UPDATE: There has been an official update on Douban. Apparently,
because of the recent thunderstorms, the basic facilities (at the Wujiang site) have been badly damaged, and can’t be fixed in a short time. so the festival has to be postponed, the new dates to be announced
It seems like the Gods of Chinese Music are conspiring against us on the eve of another landmark May Holiday where music festivals are slated to take over the country
First, Midi Festival in Beijing is forced to leave its spiritual Haidian Park home
Second, a spate of closures and cancellations in Beijing.
- the 8th Documentary Film Festival self censors
- Mao Livehouse closed for a night
- The Rustic show at Yugong Yishan also canned
Third, and most seriously, it seems like the inaugural Strawberry Festival in Wujiang near Suzhou has been cancelled. Details are sketchy at present. We have picked up the following though:
- mlive has stopped selling presale tickets
- all volunteers have been informed that training is cancelled
- the site setup has been stopped
- Zuoxiao Zuzhou was taken to the local police station straight from the airport yesterday. He is out now, but he mentioned on Weibo that the festival organizers should not use the microblog broadcast on big screens: too risky
- some bands such as Sound Fragment have confirmed the cancellation
This is all really bad for our industry. Part of an increasing cyclical trend away from freed0m of expressi0n?
UPDATE 2: courtesy of @mightyboom (this is the most believable for us)
Suzhou Strawberry Fest has been cancelled due to an unexpected uproar at Zhouzhuang Folk fest last weekend.
Last weekend’s Zhouzhuang Folk Festival, someone sent a message containing “Aye Way Way (sic.)” to the public tweet channel, which has been shown on the big screen. Aye Way Way, the famous Chinese dis-a-dent artist, was ‘kidnapped’ by police at Beijing Airport early this April. The message was deleted immediately, however, it did not stop people from tweeting more. Shortly ahead of Zuo Xiao Zu Zhou, a famous underground folk musician, came up on stage, young folks started yelling “Aye Way Way”. The whole ‘accident’ wasn’t planned at all, but it was one of the greatest reactions within China regarding the authority detaining Aye Way Way.
Until now, Aye Way Way has been missing for almost a month.
“Modern Sky”, known as the most influential Chinese indie label, was the host of both Zhouzhuang & Strawberry Fests.