Entertainment production companies are beginning to drum up their Valentine season events, and among the first to do so is Viva Live, a division of Viva Communications Inc.

For the Generation Z that loves abbreviations and acronyms, Viva Live has dubbed its offering ILYSM. The last two letters can make you think the event is sponsored by that chain of malls, but the title actually stands for I Love You So Much. Promise?

 It's a group concert on 13 February at the Araneta Coliseum featuring Adie, Arthur Nery, MLRD (yes, it's an abbreviation invented by a young female singer to label herself as an artist), Rhodessa and Janine Teñoso.

The show will have the P-pop boyband Alamat as guest. The band is with Viva Music, also a component of VCI.

All the singer-songwriters mentioned above have multimillion views and plays on Spotify, YouTube, Tik Tok, X (formerly Twitter), Facebook and other video-sharing platforms. But it will be their first time ever to go up the stage of the Big Dome in Cubao. 

Front act

Nery is an R&B singer discovered by comedian Wacky Kiray in Bukidnon (although Nery was a Cagayan de Oro City resident at that time) in 2019. The comedian had a solo act in Bukidnon and Nery, a Psychology graduate of Xavier University in Cagayan de Oro, was among the front-act performers.

Nery sang his own composition, Life's Puzzle, which all the more impressed the comedian.

Kiray called singer-actor Kean Cipriano, who was looking for talents to manage under his new company O/C Records. Cipriano asked Nery to sing to him over the phone, and was equally impressed. He invited Nery to fly to Manila as soon as he could at Cipriano's expense.