Just a quick bit for people looking for Music Matters content. We have lots to share, but we’re lacking time. It will be up soon.
China is a country of numbers: 1.3 billion people, 650 million mobile phones, 300 million internet users, 7 billion litres of Baijio drunk ever year, 7986 kazillion cigarettes smoked (OK, so we made that one up). In the coming years, we imagine music festivals will be added to that list.
Without further ado, we want to add another one to the list:
the InMusic Festival.
InMusic is the ex-Rolling Stone. For 1 year only, a Chinese publishing company licensed the Rolling Stone name here in China. For a number of reasons, it was a disaster. After this first year, they realised that paying exorbitant licensing rights for a title that means nothing to the average Chinese, they dropped the Rolling Stone name and re-emerged as InMusic. They are considered to be the number 1 music publication in China.
They have just announced a 10 year tie up with the Zhangbei Government (in Hebei province) to hold a grassland multi-day music festival. Zhangbei is a couple of hours driving (4 hours by train) North of BeiJing. You can see the official press conference here.
The official proposal (I suppose) claims Lou Reed and Tricky will perform, but the reality is that headliners are likely to be Soundtrack of our Lives, Little Dragon, Keren Ann. Still, the grasslands of inner Mongolia sound like a pretty sweet place to be for a weekend. Let’s hope that people actually travel up to it…
