Midi Music Festival "Confirmed"

There have been rumors that this year's Midi Music Festival was in doubt and may not go ahead, but we've just received notice from the organizers of the Midi festival that they finally have all the official permits they need for the festival to go ahead as planned on April 30-May 2. However, the event will now take place in Jinglangdao Park in western Beijing's Mentougou District, instead of the festival's traditional home, Haidian Park (as was listed in the April issue of the Beijinger.) Apparently Haidian Park will be undergoing renovations at the time of the festival.

So even though there will be three big music festivals during the May holiday, none of them will actually be in the city. The other two are Strawberry Music Festival in Tongzhou and Music Valley Music Festival in Pinggu.

If you do decide to go to Midi, you'll get a lineup including over ten international bands, such as Mr. Big, Canadian alternative rock band Your Favorite Enemies and Japanese punk band Mongol 800. Beijing rockers like SUBS, Brain Failure and Yaksa will lead the way for the local scene. Good news for families too - for the first time, there will be a section for kids at the Beijing Midi Music Festival called Kids' Midi. Stay tuned for more details.

Another announcement from Midi is that in addition to the Beijing event, there'll be another three Midi Festivals across the country this year. The others are:

Shanghai Midi Music Festival (May 6-8, Century Park, Pudong District, Shanghai)
Ocean Midi Music Festival (August 4-7, Rizhao, Shandong province)
Changjiang Midi Music Festival (October 1-4, Zhenjiang, Jiangsu province)

The Shanghai Midi will feature a similar lineup to Beijing's, but no news on the others just yet.