Music Festivals In China

The first MIDI Music Festival in 2000 was the “originator” of outdoor music festivals in China; a group of bands unleashed raw joy on a stage in a red brick bungalow. The first six years of the MIDI Music Festival were at a loss, and it wasn’t until 2007 that the venue had a decent crowd.

Since then, Chinese music festivals have gone from being seen by almost no one to being seen by some people, but China’s music festivals are still a niche carnival party.

It wasn’t until 2019 when a TV show about bands, The Big Band, went online and enjoyed unprecedented success that Rock n’ Roll was back in the public eye, with many bands breaking through their original circles and gaining a lot of new fans. Suddenly, they became well-known, and music festivals became hot again due to the popularity of the bands.

However, in 2020, many indoor and outdoor performances were forced to be canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

After the introduction of COVID-19 optimization measures at the end of 2022, music fans really saw the festival stage again in 2023. On top of the original quest for music, there was also the desire for revelry and fervor after the silent and demoralizing shutdown.

As well as representing support for bands and music, music festivals represent the pursuit of revelry and fervor, the uncompromising pursuit of freedom and ideals. The large festival grounds, the grass and flags, the beer and fried chicken, the colorfully dressed festival goers, and the casual language, all formed a sort of utopia.

“For the New Year’s Eve show, there was a grand fireworks display right on the seashore. At the end of the fireworks, the song Qinhuangdao suddenly rang out, and the most powerful trumpet accompanied the arrival of the New Year, piercing through the depths of the first dark night of 2024 like a 10,000-foot light,” Huang Hua, 25, an online store owner, said, describing the Beihai DALU Music Festival she recently watched. “I think the most attractive point of the festival for me is that in that one small venue, we can reap the freedom of both soul and flesh.”

After 2019, more and more local Chinese bands became famous. The festival scene, which has been dry for a long time, was back in the spotlight. Classic rock behaviors such as “crowd surfing,” “train driving,” “pogo” and “stage diving” have re-emerged. The images of hand flares, banners, flags and flickering lights reflected on the stage still have a freewheeling impact, and the spectacle of thousands of people raising metal salutes to the Horned Hand is still haunting.

Xiao Xiang, 23, a collegiate volunteer to China’s Far West Program, is very familiar with music festivals. He has been involved in music festivals since 2018 and often went to volunteer at festivals during his college years.

“Usually when the atmosphere of the scene arrives, we will start the ‘train driving’ and all rampage together, following the rhythm of those music as well as enjoying the feeling of letting go,” Xiang said, “In the beginning, I didn’t really understand what this mutual trust was all about. Maybe in music festivals there is also some spiritual communication, such as you recognize me and I recognize you and this kind of feeling.”

With the live music, the listeners surrounded the stage, their emotions rising and falling with the band’s performance. Whether it’s “train driving,” “pogo” or even when surrounded by people they don’t know, listeners are just as likely to ride each other’s shoulders and bob their heads together. In that moment, everyone let down their guard towards each other, thus bringing them closer together, which gave a sense of everyone being equal. The gap between people in real life is minimized at music festivals, and that’s why they are so loved.

“I’ve been to MIDI Music Festival and it does feel like a utopia, I just want to stay in it, I just don’t want to detach myself from that environment and go back to work or go back to life,” Cao Fang, 25, a remedial teacher, said. “Strangers can also go and get to know each other, like when we go on a wine hunt, which is when we go to each tent and make a toast, and it feels like we are not strangers, but like friends who have known each other for a long time.”

“It’s just being in that environment where everybody’s pure,” Cao Fang said. “It’s spontaneous, it’s not a purposeful kind of socializing.”

However, as music festivals have gradually become more diversified, the original highly humanistic festivals have been squeezed by commercialized music festivals hosted by new brands that have emerged in recent years. Previously, going to music festivals was considered a niche behavior, when people considered each other as “peers”. However, as festivals became popular, listeners’ sense of belonging to “peers” is not as strong as it used to be.

“Originally, music festivals were an occasion with strong social attributes, but now these social attributes are fading and disappearing, and most festivals are more like a platter show,” said Fei Ji, 25, a barista who used to be a band manager. “Because there’s no content to fill the space, once young people have seen the band they want to see, they leave, so there’s not a lot of opportunity or space to socialize, I feel that festival goers are too ‘apathetic’ these days.”

Although it seems that the audience is becoming “apathetic” as festivals become more popular, the situation is not so pessimistic. For instance, there is always a vibrant “train” running through the crowd in the area near the stage; there are always people jumping to the rhythm of the music; there are always people giving each other high fives. The images described by Xiao Xiang and Cao Fang are still being played, people often fall in love with music festivals for these reasons.

As the consumer group represented by the post-95s takes over the baton of the main consumers of music festivals with an astonishing growth rate and a huge crowd size, their concepts of consumption will also become an important reference for predicting the trend. In terms of communication power, they hold the absolute right to speak, and they are more willing to recommend these fresh and interesting things to their friends and even parents and relatives.

“In 2022, the festival mainly attracts fans who love rock music, but in 2023, many festivals started to present that kind of family fun feeling,” Xiang said. “Whether it’s older people or little kids, they will also go to the festival site to play together. “

Nowadays, music festivals are much more diverse, with many more facilities for people to relax and unwind. Since music festivals usually start at noon or in the afternoon and last until late at night, there is a small bazaar set up on the festival grounds, as well as an “air-cushioned couch” area, which is similar to a picnic area. Listeners will be bouncing around the festival and won’t be carrying much, so the bazaar makes up for the need for food and water, and the “air-cushioned couch” area makes up for the need to sit down and rest when they get tired of bouncing around.

Xu Dan, 46, is a human resources manager. The 2023 Beihai Dailu Music Festival was the first time in her life that she attended a music festival. She is a music lover who listened to Black Panther and Cui Jian’s rock more than 20 years ago. After watching The Big Band program, she got back into following her favorite bands again.

“I came with my daughter, I saw that there was Lao Lang and Miserable Faith playing and I agreed to come with her,” Xu said. ” If it wasn’t for her love of music festivals, at my age I wouldn’t think I’d ever come to a music festival.”

“I don’t really like bouncing around in crowds, so I sat on the grass, ate snacks and drank drinks while I listened to the music,” Xu said. “I also saw a few people my age who even came by themselves and interacted with the stage performance.”

Before 2023, music festivals were a niche activity. But now music festivals have become a very popular entertainment activity, plus music festivals are not only music, there are other food and scenery, all integrated together to provide a form of relaxation like a weekend holiday outing.

Li Zihang, 30, is an independent music producer who used to be in the military and worked at a live company, but now he has devoted himself to music production full-time.

“A screw with a little bit of ego thinking,” said Li. “That’s a self-explanation of my job as a remixer and producer.”

Although he treats music as more of a part of his job, sometimes he still returns to the sanctuary of a spiritual outlet when he leaves his work behind. “I get a sense of self-identity and validation from others in this industry that I can’t get inside any other industry,” Li said. “It’s rare to be genuinely needed by others, and there’s still a sincere atmosphere in this industry.”

Music industry workers can sometimes face a lot of skepticism and opposition, and unlike the average listener, they are the ones closest to every music scene. But to be able to truly devote oneself to a career that one loves is the best interpretation of dreams and freedom.

Zhao Yuhe, 24, is a special education teacher who has her own understanding of what it means for people in the teaching profession to go to a music festival.

“In this time, we come to define teachers rather than having that identity bind us,” Zhao said. “It’s not just limited to the whole festival-going thing, all sorts of things that weren’t part of a teacher’s definition before.”

She usually likes to listen to rap and follows rap artists and their news, as well as sharing her opinions on social media. She went to many music festivals because of Jiang Yunsheng, a rap singer she liked.

More and more people in society are able to accept music festivals as a new method of entertainment. This also represents a growing acceptance by people from all sectors. The new generation of young people includes many like Li Zihang and Zhao Yuhe, who have not easily given up their own preferences and at the same time have gained the recognition of others.

While music festivals are becoming more and more popular, there are also a lot of negatives, and different people have different opinions about them.

People will follow the rhythm of the music to make the corresponding rock movements, but if not in the same emotional peak situation, it is very dangerous to make the actions such as ” stage diving ” and “hand flare,” which often leads to conflicts and disputes in the festival. Nowadays, as the number of music festivals grows, different festivals have different requirements and restrictions for the fans.

“There are so few ways for young people to release emotions, and they’re so constrained. But dangerous behavior is not the embodiment of the rock spirit,” said Wei Lai, 24, an engineer. “The spurt in festival growth has brought nothing but highly overlapping lineups, higher ticket prices, less tuning time for band changeovers to present better performances, and shorter set times.”

The current music festivals have a serious similarity problem as there is a limited number of famous bands who are highly visible in various festivals, but at the same time some unknown bands playing on the same stage will be rediscovered and gain a group of new fans. Some commercialized festivals invite well-known stars and singers to attract their fans to buy tickets, but the high appearance fees of these stars add to the cost, which leads to unusually high ticket prices.

There is also a segment of the pop music audience that is not very receptive to rock music. This group of people will choose to support the artist in a concert, which is very different from a music festival. Music festivals are highly mobile for audiences and much longer than concerts. The long standing time and the lack of understanding of the music form will make them have a bad opinion of the festival.

Due to the pandemic, there have been a lot of restrictions on large-scale cultural and entertainment events like music festivals over the three-year period, which has resulted in the current rebound in consumer desire. However, the booming phenomenon will not last long. Starting from the second half of 2024, the music festival market should gradually calm down, leaving only mature and wealthy organizers.

Music festivals have become an outlet for young people’s lives, and despite the freedom they can enjoy, there are still imperfections in music festivals.                                                                                                 

 Advisor: Yolanda Ma