Hot Mama! Behold Apr 20 & 21’s Supremely Hot & Spicy Entertainment

As with festivals past, we here at the Beijinger have called up every chili-chomping dama, shushu, and xiaoxianrou in town to help recruit Beijing's spiciest entertainment for this weekend's Hot & Spicy Festival, so that your eyes and ears remain pricked even when your face is in your plate.

While you're guzzling down the goods, we've also prepared an entire weekend's worth of entertainment to keep you transfixed (distracted?) between the gasps, the "oh god"s and heavy pattings of the brow. This year's line-up is as fiery as ever and spans DJs, bands, and professional dancers chosen for their flair, diversity, and skills as well as their ability to get you moving and feeling hot under the collar.

There'll also be a special afterparty on Saturday at The Bell and Terrazza Martini (more on that below), not to mention our eighth annual Hot Chili Pepper Eating Contest and Hottest Song Karaoke Competition, which take place on both Saturday and Sunday.

As a special offer to our attendees, we've partnered with DiDi's English version (DiDi EN) to provide attendees with a discount on rides to this weekend's event. To receive 10 percent off your next DiDi Express ride (or RMB 8 off for new users), simply click this link, enter your phone number and accept your gift coupon (if you don't yet have DiDi EN, you'll be prompted to download and install). For full instructions, click here. Want more discounts? DiDi EN riders in Beijing will get up to 30 percent off when they call an Express this Friday through Sunday.

Without further ado, here are the acts and activities that you have to look forward to savoring this weekend while you're not calling for mercy.
 

La Costeña Hot Chili Pepper Eating Contest - Saturday and Sunday, 4pm

One of our biggest annual events, the Hot Chili Pepper Eating Competition gets the crowd riled up like no other. And then there are the poor contestants. Ten brave souls will take to the stage each day to eat ten types of increasingly spicy chili peppers, dropping out one by one as the heat becomes too much. Finally, only one King or Queen of the chilies will remain, securing bragging rights as the hottest person in Beijing.
 

Hottest Song Karaoke Competition - Saturday and Sunday, 6pm

Unlike the Hot Chili Pepper Eating Contest, the contestants in our Hottest Song Karaoke Competition will need to prove their spiciness by the strength of their singing skills and dancing alone. Each day, eight performers will select a song to get the crowd hot, hot, hot – or at least they hope it will because each singer's fate is in the hands of the public, who will vote using their mouths, screaming and cheering so as to send our decibel meter reading off the scale. Whoever comes out on top will be the proud winner of weekend passes to this year's Great Wall Festival.
 

DJ Aida

Russian-born, Beijing-based DJ Aida began her DJ career at a dance festival's afterparty in Russia back in 2010. Since then, she's become a mainstay at Beijing's top clubs, including Lantern, Dada, and Aurora as well as guest DJ at The Mansion, Celia, and Arkham in Shanghai, and further afield.

Aida's bread and butter behind the decks is energetic and groovy techno with strong beats and obscure melodies, blended with preciseness and intelligence. She hones her craft as co-founder and creative director of techNOrules, the women-only DJ collective and electronic music label that focuses on female artists and new talents. When the sun dips and the burn is only just starting to wane, Aida will be the one to keep you dancing.
 

King Joshua & MaxWell C. "Smooth Groove"

King Joshua & MaxWell C. "Smooth Groove" are a globe-spanning Beijing-based five-piece from America, Africa, and China. They fuse jazz, funk, blues, pop, reggae, and R&B for a fun and soul-stirring whole. American artist King Joshua, leads the band in their exciting improvisations and blended harmonies that attune to their motto of "Perform. Inspire. Unite." Together, he and Smooth Groove look to soothe the crowd's scorched palettes with silky hooks and sleek segues.
 

F.E. Dance Studio

F.E. Dance Studio hit up Hot & Spicy to put the crowd through their dancing paces. Skilled in everything from jazz to funk, hip-hop to pop, once they hit the stage, F.E. Dance Studio's one goal is to get you moving like you've never moved before. As such, we would suggest finding a secure place to put any food or drink you may have in your hands before attempting to keep up.
 

Sazon

Likewise, Sazon Cuban Dance School has been teaching students the language of dance, especially Latin rhythms, since its founding in 2016. Sazon's four Cuban dance instructors will add an extra helping of spice to this weekend's proceedings with a step-by-step demonstration of why Cuban dance is so widely revered, mimicked, and romance-inducing the world over.
 

Superlife

Trainers from Sanlitun's "7-star" Superlife gym will put our spice lovers through their paces with a tailormade competition that will include how long you can keep a chili in your mouth (while exercising!) as well as a spiciest guns and ass competition (you'll just have to turn up to see what that's all about).
 

Afterparty at The Bell & Terrazza Martini

Once nice and loose on all things spicy, Saturday's revelers will make their way to the lush Sanlitun-overlooking rooftop of The Bell & Terrazza Martini, our hosts of the Hot & Spicy Festival afterparty. To gain entry, you'll need to buy a RMB 50 ticket at The Bell's booth at the festival (or pay RMB 80 on the door), which will get you one free cocktail at the bar as well as access to one hour of free-flow chili mango or spicy kamikaze shots between 8.30-9.30pm and spicy popcorn all night long. Doors to the venue open at 6.30pm but we don't expect the big crowds to move over until our festival is done, at around 8pm onwards.

Still need a ticket? Buy one quicker than you can say jalapeño, right here.

Photos: Uni You, courtesy of the entertainers