Author | Ding Qianwen Edit | Fan Zhihui
The "hundred schools of thought" in the new first-tier cities are pressing the first-tier cities to become the preferred choice for large-scale performances.
On April 26, Zhou Chuanxiong's 2023 "Never Forget" tour Suzhou Station officially opened tickets, and it was announced to be sold out as soon as it went on sale. Different from the past, among the mainland performance sites, only Shanghai is currently a first-tier city performance station. The remaining four stations are all new first-tier cities including Suzhou, Wuhan, Ningbo and Tianjin, and they are all shown to be sold out after the invoice is issued.
And this scene is not unique. According to the statistics of the Beijing News, as of April 11, Wuhan ranked first in the country in terms of large-scale performances with 12 concert projects and 1 music festival, and well-known singers from both sides of the strait and three places, such as Xue Zhiqian, Li Ronghao, Zhang Jie, Hua Chenyu, Liang Jingru, etc., vied to schedule here.
The holding of large-scale concerts is considered to be an important symbol of the recovery of the performance industry. At present, it seems that the new first-tier cities are becoming the first choice in the performance market.
The new front line has become the first choice in the performance market
Compared with first-tier cities, the new first-tier performance market has responded more quickly to recovery, which can be described as a "vanguard" position.
As the name implies, new first-tier cities are also "alternate" echelons of first-tier cities, and their commercial resource concentration, urban population activity, lifestyle diversity, future plasticity and hub role are extremely important judging criteria, and these five indicators are also the reference for influencing concerts and music festivals to choose a large number of new front-line landings.
According to official data released in April this year, there are a total of 16 new first-tier cities, including Hangzhou, Chengdu, Nanjing, Suzhou, Chongqing, Wuhan, Ningbo, Qingdao, Changsha, Tianjin, Foshan, Hefei, Xi'an, Zhengzhou, etc., showing a situation of catching up with the four first-tier cities of "Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen".
Echoing this, the landing of large-scale performances such as concerts and music festivals is also the same, and most of the above-mentioned new first-tier cities are the main billing bases.
Data show that in addition to Wuhan, as of April 11, Nanjing has also officially announced the concerts of head singers such as Xue Zhiqian , Li Ronghao and Zhang Jie, with a total number of performances as high as 10, ranking third in the country, and Suzhou, Changsha, Xi'an and other new front-line also have more than 7 performance projects.
The pace of reopening the performance market in the new first-tier cities is obviously faster, especially in the new first-tier cities in the south and central China. This phenomenon is also conducive to consumers in surrounding cities to carry out flexible cross-city viewing, bringing more considerable attendance to concerts and music festivals. Previously, according to the data of the first quarter of the China Performing Arts Association, the proportion of consumers watching cross-city performances increased sharply compared with last year, and the average cross-city viewing rate exceeded 50% of the total number of ticket buyers.
It is worth noting that the performance content in the new first-tier cities is also mainly based on concerts, and the singers holding concerts in different new first-tier cities also have a very high overlap rate. For example, Zhang Jie, Li Ronghao, Liang Jingru, etc. all agreed to sing in Wuhan, Nanjing, Changsha and other places, and even had a hot situation.
In contrast, music festivals are more scattered, showing a distribution trend of focusing on the new line and radiating the second and third lines. For example, the head IP Strawberry Music Festival of the music festival has successively become the first officially announced music festival in Wuhan, Changsha, Xi'an and other new first-tier cities this year, and uses the surrounding second-tier cities (such as Nanchang) as an alternative to share the flow of people and add venues.
On the other hand, with the full liberalization of the market, the "retaliatory consumption" of music fans who have been dormant for three years has also promoted the rise of ticket prices in the short term. Compared with first-tier cities, the ticket prices of new first-tier performances are also relatively preferential and mainly concentrated in the music festival sector. For example, this year's Strawberry Music Festival held in the new first-tier city of Foshan for a single day ticket price of 380 yuan, while the first-tier city of Beijing pre-sale a single-day ticket price is 450 yuan. On the contrary, the concert presents a more uniform standard in the holding of various provinces and cities, and on the whole, there is no difference between the first line, the new first line and even the second line, all of which are priced the same.
However, due to the fact that some artists and performances are very cost-effective, there has also been a price speculation situation that is difficult to find, not only the high price of scalpers, but also some fans have the status quo of premium ticket transfer. For example, Zhang Jie's concert Hefei Station, because of its convenient transportation and friendliness to surrounding cross-city performances, has become a hot ticket, and it has been fried twice or more in the hands of scalpers.
It can be said that it is the general trend that new first-tier and even second-tier cities will become the first choice for large-scale performances after recovery, and the "fall out of favor" of first-tier cities is also reasonable.
Why have first-tier cities "fallen out of favor"?
Under the recent wave of retaliatory recovery, there is no doubt that large-scale concerts and music festivals are becoming new flashpoints in cultural tourism consumption, rather than the priority of response speed in first-tier cities, in essence, it is also an important part of local efforts to promote the city's reputation and revitalize cultural tourism consumption.
According to the "Economic Blue Book: Analysis and Forecast of China's Economic Situation in 2023" jointly released by the Institute of Quantitative and Technical Economics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the Social Sciences Academic Publishing House, in the first half of 2022 alone, the growth rate of household consumption in new first-tier cities reached 17.1%, nearly 14.4% higher than the growth rate of 2.7% in first- and second-tier cities. The Blue Book also points out that the rise of young people and new first-line consumer groups is accelerating. The young group, especially college students, is also the main force of new front-line performance consumption.
In the ranking of the number of college students in 36 key cities last year, Wuhan occupied the first place with more than 1.68 million, while Guangzhou, Zhengzhou, Chengdu and Chongqing ranked in the top five. In other words, a larger group of young consumers also represents a certain fan economy, and their willingness to consume is often higher. For example, in addition to Jay Chou, Zhang Jie and other head echelons sold out immediately, Zhou Chuanxiong, Zhang Xinzhe and other more established "nostalgic departments" have also gained a certain group of young people to buy tickets as a family, and many netizens said that this ticket purchase is mostly to lead parents and elders to "realize their dreams".
At the same time, in order to develop the cultural tourism economy, local cultural tourism will combine "concert + cultural tourism" and "music festival + cultural tourism" with the times, and on the basis of meeting the needs of spectators, improve the utilization rate of local scenic spots and venues, and maximize the economic benefits of tourism.
For example, in order to welcome the arrival of the Huangbohai Midi Music Festival during the May Day holiday, Yantai not only launched the linkage benefit of free scenic spot tickets with midi tickets, but also opened multiple batches of trains to ensure the holiday fan experience. Compared with the overpopulation of first-tier cities, high machine wine, and few preferential policies, the expansion of music performances in new first-tier and even second-tier cities has also made fans pay more attention to cost-effective choices, and also balanced the phenomenon of high ticket prices and high costs restricting audience viewing.
Xiao Ou, a fan who bought tickets for Xue Zhiqian's 2023 "Alien Objects" tour Quzhou Station, said that compared with his own Shanghai, the choice of Quzhou venue is also based on the convenience provided by the local area for this concert, "From before the ticket to after it is sold out, the price increase of machine wine in Quzhou is not particularly large, and the travel tips such as transportation route guidance, eating and consumption are very clear." Compared with the 10-fold increase in machine wine in the north and the experience of relying on self-reliance without any clue, it must be Quzhou's approach, which is more conducive to our spare time to travel. ”
According to the official data released by Quzhou, Quzhou received about 107,200 tourists during Xue Zhiqian's concert on March 18 and 19, of which 63% stayed for 2 days or more. In addition to the concert, Quzhou attractions such as Shuitingmen Scenic Area and Confucius Temple have also become popular check-in places, and Quzhou has also achieved tourism revenue of 124 million yuan due to the concert, driving consumption in related industries to 690 million yuan.
Not only that, in order to stimulate the "night economy" that has returned after the epidemic, local cultural tourism is also at the forefront of expanding performances, clearly taking music performances as the main cultural products for the prosperity and development of night tourism, which is also the most popular new form of cultural tourism.
According to the survey report of urban residents' consumption habits of the Ministry of Commerce, 60% of consumption in Chinese cities occurs at night, and in terms of per capita tourist consumption, nighttime consumption is three times that of daytime. The night leisure consumption scene created in the "music +" model is also further enriched by the holding of concerts and music festivals. For example, in March this year, Chengdu, which gathered many music festivals and concerts, showed a trend of high night consumption order transactions such as catering and hotel accommodation, and became a new first-tier city with the largest nighttime consumption. Sichuan Satellite TV also reported that since March, the overall order volume of night consumption in Chengdu has also increased by 26.6% year-on-year.
The most fundamental reason for the large number of performances to be transferred to new first-tier cities is that first-tier cities cannot provide sufficient venues and schedules for the blowout performance market. Previously, the Chinese Performing Arts Association mentioned that since the second quarter, the country has experienced different degrees of large-scale venue scheduling tension, and large-scale venues and venues in new first-tier cities have become the "new favorite" of diversion performances.
For example, Jay Chou's 2023 Carnival World Tour has not yet officially announced the performance arrangements in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, but he has finalized four consecutive performances in the Tianjin Olympic Sports Center from September 7 to September 10, and even went to the sinking market of the second and third tiers, and held large-scale concerts in Taiyuan and Haikou.
More importantly, for organizers, the new first-tier cities are also more optimistic in terms of venue rental, stage cost and date flexibility. Generally speaking, the venue will also charge a certain ticket fee and venue fee, the daily rent of the provincial main stadium is less than one million, while the stadium is more than one million yuan, and there are certain fluctuations according to different city standards.
However, based on the situation that many local governments and real estate developers "give the green light" to attract consumption from cultural tourism, it will also provide certain convenience, which is an excellent choice for artists with long performance cycles and complicated stage construction. For example, Wuhan has seven large-scale and evenly dispersed performance venues that can accommodate 10,000 people, such as Wuhan Sports Center Gymnasium, Wuhan Sports Center Stadium, Wuhan Garden Expo Park, and Optics Valley International Tennis Center, and is currently favored by head artists with large-scale performance needs.
Overall, in essence, this also confirms that concerts, music festivals, etc. have a clearer "urban cultural business card" appearance, which is undoubtedly a "two-way rush" for restarting the recovered performance market and restoring the local economy.
epilogue
In fact, whether it is the first line or the new first line or even the second line and the outside, music performance is an important carrier of current youth culture, and it is also the embodiment of concerts and music festivals gradually becoming popular demand, flooding into the sinking market and becoming more common and life-oriented.
According to Fliggy data, the number of hotel bookings around the May Day holiday concerts and music festivals increased by more than 20 times year-on-year; There are more than 200 concerts and music festivals suitable for cross-city viewing during the May Day holiday. This also means that cross-city viewing is still a popular trend, and concerts and music festivals have become an important pull for cultural tourism consumption. At the same time, it can be seen that the performance market is about to usher in the first outbreak window since the epidemic. How to seize this period to achieve a new highlight of cultural and tourism integration is also a major consumption opportunity for new first-tier cities and even all people.
With the spillover effect brought by the economy of more massive concerts and music festivals, new first-tier cities may also support a new pattern of cultural and entertainment consumption.
Typesetting | vision
This article is the original manuscript of Music Herald, reprinting and business cooperation, please contact us.