Young, comedic talk shows are blossoming all over Shanghai

Morning reporter Sun Limei

Following last year's "Talk Show Conference 3" with a total of 72 hot searches triggered the "talk show explosion" phenomenon that swept the line from the internet, "Talk Show Conference 4", which began broadcasting on August 10, once again showed a strong "hot search" physique, and each episode of the broadcast night or the next day, can contribute two or three hot search topics.

Offline, the popularity of the "talk show big bang" is also continuing to heat up.

Xiaoguo Culture recently announced that from September 1 this year, the "Laughing Fruit" retail pop-up store will open at the same time in Jing'an Joy City, Jing'an Kerry Center, Global Harbor, Hopson Hui, LuOne five shopping malls, fans can bring home a variety of "bursting stems", "Duanzi" and other talk show elements of the peripheral products. Among them, the Jing'an Kerry Centre store will open as a "laughing fruit" retail + performing arts store, which will be held from time to time; the Jing'an Joy City store will appear in the form of a retail + exhibition store.

Young, comedic talk show elements are blossoming all over the city of Shanghai.

Talk show elements become shopping mall drainage signboards

Although there are "Tonight's Post-80s Talk Show" and "Spit Conference" in the front, it was not until the broadcast of "Talk Show Conference 3" last year that the imported performance form of talk show achieved a real "circle breaking" in China.

Liu Lijuan, vice president of offline business of Xiaoguo Culture, introduced that after doing "Talk Show Conference 2", the company has seen the momentum of the talk show market and started the layout of offline performances. In April 2019, Xiaoguo opened "Goat Goat" open wheat at No. 1 Xiangyang North Road. In July of the same year, the first laughing fruit factory opened in Xujiahui, which can accommodate more than 80 spectators and is almost full.

However, nationwide, the "marriage" between talk shows and large shopping malls began on July 17, 2021, when the Laughing Fruit Factory (flagship store) opened on the 5th floor of Xintiandi Plaza, which is also the first "new space for performing arts" suitable for talk show performances in China. Five days later, "Talk Show Conference 3" became an undisputed annual phenomenon-level variety show, and single-handedly drove the talk show from online variety shows to offline theaters.

From the second half of 2020 to the present, the popularity of offline performances of talk shows has been seen for all to see. In the Laughing Fruit Factory alone, there are as many as 10-15 performances a week, with more than 160 tickets per show, and almost all the domestic talk show actors who can be named are haunted here. This has brought high popularity and foot traffic to Xintiandi Plaza, and also made Xintiandi Plaza a new Internet celebrity landmark. Many foreign tourists even put the "talk show of laughing fruit" in the Shanghai tourism agenda.

In fact, after the coffee shops, bookstores, and cultural and creative shops in previous years, in the past two years, script killing shops and small theaters have gradually become new drainage signs in large shopping malls. And one person and one wheat, no need for stage props, and simple form of talk show performances are of course the first choice for small theaters. In addition to the Laughing Fruit Factory in Xintiandi Plaza, another well-known talk show in Shanghai, "Comedy Box Country", has entered Bingu Square, and Shi Yan's "Owl Comedy" talk show has entered the city to open YOYO.

The introduction of "laughing fruit" pop-up stores in five shopping malls in Shanghai at the same time, of course, is the influence of laughing fruits and talk shows among young audiences, with the help of the east wind of "Talk Show Conference 4", it will be built into a new sign of the mall, especially the "laughing fruit" performing arts store in Jing'an Kerry Center, which is very likely to become another gathering place for domestic talk show actors and fans in addition to the laughing fruit factory and "Goat".

Create a "comedy consumption scene" living room

For laughing fruit culture and shopping malls, pop-up stores are obviously not as simple as retail, exhibitions, and performances. At present, domestic offline businesses are focusing on providing and creating leisure places with a more sense of design, more social attributes and more in line with the aesthetics of the younger generation, so as to lengthen the time of customer residence and improve the possibility and enthusiasm of consumption.

This coincides with the practice of Xiaoguo Culture in the past two years: in addition to comedy performances, Xiaoguo Culture is actively trying different forms of offline comedy, combining young comedy and life scenes, and guiding immersive and life comedy consumption through cross-border linkage with business circles, making it a gathering place for young people and a city living room.

As early as May 2019, Laughing Fruit Culture held a "World through the Eyes of Comedians" installation exhibition at Daimaru Department Store. Combining the culture of talk shows, the exhibition introduces the world's leading interactive experience device, equipped with photo punch scenes, and integrates live talk show performances, showing the audience "what is a talk show" in a diversified and composite form.

Before the epidemic, Xiaoguo Culture had held the "Comedy Weekend COM EDY WEEKEND" in Beijing and Shanghai for two consecutive years. The "Comedy Weekend" in 2019 brought nearly 30 talk shows to about 3,000 audiences in two days, and in addition to the performances, created a new scene of offline experience and consumption that includes markets, exhibitions, dramas, eating and drinking, games and other forms.

The entrance to the Laughing Fruit Factory in Xintiandi Plaza is also a "chopping area" that is talked about by talk show fans. Peripheral products such as "The workshop queen shell is funny" and "This mobile phone case has something", and the words "Laughing Fruit Mask" with the words "I am laughing" have attracted fans to donate generously and buy home "bursting stems" and "paragraphs". More cultural and creative products will appear in five pop-up retail stores next month.

In July this year, the Laughing Fruit Factory held an anniversary celebration with the theme of "Laughing Fruit Everywhere", and installed various "stems" in brand stores, coffee shops, markets and other places in Xintiandi Plaza, attracting many talk show lovers to find and punch in enthusiastically:

"Bring a cup (coffee) to your partner in the coffee shop and let him refresh his mind, otherwise you will have to do the work yourself"; the cup says "My boss may be a chef, he is not only good at drawing cakes, but also used to throwing pots"; "Every bite you eat tell yourself, you can't be a fat person in one breath" on the food market card...

When this kind of "hilarious terrier" may be found everywhere in the whole mall, the dual functions of "comedy consumption" and "social place" have been formed. Such a scene will undoubtedly become the attraction of shopping malls, and will also provide a unique urban living room for Shanghai.

Make "talk shows" an urban way of life

From the popularity of online variety shows, to the vigorous development of offline performances, to the emergence of five retail pop-up stores in large shopping malls, the distance between talk shows and Shanghai citizens is getting closer and closer.

During the Shanghai International Arts Festival last year, the sixth Shanghai International Comedy Festival, as the "festival in the festival", focused on talk shows. More than 30 performances and activities, such as the National Eight5 Talk Show Competition, the National Excellent Talk Show Label Exhibition, comedy weekend, and the Young Comedy Forum, have become hot events in the city, and offline talk shows have also been presented to ordinary citizens who have not yet had the opportunity to enter the theater to watch.

Compared with the past 3 seasons, one of the distinctive features of "Talk Show Conference 4" is to discover and launch a group of ordinary talk show actors with the theme of "still the most humorous life", such as Huang Jun, the "Shanghai traffic policeman who can speak the most talk shows", Pineapple, a doctor of cancer biology, Bird Bird, a "social fear talk show" player, and Xiao Jia, who is physically disabled but optimistic, all of which make the audience shine. This also corresponds to the sentence that Li Shi has always said inside and outside the show - "Everyone can be a five-minute talk show actor".

The content of the talk show is not unfathomable, but hidden in everyone's ordinary life. In the first and second phases of this season's talk show conference, Zhou Qimo, known as the "ceiling of China's talk show", exploded the whole field and four lights to promote by imitating the "listen to bai bai" of Tianjin Uncle; Xu Zhisheng, who had a surprising effect of "blowing up the field", took his appearance and blackened himself, saying that the products assigned when the live broadcast sold goods were actually masks, "I said director, you let me sell noodles or sell steamed buns, but you let me sell masks, what do you really think"; Qiu Rui complained about the "diamond-shaped house" he rented in his career in North Drift, I grew up so big that for the first time I was stuck in a corner of a wall "...

With the deep popularity of talk show performances, after the problem of popularizing "what is a talk show" was solved, more audiences began to pay attention to the technical aspects of talk shows. Before the launch of "Talk Show Conference 4", the Xiaoguo Mini Program was revised, adding discussion areas such as "Workshop Hot Discussion", which also became a base camp for fans to discuss technology. For example, some netizens asked the difference between offline and online performances: "Some stand-up comedians perform well in offline theaters, why is it a bit flat on the show?" Some netizens asked about the lighting standard of this season's laughter: "Is the internal structure of the talk show important?" ”

In fact, for the audience who has already watched the offline talk show, looking back at the online, the difference in perception is still very obvious. The atmosphere, the time left for each contestant, the freedom of content, the hot field ability of the previous contestant, etc., all affect the on-the-spot performance of a talk show actor. Even Zhou Qimo, who performed very well this season, lost in the PK with Hulan in the last season because of the long preparation time of the paragraph.

It is worth looking forward to the understanding and technical discussion of the talk show performance mode on a larger scale, as well as the opening of talk show pop-up stores into more shopping malls and blocks, which will attract more citizens to enter the talk show theater and even walk on the talk show stage. Talk shows are not only Shanghai's new cultural business card, but also more likely to become a new, youthful urban lifestyle.

Source: Morning News