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Music spurs consumer sales. |
Young Mainland people are crazy about music festivals. The concept has been gradually introduced to Chinese cities and Beijing now hosts a number of festivals on Labour Day, National Day and other long holidays. They're becoming venues which youngsters are attracted to in their thousands.
The most well-known and popular are the Chaoyang Park Music Festival, the Modern Sky Music Festival and the Midi Music Festival. Young people are willing to spend a whole evening watching performances given by top international bands, up-and-coming local artists and Hong Kong and Taiwan groups.
As many as 10,000 people bought tickets to watch each performance of the Modern Sky Festival held at the Chaoyang Park during the National Day holidays this year. Over previous years, the show attracted record audiences of between 20,000 and 30,000 people every evening.
These gatherings have an attraction other than music. On the lawn stretching from the entrance to the festival arena long lines of stalls can be seen displaying and selling creative work and designs produced by individuals and enterprises.
These offerings make the music festival even more fun, with youngsters able to spend their money on everything from music to clothes and other items. Concert goers can buy products not usually available on the market.
Small appliances and home decorations, books and other items are keeping prospective customers returning frequently to the stalls. Many of these stalls are operated by private labels, small workshops or micro companies. Some stalls are even run by people selling goods they made themselves.
While the cheap rent is attractive, a more important reason is that hiring a stall allows small companies and single proprietors to check just how attractive their goods are to young consumers.
They can then improve designs and sales offerings. "We are selling about 100 T-shirts a day during the three-day music festival, but more important is that we are using this platform to publicise and make a name for our brand," said the manager of Wazzap, a workshop specialising in designing T-shirts.
Interestingly, there were also many first-tier international brands, including Hermès, Diesel, Converse, Dickies, Google and MySpace, among the 100 or more stalls set up at the Modern Sky Festival this year.
Companies in different cities and regions are increasingly coming up with ideas to fit in with music festivals to publicise brands, concepts and lifestyle ideas.
from Steven Han, Beijing Office
(Image courtesy of Xinhua News Agency)
