Music festivals see setbacks, success

By Wang Yu

Ten years after its debut performance at the Beijing Midi School of Music, the music festival scene made a landmark achievement with more than 10 festivals this year.

“I think this is just the first step,” said Zhang Fan, president of the Midi school and organizer of China’s first music festival. Despite the omism, music festivals have a long road ahead of them.

When Zhang Tianyu went to the Midi Festival in 2002, he was shocked by both the music and the strange clothes around him. “It was like beng surrounded by a bunch of hooligans. But those were the guys who loved what I loved: playing and making music,” he said.

The next year, he enrolled in the Beijing Midi School of Music to learn drums. Zhang Tianyu has been playing for local rock band TheRoy for the last three years, and he has never missed a festival.

“I have fun watching the performances every year, and as an alumnus, my emotions always drag me back,” he said.

Indie platform

Midi Festival has become an icon. The first ever Midi took place from May 1 to 2, 2000, at the school’s hall: it was more alumni party than commercial rock concert. There were about 1,000 people in the audience, admission was ree and the artists went unpaid. Most came from the student body and the city’s rock underground.

“The feedback was pretty good because, at that time, there was nowhere for young music fans to get together and enjoy wha they liked,” Zhang Fan said.

“Before Midi, my only experiences with such events were videos of foreign music festivals like Woodstock,” said Li Hongjie, chief editor oInMusic magazine. This year, he started his own InMusic Festival on the grasslands of Zhangbei county, Hebei Province.

The festival was a new concept for young music fans, and its success has encouraged Zhang Fan to continue the series. However, it was not until 2004 that the festival moved off campus to the Beijing International Sculpture Garden. That was when things went commercial.

The festival had its biggest success in Haidian Park in 2005, and new brands started one after another. Two years later, The Modern Sky Festival took the same venue over the national holiday and built a reputation as the more pop and trendy festival.

And Zhang Fan remains behind the scenes as an advisor.

“Shen Lihui (founder of Modern Sky Records) came to me for help and I gave him the hard drive of my computer with all the documents about the Midi Festival.I don’t think we are competing – in a big city like Beijing, two music festivals are hardly enough,” Zhang said.

A hard day’s night

Though music festivals are held everywhere in the country, their organization is a test of patience, negotiation ability and luck ?especially in the capital.

Last year’s Midi, which had 120 native acts and 30 from overseas, was supposed to be a musical warm-up for the Olympic Games. Relevant licenses and visas for the foreign artists were ll issued by government departments. Then the event was cancelled under pressure from the public security bureau after the riots in Tibet ?eight days left before the festival was supposed to begin, according to the timetable.

“Last year it was the Olympics. This year it’s the country’s sexanial, which is making it harder for us to survive,” Zhang said. Every organizer faces political pressure. It took Midi 10 years of negotiation exprience and a clean record to start getting easy licenses. At least from every department except the one in charge of security: there is an ongoing fear of having thousands of people in one place.

The audience knows this, and that’s why they cherish the three days they do get. “In 2007, the chi of a German finance company joked with me that the festival was well-protected by the police, because every listener plays the role of security guard. The more we hold similar events without issue, the more relaxed the security bureau gets in granting us a license,” Zhang sid.

Another problem is accounting. The profits of a music festival come mostly from ticket sales and sponsors. Midi Festival turned a profit for the first time in 2007, and Modern Sky broke even last year. However, to keep the festival spirit, the organizers must confront and reject sponsors with unacceptable requirements.

Once a beer brand asked to put its logo of a big bottle with a woman in a bikini on both sides of its main stage, a website even hoped to put its flags everywhere in the venue. Such requirements have been rejected, much to the puzzlement of advertisers who are used to the anything-for-money attitude of the mainstream.

“The sponsors will also need to grow with us as they did in the West,” Zhang said.

Promoting government

“No matter who is on stage … they are the same to most people here. What we car about is the opportunity to get the country talking about Zhangbei County,” said Sun Xiaohan, vice-secretary of the county’s party committee.

As a high-ranking official in one of the poorer counties, Sun is eager for such opportunities to publicize the county and attract future economic growth. “I can’t say whether rock music is good or bad. People should just keep an open mind to different things,” he said.

While the government may be open, the Zhangbei public security bureau feels the exact opposite. Reaching an agreement is a laborious process.

Sun is not the only one who sees music festivals as a way to promote a county. In May, the Zebra Music Festival ended in Chengdu with huge support from the local government.

Li Dai, central executive officer of Zebra Media, said the company will make the festival profitable within tree years. Unlike the rebellious Midi, Zebra also attempted to meet the needs of its sponsors and the government. It performed at Poly Park, a new project by the Poly Group between downtown Chengdu and Xindu district. The festival brought attention to the area and contributed to a surge in real estate value around the park.

For the local government, the event offers a chance to rebuild the city’s image as a cltural center and heal Chengdu’s travel industry, which remains shaky since the Wenchuan earthquake of 2008.

In Zhangbei county, InMusic magazine signed a 10-year contract with the government. While fans grumbled about the organizer’s inexperience, incompetence and lack of basic services such as toilets, Sun still said it was a good start.

“We never thought that there would be over 170,000 people going to Zhangbei for three days withou a security accident. To us, the brand is more important than the money we can earn during the festival,” Sun said.

Ahead of  audience

There were over 5,000 cars parked on the Zhangbei grasslands: most belonged to one of several auto clubs. They came for a regular weekend party, and not for the festival.

“When the rock fans sarted a pogo mob, the security guards and other listeners were totally confused,” said Cai Jingzhou who came to the festival with his colleagues from a sports company.

Compared with the crowds at music festivals in Western countries, the local crowds are less experienced. The rock music scene is still a small circle, so promoters invite mainstream singers to attract more people.

At the Zebra Music Festival, Hong Kong and Taiwan such as S.H.E. and Shin performed on the main stage to thousands of screaming teens. However at the Green Banner Festival in Hohhot, the singer Li Yuchun – champion of the Super Girl talent show in 2005 ╮eceived nothing but catcalls and a barrage of water bottles.

Music festivals which focus on indie music are rarely cloned in China due to the limited audience. “Musicfestivals progress faster than the audiences’ taste in music. What young people in the West know about music is usually taught by their parents. That doesn’t happen here,” Zhang said.

“Still, the festivals are a great patform where we can cultivate a love for a variety of music beyond the genre stereotypes. We’re still at the beginning,” he said.