A disappointing music festival on the grassland
0 
"Yes, something bad happened during the German music festival – that was their fault," quipped veteran rocker He Yong when he went on stage of the 2nd InMusic Music Festival at midnight Friday, referring to the stampede during the Love Parade techno-music festival in Duisburg, Germany, on July 24.
"Such thing won't happen in China because there are far fewer music fans in China."
Maybe he was right, especially for modern pop and rock music in China. The number of people who attended the festival –which organizers put at around 200,000 – was far fewer than that in Duisburg, where the number of people attending allegedly reached 1.4 million.
So such bad stampede thing never happened during the three-day outdoor music festival in Zhangbei County, Hebei Province.
The county government, which signed a contract with InMusic Magazine to host the festival for its first 10 years to boost its economy and tourism, invested millions of monies in preparation for the event.
Before the festival, InMusic Magazine publisher Liu Yifan said the government was going to put 3,000 security guards on duty to monitor crowds. He also noted the festival was going to have multiple safe exits.
Besides that, the "Zhangbei grassland is far more vast," Liu said.
Billed as "China's Glastonbury," the InMusic Music Festival is spread over a 100-hectare grass expanse. This year, it featured more than 50 Chinese and foreign bands spanning the genres of metal, punk, folk, electronic and hip hop. Stars included Zheng Jun, Lao Lang, US pop-rock group Panic! At The Disco, Paris-based American duo CocoRosie and British post-punk band Killing Joke.
With such a promising lineup and hosted by China's most influential music magazine, the festival seemed poised to become the biggest music festival in the country. But even in its second year, it has yet to reach its full potential and left many concert-goers disappointed. Many people complained that this year's acts were not as thrilling as last year's performers, which included the trip-hop guru Tricky, nor were there as many (last year featured more than 80).
Instead of a carnival radiating with passion and energy, InMusic Music Festival felt more like a weekend escape to the countryside for urban young men and white-collar workers. Instead of being about music and artists, for many, the festival – a five-hour drive from Beijing – is just a chance to get away from buildings and work to get closer to nature and freedom.
But you never know what you are going to get. Last year, the music festival was a big organizational mess and rife with controversies. The so-called grassland, for example, turned out to be a desert. This year, the local government spent 20 million yuan to plant 33,000 acres of grass.
But other problems remained. Narrow roads caused traffic jams. Shopping and dining options were still scarce and inconvenient. Hotels lacked Internet, air conditioning and clean, drinkable water. And for an event that claimed to be environmentally friendly, a huge amount of garbage was left behind.
Go to Forum >>0 Comments