"We really did it, we really sang the sun!" When singer Hua Chenyu sang the 15-minute adaptation of "Born to the Sun" with relief, the rain did not come as scheduled as the weather broadcast, and the seaside ushered in a brilliant sunrise, and tens of thousands of fans at the scene were deeply moved and couldn't cry. At that moment, as the behind-the-scenes staff of the Yantai project team of the Brilliance Mars Concert of Shandong Yanwei Tourism Distribution Center, Yang Xinxin also burst into tears - their hard planning and organization in the past six months, the hard work and efforts of all the staff, everything is worth it, "If the fans do not see the sunrise, the effect of the concert will be difficult to achieve the ideal state."
Because of the romance of the sunrise on the sea, coupled with the enthusiasm of a group of energetic young people and Hua Chenyu's amazing music performance, this concert quickly went out of the circle, not only the domestic cultural tourism accounts have followed the hot spots, sending out the beautiful scenery of "the most beautiful sunrise in China" in various places, and even foreign netizens such as Thailand, the United States, Vietnam, and France also sighed "Can China's concert be so romantic?" ”
As the venue of the event, in addition to once dominating the hot search of grass planting, Libun Island in Muping District, Yantai, also performed well in other related data. During the "May Day" period, Hua Chenyu's concert attracted about 130,000 music fans and tourists from all over the country to gather in Muping, and the whole district received a total of 629,000 tourists, achieving tourism income of about 160 million yuan, and the operating income of accommodation enterprises above designated size within the main urban area increased by 32% year-on-year.
"It has achieved a bumper harvest of economic and social benefits." Yang Xinxin told the first financial reporter.
This is another highlight of the thriving performance market. Throughout this year, dozens of old, middle-aged and young stars such as Jacky Cheung, Jay Chou, Eason Chan, Lin Junjie, Hua Chenyu and other old, middle-aged and young stars have taken turns in first, second and third-tier cities. According to data from the China Performance Industry Association, the box office of large-scale concerts in mainland China hit a new high of 14.6 billion yuan last year. Some research institutions predict that the scale of the performance industry this year will continue the hot trend of last year.
May to October is the best time of the year. The strong growth trend has made some local governments realize that the concert economy has become a new growth point for tourism consumption, and have introduced relevant support policies, but it is worth noting that the number of performances means that the concert continues to be hot?
Innovation in immersive concerts
"Mu Ping has also held concerts before, but the sunrise concert is the first time." Yang Xinxin said.
For this concert, Hua Chenyu's team began to select sites in more than 30 cities across the country last year, including three cities in Shandong alone.
"The key is that there are not many places that can see the sunrise, have a wide field of vision, a large beach area and the concert does not disturb the people, and their team came here in October last year to inspect and evaluate the sunrise effect, and initially determined that it is not a scenic spot." Yang Xinxin said.
In the eyes of the locals, the weathered island of Libo is just a base for fishing and occasional picnics. The concert stage should be newly built, and the road to the main venue should be repaired. These are the basics. A month before the concert, the Muping district government reached a comprehensive coordination and set up 18 working groups in volunteer services, safety and security, and transportation.
Hua Chenyu's Yantai Sunrise Concert, which was the first to perform a sunrise concert by the sea, set up the "Mars Globe" grandstand at his own expense, and the layout of the whole venue was exquisite and the atmosphere was bursting.
"During the three-day concert, the audience entered the venue every day was close to 30,000, especially on the last day of the concert, there were 10,000 or 20,000 fans outside the venue. In addition to the 300 shuttle buses, hundreds of private cars of Muping citizens are free of charge. Yang Xin said, "Whether everyone's efforts can be achieved in the end depends on whether they can see the sunrise." Monitors were repeatedly told that it was likely to rain, only to be pleasantly surprised. ”
Interestingly, when the "Sunrise Concert" was forwarded and commented by the media and netizens, the cultural and tourism departments around the country reacted sensitively and sent out their own "most beautiful sunrise" scenery, and the soundtrack was mostly Hua Chenyu's "Born to the Sun". However, the result is not the bloody plot of the competition and fight in various places as people imagined, and the large-scale Yantai Cultural Tourism issued a slogan of sharing the "Hua Chenyu Concert" and inviting the "China Sunrise" video to other local cultural tourism.
The integration and innovation of a natural immersive concert and local cultural tourism has come to a successful end because of its beauty and romance. In July, Yantai will usher in the Yangma Island Music Festival.
How long will the concert economy last?
In an interview with the first financial reporter, Yang Xin was still a little lost. "We also want to be like Zibo barbecue, the heat can continue, so that more people can know that we are good in Yantai. But a concert is a concert, only for a few days. ”
This is the common feeling of all concert venues, even if you win the concerts of head stars such as Andy Lau and Jay Chou, if you want to last the full emotions such as carnival, passion, and emotion for a longer time, the local government will generally adopt two ways: one is to hold concerts every month, and there is a connection every month; The second is to introduce other performing arts and sports competitions, but whether it can continue to heat up out of the circle and produce a win-win situation of social and economic benefits will be a question mark.
According to industry insiders, there are two hosting modes for celebrities to hold concerts. The common model is the celebrity guaranteed appearance fee, that is, the major performance companies bid for the star concert and are responsible for various coordination arrangements, and the star only pays the appearance fee, while the box office income, title sponsorship and other matters are the responsibility of the performance company. The other is that the star's own team is the organizer, does not outsource, pursues the maximization of commercial value, and also participates in box office sharing and investment promotion, and obtains proportional benefits.
"The latter is basically a ceiling-level star who dares to try it. There are only a handful of singers in the country who have done it. The project leader of an performing arts company that has hosted two concerts told the first financial reporter that most stars are guaranteed models. Therefore, the pressure mainly comes from the major performance companies. "For example, the gymnasium concert of a singer who can still hold down the audience in China costs about 20 million yuan, which is about the same as the box office, and the profits obtained by the organizer and the organizer are very limited." He said.
The profit margin lies in careful budgeting, and the core is the ticket price. According to the statistics of Nandu Big Data Research Institute, the lowest ticket prices for concerts of well-known singers in 2023 will be concentrated at 300~500 yuan, accounting for more than 76%; Nearly sixty percent of the concerts have raised the highest ticket prices, accounting for 41.94% of 1000~1500 yuan, and 33.87% of 1500~2000 yuan.
"Last year was a special year, and the concert became a 'traffic password', but a few were happy and a few were sad, each knew its own bitterness, and the concert that really made money was the concert of the top stars. This year, almost all the first- and second-tier stars are holding concerts, which can be regarded as a full swing, with many shows, and the overall ticket price has decreased, but it is more difficult for the organizer to make money. Some second- and third-tier celebrity concert tickets are sold at six or seven discounts, but how much can the celebrity appearance fee be reduced? The person in charge said.
Fortunately, the enthusiasm of consumers is still there, because 51% of millennials (born between 1982~2000) and 63% of Gen Z (born between 1995~2009) are more willing to spend money on "life experiences" such as concerts and travel.
For some local governments, they hope to learn from Singapore's "subsidy" experience and create a "concert and music festival city". At the end of April, 11 departments of Taiyuan City jointly issued a document to implement the "Several Measures to Support the Economic Development of Concerts (Trial)", intending to create "important cultural tourism destinations at home and abroad". According to the document, for concert organizers that operate legally in Taiyuan City and have independent legal personality, if the ticket sales scale of a single show is more than 30,000 people (inclusive) and the ticket sales income is not less than 20 million yuan, a single award will be 800,000 yuan.
This is the maximum subsidy amount. Although the amount is not large, it can reduce the cost pressure and investment risk of concert organizers, and stimulate more companies to participate in the concert market.
How long will young consumers' pursuit of concerts continue to be hot? Some research institutions predict that it may only last until 2025.
After all, there are only more than 20 singing stars who can be used in internal entertainment, and there are few powerful young singers in domestic entertainment. The recent variety show "Singer 2024", the discussion caused by the PK between the entertainment industry and the two international singers is enough to make us 'sober'. We need to think about what we should do next year's concert. The person in charge said.
Liu Deliang, a special researcher at the New Economy and New Industry Research Center of Tsinghua University, told the first financial reporter that the cultivation of talents requires the right time, place and people, and cannot be boosted by seedlings, but foreign models are worthy of our reference and thinking, "For example, Live Nation, the world's leading live entertainment company, is the layout of the whole industry chain, including performance hosting, artist brokerage, online ticketing business, venue operation and sponsorship advertising." In our performance industry, there are many participants such as content parties and downstream venues, and the concentration of industry links is low, while the market share of ticketing platforms is leading. In fact, all parties in the industry can integrate multiple resources of the industrial chain, realize the extension of the industrial chain, and expand the ability to expand profit margins. ”
According to the announcement, Live Nation's performance market revenue in the United States in 2023 will be 14.2 billion US dollars, which is about 3.2 times the estimated total box office size of the Chinese performance market (excluding travel performances).
The question is back to the original point, even if the head company has the ability to open up the deep industrial chain through capital, how many stars in the domestic entertainment industry can be called "super IP" and can continue to output representative works, appeal and far-reaching influence?
(This article is from Yicai)