Breaking into Asia: Industry Experts Chart the Path for New Zealand Artists at Going Global 2026

Cracking these markets takes local knowledge, patience and trusted partnerships too, even in China, where, as one panellist put it, success can still come down to "a bunch of lottery tickets" on the right platform.

The session, moderated by Asia New Zealand Foundation Director for Arts Craig Cooper, brought together specialists from four vastly different markets to unpack what it actually takes for Kiwi artists to build lasting audiences in the region.

With roughly 60 percent of the world's population living in Asia, the region represents an enormous, largely untapped opportunity for Aotearoa's music industry. But as the panel made clear, cracking these markets takes far more than uploading a song and hoping an algorithm does the rest.

Craig Cooper, Director for Arts at the Asia New Zealand Foundation, moderates a panel on navigating Asia’s music markets. Photo: Carla Teng-Westergaard/AMC.

No single platform, no single strategy

The discussion opened with a reminder that China sits almost entirely outside the digital ecosystem most New Zealand artists already use. Lucas Canzona of Fairwin, a China-based artist manager, explained that a "rest of world" strategy built around YouTube and Instagram simply does not translate. "None of it's accessible in China," he said, pointing to Douyin, the domestic TikTok, "an entirely different algorithm" under tighter government oversight, as the platform that matters most.

Canzona also pointed to the sheer scale of Chinese audiences as something New Zealanders struggle to grasp. Recalling a recent television appearance by a touring artist, he said a quick search on DeepSeek revealed the show's previous season finale had been watched by 1.1 billion people, a figure Canzona admitted "sounds fake" to a Western mind, but reflects a fandom that "requires its own approach."

Southeast Asia offered a different digital picture entirely. Aaron Winning, Independent Music Association of Thailand, noted the country has "the largest activated Facebook country in the world," with 97 percent of Thais active on the platform, alongside heavy Instagram and TikTok use.

Malaysia, by contrast, has largely moved past Facebook. Qisthina Razin of RK Live Asia/ Tong Tong Malaysia said YouTube and Spotify now dominate consumption, thanks to their freemium models, while Instagram, TikTok and, increasingly, RedNote drive discovery, particularly for Chinese-language content.

Across the panel, India was singled out for its dominant YouTube culture and an audience so large that, as Rafael Pereira of India Music Exchange and Tinnuts put it, "fake accounts alone can number in the billions."

Rafael Pereira - India Music Exchange/Tinnuts - India. Photo: Carla Teng-Westergaard/AMC.

Culture, censorship and the cost of getting it wrong

Perhaps the most striking thread was how much local knowledge, not just digital strategy, determines success or failure.

In China, Canzona described a formal approval process for touring artists: full set lists and lyrics submitted for government screening, followed by federal and municipal sign-off before a permit is issued. "Beijing is already always very strict," he said, while "Shanghai is a little more relaxed."

Malaysia runs a similar process. Razin confirmed artists must submit profiles, music videos and lyrics ahead of performing, with an added layer of scrutiny introduced after a high-profile incident at a major festival. It was when British pop-rock band The 1975 made a controversial move during the Good Vibes Festival in Kuala Lumpur.

Razin recounted how one of the band members had ranted about local politics on stage and then kissed a same-sex bandmate in front of the crowd, a moment that effectively ended the festival itself. "Our government is not the best... but in general, just don't talk about the government and be mindful of the culture around it," she said.

Qisthina Razin - RK Live Asia/ Tong Tong - Malaysia. Photo: Carla Teng-Westergaard/AMC.

Thailand's warning centred on the monarchy. Winning explained that Section 112 also known as the Lèse-majesté of the country's Civil and Criminal Act makes it illegal to speak negatively about the royal family, in speech or online, with penalties that can include lengthy detention. "If you have a political opinion, my advice to you is keep it to yourself until you're out of the country," he said, adding that visiting artists should also respect Buddhist customs, including never touching someone's head or pointing with a finger.

India, by comparison, has no formal censorship regime, though Pereira noted that offending audiences can still carry consequences: "you won't get back on that stage" after a second misstep. He also urged New Zealand artists to think of India less as a single country and more territories of distinct markets. "Every 100 kilometres, the language, food and culture changes," he said, comparing the scale to Europe or, as a colleague on the panel countered, something closer to "Africa," where flexibility matters more than a fixed strategy.

Relationships over transactions

Beyond platforms and permits, the panel repeatedly returned to trustworthy local partnerships. Canzona warned that deals emerging from unfamiliar channels — a WeChat inquiry rather than an email, for instance, can be either "the most beautiful deal of your life" or one that "holds you down for five years," and urged artists to lean on contacts made through events like Going Global to vet unfamiliar offers.

"Patience" featured heavily in the advice from Thailand and India alike. Winning described relationship-building in Thailand as a slow process that cannot be rushed with a single coffee meeting, while Pereira stressed that partnerships in India work best when reciprocal — offering local agents connections back into New Zealand, not just access to the Indian market.

Aaron Winning - Independent Music Association of Thailand -TH/AU. Photo: Carla Teng-Westergaard/AMC.

Practical tips: what actually works

Amid the warnings, the panel also offered concrete, low-cost starting points for each market.

In China, Canzona laid out a simple first step: take content artists are already posting elsewhere, edit it in CapCut, strip out the English, run the auto-translate feature for Chinese subtitles, "they are very accurate actually, it's a Chinese app" — and cross-post it to RedNote, the one platform accessible from both China and the rest of the world.

He likened the opportunity to the early days of Instagram, when the more an artist posted, the more their audience grew, still true on RedNote today, even if it remains "a bunch of lottery tickets" compared with a guaranteed formula.

Lucas Canzona - Fairwin - CAN/US. Photo: Carla Teng-Westergaard/AMC.

In Thailand, the advice was to think small rather than big. Winning said artists should not chase 5,000-capacity venues on a first visit, the smaller and more intimate the show, the stronger the connection with fans willing to follow an artist for years. He pointed to a small US band that played a 300-person show in Thailand after larger shows across the Philippines and Indonesia, and called it "the best show that we've had in the past 15 years" because of how engaged the crowd was.

In Malaysia, collaboration was the recurring theme. Razin said the country's position between Singapore and Thailand makes it a natural bridge, and that artists who team up with local musicians tend to build traction fastest. She cited one act that worked with different local artists across Singapore, Thailand and Japan to grow an audience market by market, rather than trying to launch everywhere at once.

In India, Pereira recommended running two strategies in parallel, targeting listeners digitally across the country's enormous scale of real and automated accounts, while also touring in person, rather than treating the two as separate phases.

He pointed to French-Filipino artist FKJ as a model: it took him three tours to grow from roughly a thousand fans to a hundred thousand, before he could reliably sell out a 5,000-capacity show across four cities. "Everyone makes that same mistake" of assuming a strategy built for a global superstar won't scale down for a smaller act, he said patient and staged growth are more realistic path.

A story New Zealand can still write

Despite the complexity, the panel's overall message was optimistic. South Korea has built a global phenomenon through K-pop, and Sweden has quietly become an outsized force in international pop songwriting and production. New Zealand has the talent to build its own export story, and Asia's vast, diverse audiences could be central to it.

Going Global 2026 is a two-day event connecting international A&R representatives, booking agents, festival programmers and label managers with New Zealand's artists and music industry. Past editions have led to international bookings, festival slots and management deals for Aotearoa acts.

-Asia Media Centre