In a joint report which calculated the box office figures of concerts held between 2017 and 2019 by entertainment ticketing platform Damai.cn and Lighthouse Research Institute, Jay was named the singer who sold the most concert tickets, followed by Taiwanese rock band Mayday and singer-songwriter Zhang Jie. 

The list also included Joker Xue, Yoga Lin, Alan Tam, Angela Chang, Hua Chenyu, G.E.M. and Richie Ren. 

These top 10 most popular performers were said to have brought in the bulk of the 20bil yuan (S$4bil) revenue generated by China’s entertainment industry in 2019. 

Waitaminute... where’s JJ Lin, who is undoubtedly one of the most popular stars in Asian pop? After all, the 38-year-old did bring his Sanctuary World Tour to 26 cities in China last year, which puts him among the top three three artistes, along with Jonathan Lee and Li Ronghao, to have toured the most Chinese cities. And it's because of this that his absence on the “most tickets sold” list has become even more glaring to his fans.

And boy are they incensed. Not only did they doubt the authenticity of the report, they also took to Jay’s Weibo fan page to air their grievances.

However, what JJ’s fans did not realise was that the list was an accumulation of all box office sales for the past three years.

You see, JJ’s Sanctuary World Tour started in 2018 and lasted all through 2019. On the other hand, Jay’s Invincible World Tour was held from 2016 to 2018, while his Carnival World Tour started in 2019 and would still be going on if not for the COVID-19 pandemic. Mayday similarly held two world tours as well — their Life Tour kicked off in 2017 and concluded in January 2019. Then last April, the group launched their Just Rock It!!! Blue tour and have been touring until COVID-19 forced all concerts to be called off. 

Photos: Weibo/Sina