China’s entertainment market has undergone incredible transformations over the last few years. In 2007, there was only one mainland music festival. By 2013, every major city had one, from Rizhou to Yinchuan, Luzhou to Lijiang. There are international quality arenas, live houses of all descriptions, recording studios, record labels, management companies, showcase festivals and cultural centres. The Voice of China is one of the highest rated TV programmes ever while 100,000 people went to Zhangbei’s InMusic Festival in 2011.
In the last 12 months, there has been a convergence of international and Chinese zeitgeist. Whilst Electronic Dance Music, EDM, or Event-Driven-Marketing (as DeadMau5 likes to call it) sweeps the USA, China’s super clubs have all but abandoned hip-hop in exchange for the bass and the beast of the music industry’s latest plaything. DJ’s have been popular here for nearly a decade. Tiesto, Sasha, John Digweed all made many trips to China’s major cities from 2005-2009, opening the gilt-edged, bottle-serving clubs that were invested in by hopeful (and financially dubious) investors, thinking that another superclub was just what Shanghai / Beijing / Chengdu / Dongguan / name your Chinese city was in need of.
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