Do music festivals also have a chain of disdain?

Author | Ding Qianwen Edit | Fan Zhihui

With the end of the first half of 2023, the blowout music festival has also been 369 due to the word of mouth among music fans.

On July 10, a large number of music fans denounced the false ticket sales of the Xi'an Cynical TIME Music Festival. The reason is that when a large number of music fans paid on multiple ticketing platforms, they found that the VIP ticket checked on July 16 would be displayed as July 15, and some of the "fooled" fans who bought tickets with non-checked dates had to complain and defend their rights, and this ticketing farce also attracted the attention of the Xi'an Municipal Supervision Bureau to intervene.

As a new music festival, Xi'an Cynical TIME Music Festival "died in society" the audience circle and was criticized as "one of the most fraudulent music festivals in history".

Coincidentally, the Songshan Music Festival that just passed was also detailed by music fans for the "six deadly sins" such as skipping tickets, plagiarism, temporary expansion of venues, and breach of contract and failure to provide artist travel reception; DIGI GETTO from Chengdu even announced his withdrawal from the Songshan Music Festival because the organizer failed to fulfill the payment according to the contract, coordinated the audition and lost contact for many times.

All this has also caused many ticket-buying fans to protest with dissatisfaction, pointing out that the Songshan Music Festival is the "most crotch-pulling music festival", and placing it at the end of the music festival's contempt chain.

I don't know when the "coffee spots" of oversaturated music festivals have gradually divided into good and bad in the minds of the audience, and an invisible chain of contempt has also straddled these old and new music festival brands.

The festival also has a chain of disdain

As Liang Long said in 2019 when talking about the phenomenon of music fans "not looking at each other" in the field of music festivals, the difference in groups has created the escalation of this cultural phenomenon, and the earliest Chinese music festival scene is too tense, "At present, there may still be a little too nervous from the music benchmark, you are pop, I am rock, he is hip-hop, you are folk, and then everyone has seen the kind of jokes on the Internet that abuse each other and abuse me." ”

Compared to the contempt chain of different genres in the music industry, which is still somewhat controversial, the contempt chain of music festivals is very simple - lineup rock or not is the first meaning.

With the rise of more and more new music festivals, there are many controversial lineups such as rolling platters, traffic idols and band platters, and voice actors and rock bands on the same stage. And this large-scale patchwork involving multiple fan attributes has also made the festival no longer the exclusive domain of rock fans and independent music, and gradually evolved into a platter concert with unclear positioning.

For example, the Songshan Music Festival, which ended at the end of June, was complained by the West Lake Music Festival official "You can also rock" because it was full of Thai traffic artists and rappers, and was suspected of plagiarizing the Westlake Music Festival copywriting in the ticket sales copywriting and calling itself "rock". ", and some netizens pointed out that "the platter show of cutting leeks, the names of rock and music festivals have been tarnished."

It is undeniable that even if the festival itself is a commercial product, due to the deep binding with cultural elements, it naturally produces a comparison of advantages and disadvantages in front of different audiences. This kind of rock is not like rap and traffic crowding, and it is not an exception in domestic music festivals.

For example, at the sensational Yinchuan Lebao Music Festival in 2017, the "look down" scolding war between Yasha fans and Li Yuchun fans, which was originally a farce for the band to mention "Brother Chun" in public, expanded into a struggle between rock and pop in the line between the two sets of fans. Nowadays, music festivals that involve excessive elements of traffic artists are firmly at the bottom of the chain of contempt, and the music festivals on the market are further distinguished by fans as "midi music festivals and others".

On the other hand, there is also a certain chain of contempt between overseas musicians and imported music festival IPs and local musicians and local music festival IPs.

Under the perspective of globalization, the European and American music scene has been in the C position of world popular culture for many years, which has led to the fact that the IP of European and American music festivals has often become a popular wind vane for mainland music fans. For example, under the electronic music category, music fans generally assume that European and American avant-garde experimental music festivals and mainstream electronic syllables in Europe and the United States firmly occupy the top of the contempt chain, while domestic electronic syllabic IP is "not an electric syllable"; Similarly, the status of shortlisted niche DJs and top 100 DJs is also much higher than that of domestic DJs and Tuhi DJs. On social platforms, there were also fierce remarks that "mainland music festivals are inferior to Hong Kong music festivals, and Hong Kong music festivals are not as good as European and American music festivals".

In addition, some music festivals named or hosted by new consumer brands are also regarded by certain colored glasses, such as Sweet Lala, Jiang Xiaobai and other new players, because they cannot reach the same level of operation as traditional music festival IP, and even fill a large number of network anchors, Internet celebrity musicians, traffic idols and even popular comedian to ensure high ticket prices and ticket rates, which is regarded as an act of salvaging quick money and disrupting the market, and also because it is difficult to ensure the standard of venue equipment as a cross-border novice, causing music fans to complain.

Especially since the recovery of the performance market this year, more and more new music festivals have entered the market, and this "trial" has become more frequent.

Different festival brands form a so-called priority ranking in the minds of consumer audiences, and many new music festivals are referred to as "pheasant" or "copycat" music festivals, entering the bottom of the festival disdain chain. For example, on social platforms, Moyin Music Festival, Manghe Music Festival, Songshan Music Festival, Yanqi Lake Music Festival, etc. have all been awarded the "Pheasant" Music Festival due to chaotic ticket sales and unsatisfactory viewing experience.

It is not difficult to see that there has always been a scale in the minds of consumer audiences to judge the quality of music festivals, and although higher ticket prices are a major factor, the production level is the focus of attention. It is precisely because of the perfunctory content production and on-site experience of some music festivals that music fans have become more and more strict in judging music festivals.

Do festivals need a chain of disdain?

Then again, the chain of disdain is more like "bitter medicine" for music festivals.

The existence of a chain of disdain at music festivals is determined by the word-of-mouth established in the audience market. According to the "2022 China Performance Market Annual Report", the main consumption of the performance market comes from young people aged 18 to 34, which account for more than 76% of the ticket buyers in a single consecutive year, of which women account for more than 66%. In other words, this major consumer group also determines the perception of different music festivals on a public level.

To some extent, this chain of festival disdain, which is directly affected by fan consumption in the process of commercialization, is also determined by consumerism. In essence, the chain of contempt spawned by these is a counter-mainstream consumer culture generated by the audience highlighting individual consumption and distinguishing the mainstream cultural tendency.

On this basis, the professionalism and conscience of all levels of the festival have become the key factors, that is, from the beginning of the ticketing system to the live performance and after-sales service, whether it can provide the audience with a unique consumer experience with a mature operation system.

For example, the Hong Kong Clockenflap Music Festival, which has a high reputation among music fans, is a music festival with a combination of public and niche, clear lineup, professional venue equipment, and the establishment of a stable trading Ticketflap ticketing website.

More importantly, current feedback from the festival market is the direct cause of the contempt chain.

Looking back at the first half of 2023, the competition in the music festival market has fallen into anxiety, but there are very few music festivals with real reputation, and the overall competition scope is still concentrated in low-level "involution"; Homogenization, fast food, high ticket prices and low experience have become more and more serious, and music festival peers have gradually moved towards "comparing each other".

While players such as the Midi Music Festival and the Spring Excursion Music Festival are praised for their value for money, there are also players such as the Ear Wave Music Festival and the Grapefruit Music Festival who challenge the bottom line of the market with suspected fraud, ticket skipping and other bad or illegal behaviors, which also forces the festival market to suffer more and more fierce "stigma" damage.

On the other hand, during the outbreak of the performance market, a large number of music festivals increased their efforts to promote online and offline marketing, which inevitably caused mismatches, and many mixed organizers also lowered the market reputation of music festivals. At present, not only local cultural and tourism departments have joined, but also unknown media companies are all over the music festival inside and outside, regardless of the music festival put on the agenda, but can not undertake the production and execution of a music festival, ticketing irregularities, venue problems and other chaos are endless.

For example, the Songshan Music Festival, which was listed as six deadly sins, was frequently given a verdict by netizens as "better not to do" because of its frequent conditions from publicity to landing and even the ending, and even involved illegal acts for a while. As for whether it can become a long-term music festival IP, although it is difficult to make a conclusion, it is obvious that the reputation of the organizer and the brand of Songshan Music Festival is already "notorious" in the hearts of the audience, which is undoubtedly self-destructive IP.

Apparently, after three years of backlog, music festivals have blossomed to concentrate long-standing problems. In the final analysis, focusing on the purpose of making quick money and not paying attention to content production and fan experience will naturally be difficult to escape the end of being chosen and rejected by the audience.

What's more, after the chaotic collision in the first half of the year, the so-called "retaliatory consumption" of the audience has also returned to the rational stage, and the music festival of personalization, diversification, high-quality standards and production will be more favored, and the popular performance lineup with serious homogenization is no longer an eye-catching means of blind ticket purchase.

For example, the Tianjin Wugo World Music Festival, due to high ticket prices, open-air sand performances and a homogeneous performance lineup, tickets could not be sold, and fell into the embarrassing situation of having to reduce prices the day before the show, and was complained by music fans as "the worst music festival in history".

However, it is not difficult to see that the ranking order of the music festival's despised chain is actually a way for consumer audiences to spur market iteration and prevent bad money from driving out good money, helping the music festival market to get back on track, rather than "everything can be a music festival".

epilogue

It is undeniable that the festival has also evolved into a more diverse and vertical music festival brand in the evolution of the times. And some of these feather-cherishing music festival brands have successfully entered the mainstream circle as emerging players, or have a solid reputation and accumulated IP value.

Just as Old Wolf lamented about the Hedgehog Band and Sis and Sail's cooperation, "Folk and rock have a so-called chain of disdain, and I think the mutual understanding and integration of music is a high realm", and the same is true between music festivals.

But in the final analysis, the existence of the festival disdain chain represents the differentiation trend of the audience circle, and also reflects that the audience is consciously measuring the cost performance of the music festival, no longer too blind, and the aesthetics of the audience also put forward certain quality requirements for the music festival, which is not determined by the so-called superiority.

What we want to see is that the music festival market, which is sounded by the chain of disdain, can truly "roll up" instead of making a quick money in a senseless swing.