Starting from the Fuji Rock Music Festival, why can't the Chinese music festival knock on the door of the Asian market?
Author | Ding Qianwen Edit | Fan Zhihui
In the second half of 2023, what else can the blowout domestic music festival fight?
At the just-concluded Summer Sonic Music Festival and FUJI ROCK Music Festival (hereinafter referred to as Fuji Rock Music Festival), new and old artists representing the performance standards of Chinese singers such as Zhang Huimei and Liu Baixin left a bright mark on the scene of the international music festival with wonderful performances.
In China, FKJ, MOTORAMA and other overseas lineups also appeared at the Tianjin Bubble Island Music Festival performance, and She Her Hers and MOTORAMA "landed" again, and Kenichiro Nishihara and NIKI will soon appear in the Yangtze River Bubble Island Music Festival during the National Day holiday.
With the normalization of the performance market, the Asian music festival market has ushered in a more intensive and frequent exchange and circulation; Local music festival brands are also accelerating their integration with the international market to create a new generation of music festival IP.
Although domestic music festivals are showing prosperity, it is undeniable that Chinese music festivals are still far from truly integrating into the Asian music festival market.
Why can Fuji Rock Festival become Asia's top Peak?
When discussing the "international path" of domestic music festivals, it is worth comparing Japanese music festivals with mature operating systems as successful examples.
Compared with the Chinese music festival market, Japan is an earlier "old-school" market. As early as 1997, Japan's largest and most popular Fuji Rock Festival has been taking an international route since its inception. With the continuous development of the Asian economy, the pursuit of high-quality, diversified and personalized music by music fans has exploded, and the Fuji Rock Festival has also expanded the international atmosphere of the performers, from the previous overseas guests mainly British and American musicians, gradually throwing olive branches to South Korea and Chinese-speaking regions that belong to Asia.
As the world's second largest music market for many years, Japan's strong consumption power and high degree of industrialization have also attracted overseas musicians and companies to come in and get a piece of the pie.
For example, when Liu Baixin received an invitation to appear in the Fuji Rock Festival Eve Festival, Liu Baixin's agent Niko thought that the first time he performed in Japan, "few people knew Lexie (Liu Baixin), I thought the atmosphere would be cold", but the Fuji Rock Festival provided an extremely enthusiastic atmosphere, "The audience was very enthusiastic, and even cheered loudly after each song." After the performance, the festival officials also gave high praise in the news reports. This show was a very good experience for us. ”
In a sense, the international attitude of the music festival is not only helping musicians to open up multi-circle audiences, but also borrowing power for musicians to enhance international influence.
This can also be seen in the lineup of Fuji Rock Festival, and it is not a false statement that "no one can check all the stages in one Fuji Rock Festival".
Similar to other international music festivals, Fuji Rock Music Festival has opened up a multi-stage performance format, divided into red, green and white stages, as well as niche music performance stages, with a diversified and diversified lineup as much as possible to meet the needs of music fans across ages, nationalities, and preferences.
Of course, music is not the only Fuji Rock Festival, especially as a pioneer of Asian trend culture, it also attracts fans from Asia and around the world to participate in the "World Party" with high entertainment demand. The venue of the Fuji Rock Music Festival is "rooted" in the winter ski resort of Niigata Naeba on Honshu Island, which is also the place where Yasunari Kawabata's "Snow Country" is written, and it also gives music fans from all over the world a reason to come on pilgrimage.
In this regard, Xiaoliu, a musician who participated in this year's Fuji Rock Music Festival, was deeply moved, "I had a profound experience when I went to the Fuji Rock Music Festival this time, they really made the music festival a grand festival party, basically wake up and leave to the venue, and then play until the evening and go back to rest." ”
She also mentioned that because she had never gone out to see the music festival, she initially went with the attitude of "going to advanced units to investigate and study", "so on the first day, I was more obsessed with 'watching the performance', their venue was very large, so I had to constantly walk between the stages, that day my WeChat steps exceeded 20,000 steps, although I watched a lot of performances at the end of the day, but I was very tired."
After the next day, we decided to abandon this kind of 'special forces watching', we tried to slow down, not set up a viewing purpose, and experience the festival as deeply as the 'regular' people - leaving paintings in the graffiti area at the door, playing the piano jam on a small stage open to visitors in the forest, lying down on the hillside when tired, listening to distant music and sleeping all afternoon..."
In terms of content setting, Fuji Rock Music Festival combines nature and rock according to local conditions, such as holding a summer fireworks party on the eve of the festival, setting up a forest park for children to play, renting camping supplies, and setting up pop-up bars, canteens and small performance stages in the mountains and forests, and the transfer promenade between the main stages also crosses between mountains and forests, like a large-scale outdoor adventure, and the play experience of music fans is also full of novelty of new culture and art.
In terms of scene experience, it also closely follows the theme of environmental protection, garbage sorting and orderly queuing are the characteristic scenery of Fuji Rock Music Festival, which is also a mature international music festival must pay attention to. After all, music festivals are not just about music, a comfortable environment and unique ideas are essential.
"Music festivals in China tend to be more of a commercial act, while music festivals in Japan are more like a cultural and artistic act." It can be said that the Fuji Rock Festival strikes a good balance between musicality and commercialization.
In Xiaoliu's view, "the Fuji Rock Festival is like creating a dream, and the natural environment gives us a pristine space." Music takes us into different scenes, nature and freedom, music and pleasure, a paradise with basic order but far from society. ”
How do Chinese music festivals fit into the Asian music scene?
Since the outbreak of the performance market, on the one hand, there has been a frenzy of capital pouring in, and on the other hand, there have been various chaos that followed. And to answer how Chinese music festivals fit into the Asian music scene, the development of local music festivals may help us find the answer.
Zhang Chongshuo, former chief producer of the Strawberry Music Festival and founder of Creative Entertainment, told Music Herald, "The music festival itself has a history of more than 20 years in China. The first decade can basically be defined as the decade from 2000 to 2010, which is a process of "starting from nothing" for the festival. Because the concept of music festival itself is an imported concept for China, in the process of starting from scratch, it is still a relatively pure and niche product. ”
Correspondingly, the audience of the festival in that period was basically local young rock fans, the user base was small, and commercialization was more difficult, "After 2010 to now the second cycle, in my opinion, it is a cycle of "from there to many". In this cycle, the music festival is gradually breaking the circle, and the essence is that the content is breaking the circle - high-quality music content and niche music content. ”
In his view, this also means that the development of the industry is close to a critical point, and the domestic music festival has also ushered in the third cycle of "from more to refined". This is also the point when local music festivals are expected to integrate internationally, but there are still several major problems that need to be solved.
First, there is the need to break the homogenization impasse that has plagued the festival market for a long time. If the lineup is pure, because the number of head artists who can drive the box office is extremely limited, such as Universal Youth Hostel, Caodong No Party, and the landlord's cat have become the usual candidates for most music festivals. But at the same time, the high repetition rate of the head lineup also caused fans to fall into aesthetic fatigue.
"Since 2018, there has actually been a relatively obvious problem of homogenization, especially during the epidemic. Because Hong Kong and Taiwan artists and overseas artists cannot enter due to the epidemic, in fact, these musicians and bands in the mainland are the mainstay, and there are not many artists with appeal that users really look forward to. However, Zhang Chongshuo also pointed out that there are actually many high-quality musicians, but "many times users can't find them."
It is precisely because of stepping on the pain points of the industry, as a new music festival brand launched for the first time by Chuangyu Wujie, Bubble Island Music Festival has opened up a different way, advocating that "all creations grow from the infinite imagination of bubbles", and regards Bubble Island Music Festival as the "spiritual home" of music fans.
In terms of details, "bubble aesthetics" also runs through the BUBBLING STAGE and BOILING STAGE dual stages set up on the beach, filling the stage with rock, rap, electronic, pop and other types of musicians, and introducing nearly one-third of overseas artists, creating a very trendy, international and personalized performance lineup. Among them, in addition to well-known musicians such as New Pants Band and Soda Green, it also brought together a relatively fresh lineup such as PPkrit, Hinata Fumi, Jake Miller, etc., and FKJ completed its mainland debut stage.
Of course, to allow overseas music fans to actively or passively understand music festival brands from China, the main thing is to rely on channels and content. When domestic music festivals issue "invitations" to music fans around the world with a lineup of musicians from home and abroad, it also means that domestic musicians need to seize opportunities in terms of cultural differences.
Zhang Chongshuo also said, "Because music itself has no borders. There are cultural differences in the lyrics, but whether the lyrics and the ideas conveyed are international, and then whether there are songs that others can listen to, this content level is very important. ”
For him, the most important thing is musicality itself, musicians with unique talents, "They will differentiate the content of our music festivals, so that users can see high-quality artists, and in one day, two days, three days, to let users see the primary concern." ”
On the other hand, music festivals are personalized comprehensive products, which requires organizers to try to differentiate in venue selection and regional culture.
At present, the Bubble Island Music Festival has landed in three cities so far, and the selected venues also have certain regional characteristics. For example, in Tianjin, Dongjiang Bay Beach was chosen, which is in line with the concept of "island", and the blessings of seaside, sunset, beach and other scenery also provide a superimposed feeling of emotional value for the overall music festival experience of music fans. Not only that, the "women-first mobile toilet" and mother and baby room set up by the Bubble Island Music Festival also provide fans with an experience beyond expectations in terms of friendly care for women and young children.
In addition, the same "label" association with music festivals such as the fashion atmosphere of Coachella Music Festival and the outdoor theme of Fuji Rock Music Festival, just as the full name of Bubble Island Music Festival is "Bubble Island Music and Art Festival", it also provides another idea for the internationalization route of domestic music festivals: combined with the art field, unique positioning in humanistic characteristics and consumer groups, and integrating a large number of art installations and trendy IP content.
Among them, Tianjin Station has reached cooperation with 49 artists and 8 trend IPs. The 4-meter-tall giant puppet "Hee Hee Fu" parade that appeared at the Bubble Island Music Festival and can "blow" out the bubble matrix came from the "Yiqike" team with artist Ma Liang as the core.
However, this combination is not "blind", the Yiqike team pointed out, "The essence of music fans consuming music festivals is still chasing stars and listening to music, the experience of this process is the main factor affecting consumption, cultural and artistic participation in the music festival is more additional points, is the icing on the cake, in the end these forms still have to be related to the music itself to be more suitable for this scene." ”
In fact, the different gameplay of the Bubble Island Music Festival is also recognized by fans. According to Zhang Chongshuo, at the Tianjin Station alone, the Bubble Island Music Festival attracted more than 80,000 people to buy tickets to watch the performance, of which music fans in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region accounted for 75%, and there were also foreign music fans in the live audience.
It can be seen that the Bubble Island Music Festival is not a single music performance brand in the traditional sense, and the iteration of the concept, content and lineup also provides a reference sample for domestic music festivals to go abroad and integrate into the Asian music scene.
In addition, the festival consumer audience has now entered the "Generation Z". Globally, as consumers in the streaming era, their consumption of music is inseparable from social media. Therefore, it is also a top priority to make the use of social media to spread content and expand the Asian influence of local music festivals.
Zhang Chongshuo also mentioned that with the rapid rise of social media and streaming media, media is also decentralized, "In the flat communication process, users can freely contact a variety of music around the world, and the algorithm will continue to push what you are interested in, forming a more diversified user structure, so the content is breaking the circle, and the scene application of the content will also break the circle." ”
It can be seen that in recent years, Fuji Rock Music Festival has also chosen to expand the reach of online and offline audiences by building social media channels such as live broadcast and KOLs.
As for the bold attempt of the Bubble Island Music Festival, Zhang Chongshuo described it as "incubating a possibility": "The word 'festival' of the music festival is not a concert or a concert, and it needs to be interpreted with diversified content and multiple experiences." ”
At the same time, he also emphasized, "This pluralism cannot be a patchwork, it must be around the same aesthetic choice under the plural structure, in fact, differentiation, high quality and pluralism." In fact, we just want to create such a music festival, behind these three keywords, there may be different methodologies, different logic, and we also need to be able to find different resources, and then use different creative methods to achieve it. ”
epilogue
As Zhang Chongshuo said, the late start of Chinese music festivals has led to the pace of taking root in the Asian market behind Japanese and Korean music festivals, and going out is still in the process of exploration.
For the future international breakthrough, Zhang Chongshuo is optimistic, "I believe it will be soon, because Chinese is very fast, and it is also very diligent and dedicated." The richer the performance channels, the more opportunities for artists to spread offline, and there may be qualitative development within 3~5 years. But he also mentioned that the most fundamental thing is to have relatively unique content, "always how influential the content itself is, how much influence it has overseas." ”
In fact, the music festival also provides a realistic and feasible exchange place for the music culture of different countries and regions, and in order to make the music of more ethnic groups become the BGM of the world, it is also necessary to move from a single region to internationalization.
We hope that domestic music festivals can be freed from the current involution and come out of the music festival IP that has appeal in Asia and even the world. At that time, the new development cycle of the Chinese music festival will not be far away.
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