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Music festival returns with new Suzhou site
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THE Midi Festival is returning for another year with a new site next to the Taihu Lake in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province.
Headliners at this year’s event include Swiss melodic death metal band Dreamshade, American metal core band Killswitch Engage and Slovenian metal band Noctiferia, as well as veteran Chinese acts like Tang Dynasty and Escape Plan.
The festival will include performances on four stages and run from May 1 to 3 to coincide with the Labor Day holiday. Shuttle buses will be available to transport audience members from Shanghai.
“I’ve been checking for weeks to find out where the festival will be and to plan my May Day holiday,” says Shanghai-based university student Felix Ning, who has attended the festival four times previously.
“It’s like a big party — to enjoy music, travel to a new spot, camp with friends, party, eat, drink and just have fun,” he says.
Over recent years, the music festival has been held in locations around the country, with organizers seeking out outdoor venues that can host large crowds over multiple days. Audiences are encouraged to camp near these venues and are often served by pop-up markets selling food, beverages and handicrafts.
Earlier this year, a Midi Festival planned in Beijing was cancelled, leading many music fans to worry that shows in Shanghai could suffer a similar fate.
“We are glad that Midi is back with a good line-up ... We have signed a long-term collaboration deal and will make this our base from now on,” says festival founder Zhang Fan with regard to this year’s site in Suzhou.
“We are also excited about the new Electronic Festival, which is intended to attract younger audiences. Electronic music is still emerging here, but we foresee its rapid growth,” Zhang adds.
The 2015 Midi Electronic Festival will also be held at the Taihu Midi Camp. The event will features non-stop parties for 48 hours from 2pm on May 15, with live music from some of the world’s hottest DJ acts, including Germany’s Smash TV, France’s Joris Declaroix, Dutch techno group Kamara and China’s own DJ Ben Huang and Yang Bing, among others.
A collaboration between foreign DJs and a local Shanghai student symphony group is also scheduled for the festival.
To make the music event into a real party, organizers also plan to invite graffiti artists to draw on a specially designated wall. An outdoor swimming pool for bubble parties and skateboard performances are also planned. Talks on DJing and music production are also scheduled for the day time.
“We know little about electronic music, so we’ll leave the festival in the hands of the younger generation — a team of foreign artists and organizers, all born in the 1990s, who are familiar with the trends and names in electronic music,” Zhang says.
Although crowds at the Electronic Festival are expected to be smaller than at Midi’s rock ’n’ roll big brother, organizers believe local audiences will embrace this burgeoning genre. They also believe the new event will set the standard for similar shows in China.
“I know nothing about the electronic music, but I enjoy clubbing and I love parties. It looks like a great weekend party with lots going on ... so I really want to go,” says Nora Lin, a 20-year-old student from Shanghai University.
Date: May 1-3 (Midi festival), 1:30-11:30pm; April 30-May 4 (Midi camp)
Venue: Midi Camp at Qidu Town in Wujiang District, Suzhou
Tickets: 120 yuan (presale) for single day, 300 yuan (presale) for three days; 150 yuan (at door) for single day, 350 yuan (at door) for three days
To purchase tickets, go to http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id+41121104331 or http://item.damai.cn/80987.html.
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