We report an event HERE. 5 days after we report on it, it’s cancelled.
Sadly, the first weekend of the Summer Pilot Music Festival was an unfortunate one. The normally parched Beijing has been in the grip of some fierce Weather Gods recently, and the weekend was almost completely rained out. Barely 100 people turned out on the third day, and the event was stopped after just 2 bands. It restarted several hours later.
Next weekends event has now been cancelled due to “Force Majeure”. Pilot won’t say any more. Was it the rain, the underattendance, or the fact that some of the bands that did play were “unharmonious”, smashing instruments and generally behaving like rock bands do? Will it restart in 2 weekends time?
This is a real shame, but not entirely unexpected. Some events when announced, feel right. Some feel like a stretch. The InMusic festival for example, up in the cooler climes of inner Mongolia, backed by local government plus China’s biggest music magazine and on the same weekend as Japanese festival SummerSonic feels like it has a chance of working. The Pilot Summer Music Festival, 3 days per weekend for four consecutive weekends at an inner city Beijing venue that holds 4,000. Underground bands, lots of heavy music. It seemed more of a noble than realistic effort.
Pilot are trying to move things forward, and like a handful of Chinese and foreigners are having a limited amount of success. The marketplace is getting progressively better (at some speed), but certainly not fast enough to sustain this kind of initiative. Let’s hope the Pilot guys will be back soon.
Some photos of the first day HERE.