At around the same time that we were ruminating over the mass of music festivals that have invaded China over the last 12 months and writing THIS article, Helen Feng, singer for Pet Conspiracy and Free the Birds, was worrying over the same issues. Recuperation time (she broke her leg earlier this year) has freed up creative writing juices, as this short essay shows. Three main points surrounding poor planning (budgets), the shady and often irritating practices of issuing the same instructions to get the same bands for the same events to multiple people, and finally the importance of creating a festival’s identity are all covered in detail.
Thanks to Helen for allowing us to share. Get well soon!
Festival madness has hit China with an explosion of festivals this year. Through the first round was organized by people with at least a reasonable amount of experience (Midi, Modern Sky, Zebra) and even when they made mistakes, you can attribute it to growing pains, the 2nd round seems to be filled with a first time players and massive chaos.
Even from the confines of my house where I’m recovering from my leg injury, I’m getting some very interesting news. Not all of this is first hand account, so I’ll leave the organizers names out but here’s a few examples of what not to do when organizing a festival in China:
BIG FESTIVAL MISTAKE No. 1: Expecting your budget to stay the same!
Funding in China is never stable. It comes then it goes, and often goes half way through the process with contracts already signed. Even if one has a signed contract, it doesn’t mean that the funding doesn’t still go. Here’s some examples of funding gone bye bye.
1) Government Funding: One city near Beijing was cleared a good budget for acts and found a middle man to handle all the artists. Two weeks before the show, when travel schedules had already been worked out, but the contracts had been delayed, the government agency which was all enthusiasm before cut budget down to half with of course the government sanctioned acts getting first pick. (Did the money disappear into 3rd party hands, or were budgets actually slashed we’ll never know) The guy responsible for bookings protested, but it’s the local government! What can they do? Even if there were signed contracts, suing the government in China is impossible. So, acts that had already arranged their travel schedules found themselves slashed from the schedule especially the most expensive international acts.
2) Corporate Funding: Another Festival, all contracts signed had already negotiated a title sponsor for the festival that was putting up a significant portion of the money. Also weeks before the festival, said sponsor (which through corporate is a State Owned Enterprise) decides that it needs to slash it’s marketing budget pulls out a portion of the funding and cuts it down to half. Since they were the title sponsor, it nearly kills the festival Said organizer lost a lot of money, but to their credit they still carried on without slashing artists or production costs. Retaliation again is impossible. Why. . . because how can one retaliate when you still need their money however little next year. Plus, having beef with a State Owned Enterprise is the same as ticking off the Government. And since the richest Chinese companies are either state owned or has someone running the company tied to the state, it always leads to political hassle. One thing you can’t afford in China is political hassle. So, the best thing to do is smile and swallow.
3) Private Funding: Some guys are stretching way beyond their ability. Recently I was treated to the story of one organizer who used his own money (along with some sponsorship) to make a big festival, expecting tickets to cover the artist fees where he couldn’t. Artists showed up but the audiences didn’t. Even worse, the festival rained out for a day so many act didn’t get to play. The organizer went bankrupt, and sold his car on the spot at the festival to pay artists fees. Unfortunately, it could only cover a few of the artists, and organizer is still refusing or unable to pay the artists, especially the ones that were rained out. Even if they paid for their own travel and showed up to play as contracted. The guys bankrupt, what can they do?
BIG FESTIVAL MISTAKE No. 2: Clusterf**k Bookings (What are these guys doing?!!!!?)
A lot of festivals are using dozens of individuals to try and book acts, often times contacting the same acts with different offers many that fall through. Many of these Individuals often try to squeeze the most money out for themselves or is just running around like Chickens with their heads cut off. The confusion is ridiculous and often times, it’s the artists, organizers, and agents getting screwed in the process.
Recently, we were asked to book a main act for one festival. We knew the organizer, but this was going through a middle man who was responsible for all bookings on that stage. We respected his role, through we knew he had little experience we respected the choice of the organizer to use him, and so when he asked us for suggestions, and gave us a budget, we started to find acts based on his requirements and budget. We suggest a few acts, he picked his favorites, and we found an available act that he had picked and with cost of flights and all subsequent expenses staying within the budget. With everything ready to lock down, we suddenly get a call from the agent saying that someone had contacted them offering them a ridiculously high booking fee for the same festival we were working on. We read the email, and discovered, oh, it’s the guy who asked us to do the booking. When we were almost done negotiating everything, he had his friend try and book them through Myspace. The offer was higher than ours and way beyond his budget because he had forgotten to calculate in certain things like flights and thought he could best our price! So I finally called the festival organizer and asked what was going on and was told the real budget. The real situation was that he could afford half what this guy had told us.
This, I have to say, unfortunately typical. A lot of people are asked to do festival bookings who know little about protocol, budgets, logistics, and often times treat artists and agents the same as peddlers at a tourist trap. Bargaining to them is often times about how to get the best price on a commodity good, without thinking about how to preserve relationships and put the right acts on the right stage for the right price. It’s a bad a scenario for everyone involved, but the number of unprofessional people doing it is increasing every day. Recently 6 different people approached a friend of mine for one festival booking. One person told them quite frankly, “Give me a lower price cause I’m your friend. They’ll take who ever gives the lowest price so that way I’ll get the booking!” At least he was honest.
BIG FESTIVAL MISTAKE No. 3: What’s your Festival About? Huh?
When Midi, Strawberry, and Chao Yang Pop Festival all went down in the City of Beijing at the exact same time, the nearly 30,000 attendance at each was not because of the general public love of festivals, but rather all three had a very strong definition of who they are, what they represent, and what their crowd wanted to see. Unfortunately, “Let’s do a festival” doesn’t actually come with any thought of what kind of festival they want to do for many organizers flip flop, change directions, mix up completely different acts, or book the exact same act as everyone else.
There’s maybe only a dozen local acts in China that can hold down a festival stage, so having repeats is nothing new. However, the number of repeats and the kind of acts placed up against each other is just odd and thoughtless at times. Imagine a bad Chinese Pop Idol, the new hot Indie Noise Band, a few minimal techno DJs and a Mongolian Folk Band, all headlining the same day for the same festival. (This actually happened). The directionless mush is further exacerbated by the addition of hundred of acts coming in for the Shanghai World Expo. Festival organizers make opportunistic grabs at any artists that have availability and can save the flight tickets in a short sighted free for all booking process that makes many festivals a discountable one-off mess. Festival organizers want bodies, and they want profit, but almost every festival in China looses money anyway. Western festival companies know that festivals usually lose money the first year, but can gain it all back in the 3rd or 4th year by building up an identity. But that requires long-term thinking, experience, and personal taste all of which many of these organizers don’t have.
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To all the festival organizers. . . budget yourself for a three year loss, love what you do, and try and figure out how international festivals do it before you start. Frankly there are already so many people in the game, and for us few who have toughed it out and watched the scene grow, we hope that more and more “good” Festivals will come up in the future before the whole festival bubble pops for everyone because audiences get fed up with the bad.
To all bookers, agents, and artists who want to hit the Chinese Festival circuit, it’s best to check out references and work with people you trust before booking. There are a few people in China interested in developing long term relationships abroad and domestically and who are not just looking at short term profit. Some of them even know what they’re doing, which is awesome! They are good filters, but even they are sometimes overwhelmed by the amount of horsesh*t flowing in the festival circuit. ( I can attest to that) If you have a trustworthy partner in China, they are probably a good person to go to or at least consult when braving anything here. The worst is when you show up, can’t play and don’t get paid. That’s always the worst scenario but not an unlikely one. Still, there are lots of opportunities here, and if you can find a long term partner you trust to work with, China just might become the bookings heaven that Japan used to be, through it will take some time.