BEIJING, May 8 (Reporter Ren Siyu) Has the music festival, which is sought after by young people, ushered in a big outbreak?
On May 6th, Barley released "Observation on the May 1st Performance in 2021". The report shows that during the May 1st holiday, there were over 3,800 professional performances offline, among which the box office of Livehouse, Talk Show and Music Festival increased by more than 250% compared with the same period in 2019.
On social networks, topics such as "Qin Hao watched Yi Nengjing’s performance", "Faye Wong lost his hat again at Strawberry Music Festival" and "A man wearing protective clothing and dancing in Shandong Music Festival" have been on the hot search list. Music festivals, which were originally regarded as minority entertainment activities, have begun to become one of the lifestyles that everyone likes to see and hear.
Source: Weibo screenshot.
Music Festival becomes a holiday "new standard"
According to the monitoring of China Performance Industry Association, during the "May 1" holiday this year, there were about 14,000 performances nationwide, with a box office income of 860 million yuan, and more than 6 million people watched performances during the holiday, of which more than 40% were tourists, and 12% were music festivals and concerts.
From last year’s "Eleventh" holiday to this year’s "May Day" holiday, music festivals have increasingly become popular items for people to travel and entertain.
The data shows that over 40% of users choose music festival as their first choice for holiday and leisure during the May 1 holiday this year, and 60% of users who buy music festival choose to watch performances across cities. Strawberry Music Festival, Midi Music Festival, Guochao Music Festival and Midou Music Festival were held in many places, and famous musicians and bands such as Cui Jian, Pu Shu, Xu Wei, New Pants, Mourning and Wang Jia were among the guests.
2021 Beijing Strawberry Music Festival was held in Beijing Shiyuan Park. Source: Video screenshot.
While the fans are busy catching up with the music festival, the musicians are even more busy. According to the public itinerary of the five-person band, they moved to Changzhou, Shanghai, Nanjing and Beijing to participate in the music festival within four days. "Performing is our labor," they sighed at the Weibo.
According to barley data, there were 56 music festivals in the country during the five-day holiday, which was 37% higher than the same period in 2019. The box office and attendance increased by 252% and 173% respectively compared with 2019.
Source: Barley "2021 May 1st Performance Observation".
Generally speaking, during the holiday period, live performances recovered strongly, and various performances such as music, theater and Quyuan Zatan were abundant, the box office growth rate was obvious, and the consumption power of head projects was strong; It is becoming a trend to travel with literature, and the regional consumption preference is gradually broken; The market consumption structure tends to be younger, especially after 00.
You can watch music festivals at home?
Another new change that can be found from this year’s "May Day" holiday is that the music festival is opening up "new territory" on a large scale.
Compared with 2019 and 2020, this year’s music festivals can be described as blooming everywhere. The major brand music festivals are not only concentrated in cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, but also sink to second-and third-tier cities such as Binzhou in Shandong, Changzhou in Jiangsu, Jiaozuo in Henan and Wanning in Hainan.
Source: barley net screenshot.
From the industry point of view, the number of vertical music festivals is also increasing, such as YOLO Music Festival in Changsha, Hunan Province and M_DSK Music Festival in Riyuewan, Wanning, Hainan Province, which focuses on rap music, Midi Music Festival in the Warring States Period in Chengdu focuses on heavy music, and Hainan Little Strawberry Parent-child Music Festival focuses on parent-child themes, providing users with different music preferences with sub-categories of music performance choices.
Another noteworthy phenomenon is that the music festival is becoming a "hard signboard" for some cities to build cultural tourism brands and drain holidays. According to barley data, during the May Day holiday, many music festivals were held in tourist cities, such as Changzhou Taihu Bay Music Festival, Changzhou Xinlong Forest Music Festival, Wanning Riyuewan M_DSK Music Festival, Jiaozuo Yuntaishan Music Festival and so on.
For example, the popular Midi Music Festival in Jinan, Shandong Province and the Midi Music Festival in Binzhou this year were supported by the local government in terms of policies and supporting services.
According to media reports, before the start of Binzhou Midi Music Festival, it only took more than 20 days for the local area to complete the leveling of more than 280 mu of site, the laying of 18,000 square meters of turf, the planning of more than 7,000 parking spaces, the construction of more than 3,000 meters of enclosures, the construction of more than 140 bathrooms and the preparation and construction of various functional areas such as camping and drinking water areas. In order to cooperate with Jinan Midi Music Festival, Jinan Metro also extended the operation time of Lines 1, 2 and 3 to 24 o’clock, and adjusted the running interval to 10 minutes between 22 o’clock and 24 o’clock.
Posters of 2021 Jinan Midi Music Festival and Binzhou Midi Music Festival.
The consumption drainage brought by the music festival is also considerable. According to the organizer’s statistics, the fans of Jinan Midi Music Festival from outside the province account for about 65%. It is roughly estimated that the consumption related to cultural tourism during the local holidays will increase by about 20%. According to barley data, during the May Day holiday this year, Hainan Wanning Riyuewan M_DSK Music Festival also made Wanning, a county-level city, among the top ten in China.
What kind of music festival do the audience need?
However, under the circumstances that music festivals are blooming everywhere and tickets are rising, is the audience’s experience fully satisfied?
From last year’s National Day to this year’s "May Day" holiday, the topic of rising ticket prices for music festivals is often mentioned. In the impression of some viewers, the single-day ticket price of music festivals in the past few years was often concentrated in 80 to 200 yuan, but during the small holiday this year, the single-day ticket price of individual music festivals has reached 500 yuan or even more than 1,000 yuan.
Source: barley net screenshot.
As for the reasons for the price increase of the music festival, industry analysts said that on the one hand, the number of tickets sold under the epidemic prevention and control policy is limited, and on the other hand, the production costs in all aspects are getting higher and higher, especially the appearance fees of some artists. In recent years, with the blessing of bands and rap variety shows, the value of some musicians has risen sharply. In addition, the participation of pop singers with their own popularity and fans has increased the popularity of the music festival.
Although the consumption enthusiasm of the music festival has not diminished, the audience also has higher requirements for on-site service and viewing experience.
Affected by the global epidemic, the homogenization of the performance lineup of the music festival has become more and more obvious. In the absence of overseas artists, New Pants, Tong Yang, Re TROS, Wu Tiao and other head musicians performed everywhere, and most of the audience saw old acquaintances rather than fresh faces at the festival. How to play new tricks in the lineup and collocation of the festival is one of the problems that the organizers need to consider.
Music festivals are usually held outdoors, so in addition to the lineup of performances, the audio effects, security order, transportation, accommodation, water supply and toilets on the spot are also issues that the audience are very concerned about. Every year, some music festivals are met with large-scale spit by netizens after the end, and the experience of music festivals strongly affects everyone’s impression of a city.
What kind of music festival do fans like? The Spring Tour Music Festival held in Sichuan in April this year won a good reputation. Although the scale is not huge, the atmosphere is relaxed enough. The audience can eat hot pot, play mahjong and set up tents. The on-site security guards are not in fierce confrontation with fans, but dance and sing with young people to feel the joy of music together.
Source: screenshot of Weibo’s comments.
With the recovery of the offline performance market, it is foreseeable that there will be more and more music festivals in the future. While the competition is becoming more and more fierce, the organizers should start from the needs of the audience and use more complete supporting services to let the fans fully feel the spiritual satisfaction of the music festival.