![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2010\/08\/DSC_0369.jpg\" "\\"DSC_0369\\"")
<\/a>The crowd is ready to rock!<\/p><\/div>\n
Well, on the other side of the world, the music festival business is picking up here in \u4e2d\u56fd.\u00a0 Just a few years ago, Chinese people couldn’t fathom attending a multi-day, outdoor, camping music festival.\u00a0 Thanks to government suspicions about the evils of rock and roll (\u6447\u6eda – y\u00e1o g\u01d4n), and the potential unrest and protests that could accompany an outdoor concert (\u97f3\u4e50\u4f1a – y\u012bn yu\u00e8 hu\u00ec), it was nearly impossible to organize such an event.<\/p>\n
However, as is the case with just about everything in China these days, things have changed.\u00a0 Jump forward to the summer of 2010, and you find an abundance of music festivals scattered all across the country.\u00a0 From the Midi Festival in the capital city of Beijing, to the West Lake Festival in scenic Hangzhou, to the In Music Festival up in the grasslands of Hebei province, music fans have plenty of options these days for weekends full of said evil rock and roll!<\/p>\n
Click here for a list of 2010 music festivals in China.<\/a><\/p>\n So… why the change?\u00a0 How have music festivals suddenly sprung up all around China?<\/p>\n A trio of out of control rock and roll fans!<\/p><\/div>\n To begin with, China has been trying to make the shift from a manufacturing economy to a non-manufacturing economy in many of its biggest cities.\u00a0 The result – government funding to boost the “creative industry<\/a>.”\u00a0 Some of this funding has in recent years gone to staging music festivals, which have started to actually bring in a profit.\u00a0 This change in attitudes represents a broader change in China – the rock music that once terrified the Communist Party (see the Wiki article on famous rocker \u5d14\u5065 – <\/big>Cu\u012b Ji\u00e0n<\/a>) now has local governments excited about making money.\u00a0 In new China, local governments are more concerned with being able to \u4ece\u67d0\u4e8b\u4e2d\u83b7\u76ca (c\u00f3ng m\u01d2u sh\u00ec zh\u014dng hu\u00f2 y\u00ec – profit from something) than they are in keeping people away from rock music.<\/p>\n While this is exciting news for music fans, we have to remind ourselves that China is still very much a rookie when it comes to putting on large scale music festivals.\u00a0 As is often the case here, proper planning and organization are ignored in favor of a “hurry up and do it” approach.\u00a0 While this has been evident in both of the music festivals I have attended thus far in China, these problems are better explained by someone who has been behind the scenes at many of these events.\u00a0 For a better review of the growing pains of Chinese music festivals, read this article<\/a> from Helen Feng, lead singer of the group Pet Conspiracy<\/a>.<\/p>\n Regardless of these problems, as an avid concert-goer I’m still thrilled about the growth of the music scene in China, and I’m excited to see what the future has in store for music festivals in China.<\/p>\n \n<\/a>