QQ Entertainment reports, from a screen shot of the teenybopper heartthrob’s website, that the Biebs will be playing shows in Beijing, Dalian and Shanghai over the October holiday this year. Do you think there are enough Mainland Beliebers for the shows to sell out faster than Metallica? We can’t wait to see.

Whilst fact-checking this little bit of news using the Google machine, we also came across this (satirical) gem. Considering the kind of shenanigans Bieber’s been in the news for recently, life just might imitate art come September.

Well, finally we have our own happy narrative and despite the corporate metal allegations, our band is way better than One Direction.

According to the grapevine, Metallica tickets went onsale at 10am this morning. At 10.06am, there weren’t any left. The likelihood is that there will be a few more tickets available sometime towards the end of the month, once the venue configuration has been worked out (and you can always become a Metallica International Fan club member, perhaps) but the reality is, we have our own arena show sellout measured in minutes, which is a massive leap forward.

Fans are generally quite slow to buy tickets here in China, due to the rarity of shows actually selling out, and the proliferation of tickets usually available on the night courtesy of the huangniu.

Shows selling out creates buzz, creates excitement, creates a very real reason to buy early. Once people start missing out on shows they actually wanted to see, it will encourage them to buy early. this will keep tickets out of the hands of the scalpers, and enable promoters to accurately gauge demand, and should make the art of selling shows a less haphazard one

All hail Metallica, all hail China’s metal fans

Shanghai Sonic is looking more and more likely: produced by the promoters behind August’s Summer Sonic Festival in Tokyo and Korea, the names floated around for Shanghai Sonic include Aerosmith, John Legend, MIA, Limp Bizkit (yup), Alt-J and Carly Rae Jepsen. The organizers have been telling local media, off the record, to save the weekend of August 17-18.

According to everyone including Metallica’s official website, tickets for the Shanghai show, scheduled for August 13, go on sale at 10AM local time on June 7. Reported ticket prices are 480, 980, 1280 and 1680 RMB.

For something new and different, our pals at Taihe Media are testing a new concept on the Chinese festival-going public. Taking advantage of a car- and outdoors-loving middle class, the open space in the outskirts of Beijing and gambling on the fascination/nostalgia associated with RVs (recreational vehicles), the Mi RV & Camping Festival is a week-long eclectic lineup of local bands, craft market, BBQ, film fest and even a “MLB-sanctioned” batting cage. Cool.