Author | Fan Zhihui Li Ying
On April 22nd, the Wheat Field Music Festival officially unveiled a complete performance lineup, among which the "double J" finale of Jay Chou and Jolin Tsai should be the most exciting for fans. In addition, there are a large number of outstanding musicians, such as The Jesus And Mary Chain, Jun togawa, Caodong No Party, Eggplant Egg, Yang Naiwen, etc. The lineup is luxurious.
Of course, this is the first time that Jay Chou has participated in the music festival. Sure enough, this blockbuster immediately screened the circle of friends, and Weibo topic # Wheat Field Music Festival lineup # successfully boarded the hot search. Click on Weibo, almost all of which are related to Jay Chou. At present, the reading volume of this topic has exceeded 21.7 million, and this lineup has also been called "Lifetime Series" by netizens.
according to the ticketing information, in addition to the blind bird tickets and pre-sale tickets sold before, among the single-day full-price tickets, single-day Plus tickets and double-day full-price tickets sold at 4: 3 pm on April 23rd, only the single-day Plus ticket on May 25th is still on sale (Jay Chou performed on May 26th), which makes it hard to find a ticket.
For a music festival with more than one month to go before the official performance, it is needless to say its popularity. Some netizens even commented, "The wheat field is a conscience. The starting lineup does not put a nuclear bomb. Take care of the real independent music fans to grab the ticket first, and now it is enlarged."
behind Jay Chou's first participation in the music festival, there are actually some topics worth discussing.
unconsciously, local music festivals have a history of 2 years.
according to the data, the first local music festival in China was the first "Heineken Beat 99 Summer Music Festival" held in ritan park in July, 1999, which also started the development of local music festivals. On May 1-2, 2, the first Midi Music Festival was held in Beijing Midi School. On October 2-4, 27, the first Modern Sky Music Festival was held in Beijing Haidian Park. Until 21, domestic music festivals broke out. In this year, there were 31 music festivals in China, including Midi Music Festival, Strawberry Music Festival, Zhangbei Music Festival and Changjiang Music Festival.
With the emergence of more and more music festivals, music festivals have gradually become familiar to the public as a way of life. For the younger generation, going to the music festival is not only listening to songs, but also a new social scene and even a way of self-identity.
At the same time that music festivals are blooming everywhere, problems such as the convergence of artists' lineups, insufficient on-site facilities and monotonous performance methods have also begun to be exposed, and the music festival itself is in urgent need of iterative upgrading.
first, vertical subdivision of content and mode exploration. According to the big data of Ma Honeycomb Tourism, most of today's music festivals are themed on electronics, rock, folk songs and pop, and classical music is unexpectedly welcomed by young people. In addition to the transformation of music style, the famous Zhangbei Grassland Music Festival is seeking to transform into a music season in 218. By increasing the duration and number of performances, it will enhance the tourist experience and promote the development of the tourism industry.
in addition to the adjustment of content positioning, the music festival is constantly upgrading in technology. In 216, the Strawberry Music Festival used VR live broadcast technology for the first time, and it was also the first large-scale outdoor music festival in China to use VR live broadcast technology; In the same year, the Yangtze River Music Festival sought to upgrade its technology in lighting, dancing, beauty and sound, and its specifications were even comparable to those of international concerts.
Now, the local music festival has entered its 2th year, and it is still in the period of groping and adjustment in terms of the number of times, scale, type, continuity and profitability. According to the statistics of Little Antlers think tank, after the rapid development in previous years, the growth rate of the overall market scale of the music festival began to slow down from 217. In 218, there were 263 music festivals in the domestic market, a slight decline from 269 in 217.
Among them, there are 14 new music festival brands in 218, accounting for 52% of the total. In other words, the survival rate of music festival brands in 217 has not reached 5% in 218, and more than half of the music festivals were postponed or cancelled in the second year. The situation is not optimistic. Among them, music festivals that can land for three consecutive years and have certain brands only occupy about 15% of the overall market.
In the past 2 years, new music festivals have been born every year, and old ones have ended. However, on the whole, compared with the slow recovery of the recorded music industry, especially the prosperity of the European and American music festival market, the live music represented by music festivals still has great room for development under the promotion of consumption upgrading.
In this context, let's talk about why Jay Chou chose to participate in the music festival and the potential significance behind it.
there is no doubt that domestic music festivals have reached the node of transformation demand. On the one hand, independent musicians represented by rock and folk songs, as scarce resources, have occupied the stage of major music festivals for a long time, and the homogenization of the performance lineup has been criticized by fans for many years. From the content supply side, the range of artists' choice needs to be broken.
according to the data, in 218, the number of musicians who can perform in five music festivals in China has reached 13, among which the number of "The Landlord's Cat" in 218 reached 31, far exceeding the number of top musicians' performances in the previous two years, followed by Pu Shu (24) and Chen Hongyu (22). After excluding vertical music festivals such as electronics and rap, 66%(173 performances) of comprehensive music festivals will share these head musicians, and the lineup will inevitably feel deja vu.
The participation of pop head musicians, such as Jay Chou and Jolin Tsai, will certainly bring more freshness and visibility to the performance of the festival, and attract more people outside the circle of the festival to join.
On the other hand, attending music festivals in Jay Chou may also be regarded as a kind of "market sinking" strategy of head musicians. As we know, in recent ten years, under the impact of digital music, the music market at home and abroad is in a downturn, and the contribution of copyright income to musicians is very limited. The live music market represented by tours and music festivals has basically become the main source of income for musicians.
Music Festival itself is an excellent way of publicity. For Jay Chou, participating in music festivals can also be a communication way to further open up the youth market.
Take Coachella Music Festival, which ended recently, as an example. In terms of lineup, not only top big coffees like Childish Gambino, Tame Impala and Ariana Grande are the leading performers, but also Billie Eilish, Diplo, DJ Snake, Gucci Gang, Khalid, BLACKPINK and HYUKOH are joined, with various styles such as pop, rap, electronic music, folk songs and rock and roll.
Therefore, for the folk and rock musicians who occupy the main body of the music festival at present, the participation of pop musicians will inevitably divide some of the cakes and form a certain competitive relationship.
Of course, the greater significance of Jay Chou's music festival debut to the market lies in that it has, to some extent, raised the competition threshold of domestic music festivals and even accelerated the popularization process of domestic music festivals.
When the issues of brand positioning and live experience are gradually optimized, the lineup of scarce artists with strong appeal will increasingly become the core of competition among major organizers, and the head effect of future music festivals will be more obvious.