Again, apologies for the technical hitches. We now have a new machine in the USofA, so this shouldn’t happen for another 3 years or so.
Once again, the articles that went missing
1) USHER in Beijing
Adam Wilkes, ex China West, ex Emma Entertainment, ex Ticketmaster, has a new company based in Beijing, 8th Round. They have been doing no small amount of consulting to the NBA over the last few months, and now, in partnership with NBA Rocks (a concept that we imagine mixes basketball and music) are presenting Usher in Wukesong Arena on 11th July. We asked the question would the show be a Kanye (empty and massively unprofitable) or a Beyonce (full and massively unprofitable)? We have a hunch that Usher’s big blingy pop will fall on the Beyonce side, rather than Kanye “indie hip hop” West. Time will tell…
2) Did anyone die at Super Junior Expo?
There was a huge scramble to get the 2500 “free” tickets for Super Junior at Shanghai Expo two Sundays ago. According to an article on Shanghaiist, people started queuing for tickets at midnight the night before. There was a stampede, and according to some, there was a hugely unfortunate death. Several media sources have reported this, but there is nothing on the Chinese web to either back or refute this. While our thoughts go out to the family if indeed there was a death, we cannot see the local police/ government becoming more relaxed about these large events as Expo winds on.
TransmitCHINA hit Chinese shores for the 3rd time last week. The project featured 48 artist showcases in 8 cities, 4 B2B focus groups in 4 cities, and a 2 day conference in Shanghai featuring delegates from across the China/ International spectrum. We will have a full review of it this week.
4) Michael Bolton
Livenation alighted the now-not-too-hirsute crooner in China last week. They sold a pretty disappointing 2,000 tickets in the 9,000 capacity Grand Stage in Shanghai. History doesn’t relate with respect to Beijing, but perhaps China is bored of expensive and moderate Western has-beens. One can only hope.
We have lots to update you with this week
- a Lady Gaga stitch up in the Asian region
- an update on Suzhou’s Huli festival
- a review of Hangzhou’s XiHu festival
- a review of Hong Kong’s Music Matters conference
- a review of TransmitCHINA
- details on the People Mountain People Sea festival
- details on the Vice x Intel Creators Project
Whew, and to think we have a real job…