Tag Archives: midi festival

Midi and Strawberry Music Festivals 2013: An Audience Matures

Posted on by
3

This blog does a pretty good job of reviewing and complaining about music festivals happening in Beijing, Shanghai, and sometimes even other cities (by our tireless contributors). However, from an audience perspective, we have precious few gripes this year for 2 of China’s longest-running music festivals, Midi and Strawberry.

Your Radar correspondents, split between Beijing and Shanghai, attended the first day of Strawberry in Beijing, the third day of Midi in Beijing and day three of Strawberry in Shanghai. Miracle of miracles, there was beer for sale at Strawberry in Beijing. More importantly, it didn’t come in tepid cans out of a sketchy backpack. Danish beer juggernaut Tuborg claimed sponsorship duties at Modern Sky’s flagship festival, complete with VIP “pavilion,” microphone-toting MC and plenty of scantily clad Tuborg honeys. There are unsubstantiated rumors that the beer was only there the first day – can any of our readers shed some light on the situation? In Shanghai, we were pretty outraged to find out that Strawberry had (seemingly) sold exclusive alcohol rights to Bacardi. While this is good for the coffers in the short run and great for a brand to force everyone that wants to drink alcohol to drink theirs, it’s moves like this that destroy the long term credibility of a festival. It is simply greed that is driving a festival to deny consumers choice to make MORE money.

Usually strongest with their domestic lineup, Strawberry’s foreign headliners this year was Travis, they of the inoffensive between-Oasis-and-Coldplay Britrock persuasion; experimental pop savants Deerhoof; and Lenka, who played at Modern Sky 2011. We stayed for the entirety of Travis’ set, and enjoyed it very much, to our great surprise. There were no surprises in the domestic lineup, from New Pants taking the slot before the headliner for the second year in a row to Xie Tian Xiao’s 75th appearance to close out the festival (more on that in a bit), but the sheer number of people at the festival – the organizers stopped selling door tickets at 3PM – speaks to it’s success, even with single day tickets priced at 150 RMB.

Midi Festival took over the space at China Music Valley in Pinggu district this year, extending the festival’s eternal quest to find the furthest possible location whilst still remaining within Beijing’s municipal borders. In past years, the China Music Valley Festival (of Avril Lavigne and Jesus and Mary Chain notoriety) have installed two stages in the entire area, and alternated set times so that only one act would be playing at any given time. Midi brought 5 stages. The sonic experience was…interesting. However, the festival experience was not lacking. From 20 RMB beers and 5 RMB water to donuts that were “much better than they had to be” (quoth one enthusiastic festivalgoer), parking yourself in front of a stage and letting the music wash over you was not a bad way to pass the day. Continue reading →

Midi Electronic Festival

Posted on by
4

Midi Festival usually looks like this:

But this weekend, it’s going to look a little more like this:

Call us old-fashioned or short-sighted or whatever but we’ve never seen something like this before. Midi, a festival and school known for cultivating future generations of head-bangers and mosh-pit maniacs, putting on an honest-to-goodness electronic festival. Split up between “Traditional,” “Hip-hop” and “Bass” stages, Midi has assembled an interesting lineup of local MCs and DJs to play a one-day festival in Shanghai.

Continue reading →

Chinese Festival Consumers are Smart, Don’t Ya Know?

Posted on by
2

Editor’s note: a bit delayed, but this piece is as much about the general state of branding and commercial presence at large outdoor music festivals as it is about any specific event. It was written after attending Midi 2012 in Shanghai.

China’s Midi Festival is a crazy beast. The first time we attended was in May 2006; it was our first sighting of the paradox that was modern China: a park full of rock and metal fans stomping and moshing to mohawked and dreadlocked bands who in turn were singing about those issues close to their hearts and sensitive to the country surrounding this little enclave in time and space.  It took our collective breaths away.

Midi is the Glastonbury of China in so many ways: the fans who attend Midi are a coalescence of the disaffected 90’s generation of punks and rockers who worked in the margins of the margins because of a heartfelt desire to change things.  The people that come really contribute to the vibe of the festival rather than expecting to be passively entertained.  The merchandise is better, the people are crazier, there are more smiles, more impromptu jam sessions, more hugging and general random acts of kindness than anywhere else in China.

The other thing that Glastonbury and Midi share is a generous and powerful gesture to give up the massively lucrative “billboards” that are their respective mainstages, and instead give them to good causes.  In Glastonbury’s case, the charities Wateraid and Greenpeace have pride of place on the Pyramid Stage. In Midi’s case the Tang Stages in 2011 and 2012 plus the overall festival VI (programmes, flyers, posters) were devoted to causes that the organizers consider important: in 2011 the eradication of the Chinese trade in bear bile in, and in 2012, drawing attention to urban China’s dangerous pollution levels: PM2.5.

[this was true at the time of writing: in fact, in 2012 Midi did succumb and sold main stage branding to Vans for the Beijing festival].

We’d like to put it out there that WE THINK THIS IS FUCKING AWESOME.  We don’t know of any other examples of powerful social movements in China using their influence to stand up to some of the systemic problems that exist here.  (We would love some comments to share what inevitable others are out there)

Continue reading →

Vans敢放 “Dare to Play” online mixtape

Posted on by
Reply

Love is a mixtape, so they say. But for Vans x Midi Festival 2012, your mixtape is more of a risk than a love letter. Working with China’s favorite semi-legal streaming service Xiami as well as Sina Weibo and Renren, Vans敢放 is a new breed of social mixtape, where users are making it for themselves, their friends, and that cute girl from 2nd period chemistry class.

A simple (and completely Chinese) interface that lets users login with either their Xiami, Sina Weibo or Renren accounts. Once you’re in, you pick songs according to 5 questions posed by Vans:

1) The song you could play over and over again for the rest of your life
2) Your secret guilty pleasure song
3) The song you practise a lot but wouldn’t dare sing in KTV
4) A song that you want to recommend to someone you know (they give you the option to @ anyone on Weibo), that they wouldn’t think of listening to given the choice
5) A fantastic song that someone hasn’t listened to yet (you can also @ the person)

Continue reading →

Mos Def cancels Midi

Posted on by
Reply

Mos Def was the slightly surprising international headliner for Beijing’s Midi Festival this weekend. The most unreliable man in showbizness, now known only as Yasiin Bey and famed for bringing his Australian promoter to tears and bankruptcy had been booked by Vans to bring an international flavor to their mega sponsorship of the event.

Living up to his reputation, he has pulled out of his China trip with but a few days to go, citing personal problems. His flights were booked and his performance approved. Visas were already stamped in his passport.

He has been replaced by He Yong on the Midi Tang Stage on Monday night. This cancellation follows hot on the heels of Zhang Chu’s withdrawal……

Midi hold press conference about Strawberry taking over their Zhenjiang festival

Posted on by
2

Way back when we first reported on Midi Zhenjiang suddenly turning into Strawberry Zhenjiang, Midi made it clear that once their Rizhao festival was over, they would hold a press conference to tell all. The Beijinger kindly reported on the press conference that was just held in which Zhang Fan, Liu Huan and Shan Wei seem to have been very restrained in naming and shaming and have demanded an explanation for how this could have happened. Key excerpts from the Beijinger:

a Midi employee named Liu Chang began to hear disturbing rumors; a promoter for another band in their lineup, German metal band The Ocean, claimed that they had been invited to play another festival (i.e. Strawberry) at the same time in the same city

When asked whether they have communicated with Modern Sky and what response they might have received, Midi’s representatives said only “We wish them success,” because “they are all old friends, after all.”

“It’s as if I had invited Shan Wei to my place to have dinner and he promised me that he would come. I bought a lot of food, cooked a whole meal and was waiting for him happily. Then he called me 15 minutes before he was scheduled to arrive – to say that he was having dinner with Liu Huan instead.”

Zhenjiang Wenguang now claims that Midi must hold a music festival in their city later this year. In response, Midi wants them to first apologize and then to explain exactly how to hold a successful outdoor music festival in the wintertime.

Supporters of Midi have called upon the public to boycott “that other music festival.” And we still don’t know how it will end

High profile press conferences, underhand deals, China’s music festival has come a long way in a few short years………. in the right direction?

In another side note, we came across this article in Chinese a couple of weeks back – an article that suggests the decision was made on the Zhenjiang side because Strawberry’s target audience was a better fit for the real estate money that was actually behind this whole thing.

Again, some key pullouts via Google Translate:

According to the “Yangtze River Strawberry Music Festival,” one of the organizers of the source told reporters, Zhenjiang, “Ming La dark push” the real reason from the Midi Music Festival in the real estate needs. Real estate that “Strawberry,” the audience is relatively more “white collar”, more spending power, advertisers are also co-Benz Smart, Le Pen and other major international brands, these new real estate projects to promote a greater effect.

 

No Midi Zhenjiang this year

Posted on by
7

UPDATE: Modern Sky have just released a statement on their Douban.

In May 2009, Midi Festival decamped from Beijing and set up shop in their traditional national holiday berth in a town in Jiangsu province called Zhenjiang. The festival was a success and was the first of many times over the last few years that China’s more famous festivals and festival organizers were invited to provincial towns to attract attention and tourism. We predicted this back in 2009 and so it has come to pass, with government funding making up the majority of the 100 or so festivals that have sprung up in the last couple of years.

Midi did it’s job pretty well, drawing a huge amount of attention to the town that was previously most famous for the manufacture of vinegar, with two pretty decent festivals by all accounts (we didn’t make it to either).

So we were surprised when Midi officially announced on Weibo yesterday that they wouldn’t be doing a 2011 version, despite the fact that all systems were go until a week ago. There is plenty of mud being slung on various Chinese SNS/ forums, and apparently Midi will make a formal announcement after their Rizhao festival in early August. Miserable Faith have made their thoughts plain on Weibo too. What have you heard?

The Beijing festivals: Pinggu, Strawberry and Midi in review

Posted on by
1

Music Festival Madness: May Holiday Festival Weekend 2011

Perhaps to make up for a dearth of musical festivities elsewhere, Beijing municipality –  because let’s be honest, most of these festivals were in locations much closer to Hebei than Tiananmen – managed to outdo itself with five major music festivals this May Holiday season, of which your intrepid Radar correspondents attended the “Big Three:” China Music Valley, MIDI, and Strawberry.

The newcomer to scene this year is China Music Valley, which featured a heavy-hitting, Western-music-centric lineup in the wild hinterlands of Pinggu District east of Beijing. Produced by Gehua-LiveNation and funded in large part by various levels of local and municipal governments, it resembled the first year of a festival. The two stages were set up right next to each other, so that performances were staggered between the two all day. Windstorms buffeted the valley venue which functions as a ski resort in the winter months. Day One of the festival featured Avril Lavigne, and she was obviously the main attraction to the festival-goers, approximately 90% of whom were locals. We met 14-year old girls who were dropped off by their parents, metal-and-Avril-loving young gentlemen from Changchun and many, many police and baoan, who ringed the perimeter of the festival grounds like menacing, confused tentpoles.

Continue reading →

What’s going on? Suzhou Strawberry canceled…

Posted on by
6

UPDATE: There has been an official update on Douban. Apparently,

because of the recent thunderstorms, the basic facilities (at the Wujiang site) have been badly damaged, and can’t be fixed in a short time. so the festival has to be postponed, the new dates to be announced

It seems like the Gods of Chinese Music are conspiring against us on the eve of another landmark May Holiday where music festivals are slated to take over the country

First, Midi Festival in Beijing is forced to leave its spiritual Haidian Park home

Second, a spate of closures and cancellations in Beijing.

Third, and most seriously, it seems like the inaugural Strawberry Festival in Wujiang near Suzhou has been cancelled. Details are sketchy at present. We have picked up the following though:

  • mlive has stopped selling presale tickets
  • all volunteers have been informed that training is cancelled
  • the site setup has been stopped
  • Zuoxiao Zuzhou was taken to the local police station straight from the airport yesterday. He is out now, but he mentioned on Weibo that the festival organizers should not use the microblog broadcast on big screens: too risky
  • some bands such as Sound Fragment have confirmed the cancellation

This is all really bad for our industry. Part of an increasing cyclical trend away from freed0m of expressi0n?

UPDATE 2: courtesy of @mightyboom (this is the most believable for us)

Suzhou Strawberry Fest has been cancelled due to an unexpected uproar at Zhouzhuang Folk fest last weekend.

Last weekend’s Zhouzhuang Folk Festival, someone sent a message containing “Aye Way Way (sic.)” to the public tweet channel, which has been shown on the big screen. Aye Way Way, the famous Chinese dis-a-dent artist, was ‘kidnapped’ by police at Beijing Airport early this April. The message was deleted immediately, however, it did not stop people from tweeting more. Shortly ahead of Zuo Xiao Zu Zhou, a famous underground folk musician, came up on stage, young folks started yelling “Aye Way Way”. The whole ‘accident’ wasn’t planned at all, but it was one of the greatest reactions within China regarding the authority detaining Aye Way Way.

Until now, Aye Way Way has been missing for almost a month.

“Modern Sky”, known as the most influential Chinese indie label, was the host of both Zhouzhuang & Strawberry Fests.