Tag Archives: wukesong arena

we’re baaaaccckkkk!

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Hello good people. Did you miss us? We missed you…

After 10 days of jungle/ beach inspired relaxation, we are back in the saddle and ready to roll. Here are some things we missed

  • Usher in Beijing – apparently a success with just over 7,000 tickets sold (very late-buying public by the sounds of things), a duet with Wang Lee Hom and lots of club based promo events. A review HERE (Xinhua – take with very large grain of salt), a short news piece on MSNBC HERE, and a video

  • the Guangzhou Niu Yu Zui festival, which, according to a friend of the Radar who was involved in programming a stage (that apparently didn’t get a PA or power for the entire weekend), took the concept of mismanagement and disorganization to another level (review to come)
  • the Suzhou Vitality/ Huli/ government sponsored thingie featuring Sinead O’Connor and Simple Plan. We are trying to secure a review of that as well, although word on the grapevine is that Suzhou was also incredibly poorly organized and attended.

This does seem to be the year of the Music Festival in China. The problem is, there is little, if any real experience in running a proper music festival here in China and let’s face it, a music festival is a very difficult beast to tame. There will be many more incidences of inadequate festival organization in the months/ years to come.

Recap of last week

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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.

3)  TransmitCHINA

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…

AEG has left the building

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In our (seemingly regular) season of big Western Entertainment company problems, we present a story about AEG.

After taking a full 16 months to get the Wukesong arena in Beijing match-fit, and opening it last October in a blaze of Beyonce glory (losing shirts in the process), AEG, the global entertainment company, have had their relationship with the venue “restructured”.  The owners of the property will now be paying all the bills (heating, light and wages).  Contract renegotiations for key staff are ongoing.

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The strength of China’s domestic music scene

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This site mostly concentrates on international touring artists and the “underground” domestic scene.  Sometimes it paints a difficult picture of the landscape here, which is certainly the case for these sectors, but this doesn’t mean that the music industry in China is all doom and gloom.  In fact, the pop end of the industry is working very nicely for those in it, most particularly

  • reality TV
  • endorsements
  • gala performances (the bizarre concept of taking X number of the hottest “stars” at that moment and get all of them to perform/ lipsynch one song each for glowstick waving fans on national TV)
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Beyonce reopens Wukesong

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Apart from the crazy Avril Lavigne show back in October 2008 (check out the hilarious video HERE), Wukesong Arena (the Olympic basketball arena in Beijing) has been closed for reconstruction for over a year.  Facilities giant Anschultz Entertainment Group (AEG) had signed a contract to take over management of Wukesong post Olympics.  The venue was supposed to have been ready for use, but the Chinese contractors must have “scrimped” somewhat as Wukesong has been mostly ripped down and rebuilt since then.

And so now it is properly open.  AEG have a good team in place, led by John Cappo, a 20 year China veteran who until recently ran the sports marketing group IMG here.  Beyonce brought the biggest LED screen that we’ve ever seen, apparently all 10k tickets were sold, and Ford and Budweiser got involved from a sponsorship perspective.  Whether or not the show made money is another matter, but now Beijing has China’s first truly multi-purpose arena.  How far ahead of the audiences is anyone’s guess.  It will be interesting to see what happens.

And, for a final pre-weekend flourish, some video of the event.