The Radar has been dominated recently by China’s fledgling festival market. To be fair to us, the October holiday week (which we are just about to enter and which happens every year in the first week of the month) is the key time for festivals. Clement weather, allied to the nationwide holiday make October (and the similarly congenial May break) festival-mania-time.
Until this moment, we have focused pretty exclusively on the offerings of China’s main two cities. Here, we throw some light on some of the others.
We’re going to have seven music festivals during the National Holiday in six cities. The second running of Beijing’s Modern Sky Festival will be well attended. Modern Sky’s 10 year tenure as China’s only viable indie label affords it a certain amount of celebrity. The others seem all to have their own individual slant and the question on our lips is: Is this situation the start of something bigger, or are we already seeing overcapacity for a largely ignorant public?
There will be two festivals in Hangzhou: the Hot Music festival (organized by Hot-Music School), similar to Songjiang’s Rockkid (a free concert held every year at Shanghai’s Songjiang university city, home to over 170,000 students), and focuses on new local talent. The other is the Qianjiang Newtown International Music Festival, which combines jazz and rock. Artists include Shanghai’s current favorite son Liquan, Laura Fygi, and scene stalwarts The Honeys, Crystal Butterfly and Cuijian. It’s officially acclaimed as the “First High-class Outdoor International Music Festival in Hangzhou”. While we agree that it is probably the first, we will hold off judgement on the sobriquets high-class and international until we have seen more compelling evidence than the promoters spiel.
Xia’men will launch a Beach Rock Music Festival organized by 13 Month Records from Beijing. It will go for 3 days with almost 20 artists, including Laolang and Wan Xiao Li who riding the increasing popular wave of Chinese folk music. The bill also includes Xie Tian Xiao (who plays with his delightfully monikered band, Cold Blooded Animal), who’s rock music has had a consistently strong influence in China.
Lijiang Snow Mountain Music Festival has changed a lot since 2007 to last year. The main news is that it has been “taken over” by Emma Ticketmaster. Instead of inviting 50 rock bands, you will find Avril Lavigne for one-day performance. To be honest, Emma is pretty smart with their scheduling. From first day of Avril, to second day of Top 8 DJ Deep Dish, finishing up with Zhang Zhen Yue, Fan Xiao Xuan, Wang Xiao Kun and Chen Chu Sheng; less artists, but higher focus. A final aside, Lijiang’s Snow Mountain is one of China’s most beautiful spots. The only consideration will be whether people will stomach the 4 x increase in ticket price in addition to the steep cost of getting there. Shanghai – Lijiang would set you back a cool RMB5,250 in airfares alone for the 3 hour flight. That’s nearly US$1,000 for an internal flight!
The last one to mention is the Zen Lake Campsite Music Festival in Chongqing, where you can stay overnight in your own tent. Every day from noon until 3 the following morning, there’ll be non-stop band and DJ performance. Meanwhile, if you cant catch the other festivals, you can catch some pretty decent artists blast onto stage: Yu Fei Men, Convenience Store, Zhang Zhen Yue, Fan Xiao Xuan, Cuijian, Laolang, Wan Xiao Li, and Xie Tian Xiao. For that little bit of international flavor, trance DJ Christopher Lawrence will add a Goan slant to proceeding. Delicious irony really, with acid soaked beats around a man made lake in the industrial centre of the earth (ChongQing municipality is home to 34 million people and responsible for 1/3 of China’s industrial output!).
Some final comments: it would be fascinating to be able to visit all of these different events, to see how tightly or loosely the words “Music Festival” will be interpreted. A stage and some artists do not a festival make, and international is a bold claim to make when you’ve gone and got a trance DJ for one of the nights. Still, this is all moving in the right direction. The more festivals there are, the more people will be exposed to this phenomenon, both through the media and in person, and this can only be good for music at large in China. Roll on the October holiday!