How Did Midi Festival Turn Into Strawberry Festival? Midi Speaks Out
With its 12-year history, Midi Music Festival is the granddaddy of China’s music festivals – highly respected and influential. In 2011, they originally planned to hold four music festivals– Beijing and Shanghai in May, Rizhao (Shandong) in August and Zhenjiang (Jiangsu) in October – and had been promoting all of them since the beginning of the year. Last month, though, rumors began to spread that Strawberry Music Festival (organized by Modern Sky Records) would be taking place in Zhenjiang in October instead of Midi. Organizers of both festivals eventually confirmed the rumors via the Internet. Midi fans reacted with great confusion and anger, and Midi Festival held a press conference on August 22 to explain exactly what happened.
Back in 2009, Midi had signed a ten-year contract with Zhenjiang Wenguang, a government-owned group that oversees cultural events in the city, to organize an annual music festival. (Like many music festivals set outside of Beijing, Zhenjiang Midi is financially sponsored by the local government.) Ever since last year’s Zhenjiang Midi Festival, both Midi and local media had been promoting the 2011 Midi Festival as set to take place during the National Day holiday (i.e. the first week of October). The two sides made multiple verbal agreements about it; they signed side-contracts regarding transportation and accommodation for the bands. Midi and Zhenjiang had discussed expenses for the 2011 event and had a verbal agreement to sign a detailed contract in mid-July.
Midi proceeded to invite international bands for the festival lineup; they paid for the airfare and deposit for international bands such as Chimaira. On July 11, however, a Midi employee named Liu Chang began to hear disturbing rumors; a promoter for another band in their lineup, German metal band The Ocean, claimed that they had been invited to play another festival (i.e. Strawberry) at the same time in the same city. Subsequently, Liu began to hear similar information from other tour booking agents. Apparently, “that other music festival’s organizer” had sounded very confident when he assured the tour booking agents that there would not be a Midi Festival in Zhenjiang in October.
Midi announced that they would hold a press conference on August 22 to explain everything, but Zhenjiang Wenguang and Modern Sky beat them to it. They held a press conference on August 17, mainly to promote Zhenjiang Strawberry Music Festival 2011. Modern Sky is holding the event there after having been invited to do so from Zhenjiang Wenguang, who explained that their original contract with Midi had never specified exact dates for the Midi Festival. The director of Zhenjiang Wenguang stated in an interview last week that they would still like to hold a Midi Festival in the city later this year and then sent Midi a letter asking them when they would like to organize it. Never mind that any outdoor music festival scheduled to take place after the October holiday would essentially be a freezing suicide mission.
At the press conference on August 22, Zhang Fan, the owner of Midi and his two VPs, Shan Wei and Liu Huan (both of whom participated in our July music roundtable), explained all of this. During the entire proceeding, they didn’t once mention the name of the other music festival or any of its organizers. When asked whether they have communicated with Modern Sky and what response they might have received, Midi’s representatives said only “We wish them success,” because “they are all old friends, after all.”
Zhang Fan, the guy who started the first rock-focused music school and the first music festival in China, appeared to be very hurt. He said at the conference: “It’s as if I had invited Shan Wei to my place to have dinner and he promised me that he would come. I bought a lot of food, cooked a whole meal and was waiting for him happily. Then he called me 15 minutes before he was scheduled to arrive – to say that he was having dinner with Liu Huan instead.”
If there’s one music festival that cares more about rock & roll than money, it is absolutely Midi. But as more and more players jump into the music-festival fray, such events have clearly become much more about business than just the dream of a few young rockers. Zhenjiang Wenguang now claims that Midi must hold a music festival in their city later this year. In response, Midi wants them to first apologize and then to explain exactly how to hold a successful outdoor music festival in the wintertime. Zhang Fan said, “Rock & roll needs an attitude. If they don’t apologize, we will no longer hold a music festival there.”
Although the dueling ground is located a thousand kilometers south of Beijing, this incident has agitated our city’s music scene. Supporters of Midi have called upon the public to boycott “that other music festival.” And we still don’t know how it will end, since both Midi and Zhenjiang Wenguang are throwing ultimatums at each other. We are watching patiently as the music industry in China continues stumbling down that rough road.
Photo: Midi Music Festival
