunkface and Thailand's Tata Young were also booked to perform.

At the festival were industry greats - such as Seymour Stein, a vice-president of Warner Bros who first signed The Ramones, Talking Heads and Madonna - as well as international promoters.

Young scored an Australian tour from her showcases at the festival.

That spells big opportunities for Singaporean bands. Already, Mr Chugg's team here has identified Great Spy Experiment as an act they would potentially book for the festival. And they have their eye on Indonesia's Agrikulture as well.

Mr Chugg advises acts to keep honing their craft and to work on their musicianship. He even advises them to approach other under-the-radar Western acts with whom to collaborate.

"Many bands here are not export- ready," he said. "But there's quite a few things they can do to improve on their own."

jilla@sph.com.sg

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