Our girl on the ground in Beijing for all things festive took a trip out to the suburbs for China Music Valley Festival in PingGu. The PingGu festival ground has a storied history. In 2011 PingGu entered into a joint venture with Live Nation – Gehua to launch the China Music Valley Festival, which featured Avril Lavigne. It was to be a bold centrepiece for the China Music Valley – a music-focused real estate development that was meant to house recording studios, concert halls and everything else that a good development should be able to lay claim to. The first year went relatively well despite the usual pains associated with getting a big concept off the ground.
The next year, Live Nation – Gehua rinsed the deal, spending VAST amounts of money on bands with limited profiles in China (White Lies, Pixie Lott and the Jesus and Mary Chain all netted big that year). Production was hugely impressive, until of course it rained, at which point it became obvious they hadn’t bothered to fit the stage with a proper roof. Bands were hauled off, resulting in a much curtailed JMC set. The kicker was the last-minute introduction of hugely discounted group-buy tickets which pegged a 3-day entry pass at 150RMB. Overall year 2 was an expensive JV disaster, which resulted in the dissolution of said JV.
MIDI moved in to take the place of Live Nation and organized two very successful festivals, but that relationship too came to an end, with MIDI having once again to hustle for a new home this April. This year the PingGu government then either decided to do it themselves, or pulled in another partner. Either way, the new festival organizers decided that four days before the festival was a good time to announce its return, along with the lineup. An inauspicious beginning…
The drive from the city centre to PingGu took about 1.5 hours. This was one of the least marketed outdoor festivals in Beijing over the May holidays (in fact in the history of Beijing festivals), but nonetheless the organizers told us there were over 10,000 in attendance (so as always, we divide this number by at least 2). Two stages, one dedicated to “pop” and one dedicated to “rock” were placed side by side. There was no fear of dreaded festival sound bleed; only one stage was in use at any given time, following on from the original setup. Contrasting 2011, the novel and extremely dangerous paddock idea was abandoned, allowing free flow between the 2 stages. Tickets were 120RMB/day.
The lineup was almost purely from the mainland, save for a few singers like Zhang Zhenyue from Taiwan who entitled the festival to that “international” claim in the name. Festival stalwarts like Black Panther, Tang Dynasty, and XTX were headliners on the rock stage and Yang Kun, Zhang Zhenyue, and Zheng Jun pulled in crowds to the pop stage. In total, China Music Valley boasted over 46 groups packing 10 hours of “international pop” every day over the three-day period. One may wonder “why the need for yet another festival in Beijing with an almost identical lineup?”, but here, the USP is of course the venue.
From what we could tell from the two days we were there, there was only one foreigner – a girl, very beautiful and with a great personality 🙂 – that attended. The rest were a mix of young university students, families with small children, and middle-aged couples coming to rock out at this international pop festival. This was definitely not the hipster lookbook that is Strawberry nor was it your hard-core, angry cabbage carrying youth that represents for MIDI. In fact, there was not one pesky flag waver in the audience (although shouts of “Lao Xie NIu Bi! – XTX is badass!” were still heard).
In addition to the absence of flag bearers, there was also a welcome absence of in-your-face advertising, with only two billboards to the side of the crowd, calling attention to China Mobile’s 4G capabilities. By the way, the signal was good here compared to MIDI’s grounds. There was also an Audi booth near the entrance. Very little in the way of F&B options were offered, and there were no vendors hawking shirts, handmade crafts, or those hats with animal ears that festival-goers love so so much.
For what the festival lacked in lineup and f&b, it made up for in its gorgeous scenery – which I think probably was the point of this one. This festival was probably purely positioned to get people to come out to PingGu to see that it’s a great place for a holiday and I think it worked. Definitely making a plan in my diary to go back for an escape from the chaos of city life (and also the chaos of music festivals).
