Festival Showdown: How Did They Stack up?

Submitted by thebeijinger on Tue, 05/04/2010 - 18:15

It was a huge weekend for music festivals, with Midi returning to the capital and the second Strawberry festival taking place down in Tongzhou. So now that all the action is over, how did the two festivals stack up? Beijing Daze has posted reviews of Strawberry day one and Midi day two – and Strawberry came out second by a long way.

This is what Daze had to say about problems getting into Strawberry:

“There were 2 ticket booths only to access the festival area… I got there with my crew at 1pm, we managed to get in around 4pm! At that time, I would estimate that there were a good 4000 to 6000 people still waiting in line…”

“Modern Sky made no provision for a crowds and lines… The small shops in the vicinity were caught by surprise and ran out of a whole bunch of things by 3pm… as they saw the lines getting increasingly bigger, the staff and management made NO ATTEMPT to rectify the situation as far as I was aware!”

Then inside the festival grounds:

“There were 3 or 4 mini official Strawberry Bar tents where one could buy refreshments on the grounds! That was it!!! 3 or 4 small tents in total for a crowd that I estimate at over 10000 persons. When we got in finally after 4pm, all the tents were out of beer!... Somehow, by 6:00 pm, they found beer again but had run out of everything else…”

I was at Strawberry the same day, and concur with many of Daze’s criticisms. I was fortunate to have friends who had arrived early and managed to procure tickets, but the queues when I arrived around 2pm were unbelievable. I had other friends who, like Daze, were left baking in the sun for hours. In fact for most of the day it felt like there were more people trapped at the gates than there were spectators inside the park.

It also wasn't easy getting to the park from the subway. This was partly a traffic issue - which of course was not the festival's fault - but the free shuttle buses were also extremely over-crowded, and the buses seemed to be sitting at Tongzhou Beiyuan subway station a very long time before leaving.

The bar situation inside the festival grounds was also ridiculous. Hopeless staff compounded the problem of tiny counters, as bar tenders took their time to pour each drink into a paper cup while dozens and dozens of people crowded around them attempting to get served. And while I had no trouble getting beer all day, there was no water to be had by late afternoon.

On the up side I thought the sound systems were ok, and unlike Daze I thought Carsick Cars were great. In fact the line-up all round was fantastic.

Daze had a much better time at Midi on Sunday. He reports he was inside within 15 minutes of arriving, and food and drink were plentiful all day.

I didn’t make it to Midi (one festival in a weekend is enough for me), but the only complaint other Beijinger staff who made it along had was the difficulty in obtaining cold beer, and the fact that the advertised RMB 5 beers seemed to run out very quickly.

So it seems there were thumbs up all round for Midi, while the organization at Strawberry left a lot to be desired.

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Hereisnow's picture Hereisnow Submitted by Guest on Sat, 05/08/2010 - 08:41

For the people who say Midi ran out of 5 kuai beer in less than 2 hours...

Actually there was a drink tent selling 5 kuai beer on the day I was there, which was day 2 of the festival (I know this because I got very drunk on it). It was conveniently located in front of the food area, and was obviously selling alcohol, but it was not advertising 5 kuai beer, you had to ask for it.

And on Strawberry... Strawberry's long queues were made worse because there were SO MANY QUEUE JUMPERS. I actually queued the entire time and hoards of both foreign and Chinese music fans were just walking straight up to the top of the queue and pushing in right before the ticket booth. This just made the queueing time for people actually waiting in line a lot longer. I didn't realise this was going on until I actually got to the ticket booth and had to elbow people who magically appeared to the left of the queue out of the way so they didn't jump ahead of me

Thanks to everyone who pushed infront of me and extended my waiting time for at least an hour.

Starlighter's picture Starlighter Submitted by Guest on Wed, 05/05/2010 - 11:40

Would agree about the awful queues at Strawberry - we arrived around 1pm on Day 2 and waited for well over an hour and a half in the hot sun. Once inside I had to queue again for half an hour for drinks as they were all poured into cups - why was this necessary? More drinks stands and toilets near the main stage are definitely needed next year.

In terms of the music itself, I really enjoyed what I heard. But a couple of the stages were too close together and the poor guys on the Love stage (seemed to be mostly folk) were drowned out by the metal playing 100m away. The atmosphere felt quite subdued (no bare-foot dancing or fancy dress or anything) but the location is really lovely - the grassy knolls in front of the Strawberry Stage are especially suited to this kind of event.

If they make improvements to the entry process and providing drinks, next year should be much better.

Pull your pants UP! U SAGGIN'!

esperegus's picture esperegus Submitted by Guest on Tue, 05/04/2010 - 19:27

I never made it to Strawberry yesterday as I planned to, but I was there last year and a few of the points mentioned above and by Beijing Daze sound familiar from Strawberry 2009. The clash of sound from two neighbouring stages is one example of a problem from last year that seems to have gone without being solved this year.

As for Midi, the queues to buy tickets looked bad when we arrived on Saturday, but we only waited 10 minutes to get our ticket, which you can't complain about. There were no problems buying drinks or food - in fact, I found it strange just how little alcohol people seemed to be consuming.

One negative is the "we've already sold out of the RMB 5 beer" line, which has happened at the last few festivals I've been at here. It's taking the mickey and just a bit low, really - if you can't provide enough product to last more than 2 hours of a four-day event, you shouldn't be advertising it, full stop.

The music was pretty good the two days I went. On Saturday, Sham 69 were a bit embarrassing, but good-natured fun, except for the obnoxious English ladies in the crowd chanting like they were at Wembley. The Yen stage got going around 5 both nights with a good crowd, and Shan Ren are one of the better bands I've seen here.

On Sunday, Xiao He was a let down - considering he's supposed to be some "experimental genius," thwacking away at chords and wailing a bit was just a bit shite.

At the opposite end of the scale, Ma Tiao and Xie Tian Xiao were brilliant and proved that Chinese music doesn't need to be all about Converse, skinny jeans and carefully constructed media comments.

Well done Midi on coming back with a bang after three years of being shot down by local red tape. As for Strawberry, it's all a learning experience and I hope that these guys learn from the criticisms that have been made - friends of mine who actually made it in said they had a good time and that the music was worth the effort.

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