In 2023, after three years of silence, offline concerts ushered in a strong recovery. 140,000 tickets for Jay Chou’s 7 concerts were sold out in one second, and nearly 300,000 tickets for 6 concerts in Mayday were sold out in 5 seconds. As of early July, Liang Jingru, Liu Ruoying and Zheng Jun started singing in Beijing. The Damai App shows that concert tickets for artists such as Lu Han, Ren Xianqi and Xu Wei, which will be held from mid-July to mid-August, have all been sold out. It has become the norm to have a ticket.
The number of large-scale music festivals and concerts has increased by more than 35 percent compared with the same period in 2019, according to data from the China Performance Industry Association, as large-scale performances have recovered rapidly since the first quarter of this year. To some extent, the performance economy can drive economic development along the way, including transportation, accommodation, catering, tourism and other fields. Take the Wang Yuan concert in Chongqing as an example. According to statistics, 85% of the audience came from outside Sichuan and Chongqing.
The venue schedule for the "restart" of the 10,000-level performance in March has been scheduled for August next year
When did the performance market become "branched" after the COVID-19 pandemic implemented Type B and B tubes? On March 26 this year, Old Wolf Beijing started singing. This is the first large-scale concert held in Beijing in the past three years, and it is also the opening debut of the Beijing Cadillac Center. Beijing Cadillac Center is an important part of Huaxi LIVE · Wukesong, and Huaxi LIVE currently covers three cities, namely Beijing, Chongqing, and Chengdu. The first two cities are "10,000 People Hall". On March 25, the Old Wolf concert landed in Beijing, and from March 25 to 26, the "Chongqing Banan Zhuguang Shanhai (Appointment of Land and Sea) Music Festival" was held in Chongqing, which led to the "restart" of 10,000-level performances in the two cities.
"At the beginning of the year, we didn’t have a particularly strong confidence, because watching performances is not a necessity of life, it is a spiritual consumption, and how to let everyone pay attention to this field was the focus of exploration at that time. The Old Wolf concert went through months of preparation, and from worrying about attendance to empty tickets and hard to find a ticket, this performance became an industry model." Wen Wen, general manager of culture and sports of Huaxi Group, said that at the beginning of this year, due to concerns about the uncertain market situation, the agreed venue for the performance was usually booked first, and the ticket sales were good before adding a performance. After March, it became two or even more performances. "Everyone’s confidence was stimulated."
Beijing Cadillac Center, also known as Wukesong Gymnasium, is the venue for the basketball competition of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. Since 2011, Huaxi Group has built Huaxi LIVE · Wukesong around the facilities of Wukesong Gymnasium, and gradually developed into a sports service complex integrating large-scale sports events, large-scale cultural performances, sports training, national fitness and other formats.
In 2023, the performance schedule of Wukesong Stadium reached a historical high, with the highest number of performances reaching more than 10 in a single month. In the second half of 2023, the highest number of single-month reservations reached 12. The schedule for 2024 has also been arranged until August.
The venue dominates the "schedule" performance market, which brings double challenges
The "full" performance posed a new challenge to the venue.
Similar to Taipei’s Little Arena and Hong Kong’s Hung Hom Stadium, Beijing’s Huaxi LIVE has become an industry benchmark in the mainland performance market. The first challenge is how to balance the needs of all parties when influential artists want to come here to hold concerts. Wen Wen said that there are mainly two dimensions to consider. The first is to return to its own positioning. Huaxi LIVE mainly targets young consumer groups under the age of 35. Considering that they want to watch the performance, they will continue to release enthusiasm after the performance and drive other business matching formats, so they will choose artists according to the preferences of such groups. The second dimension is to consider the market appeal of artists, such as Li Zongsheng, Zhou Huajian and other leading figures in the Chinese music industry will sing in Beijing this year. They not only have strong market influence, but are also irreplaceable.
In addition, the popularity of the song, the recent popularity of the artist, and the artist’s own tour schedule should also be taken into account. These criteria are interspersed with each other, and decisions are made through comprehensive evaluation.
At present, 85% of domestic artists will choose to hold concerts in the stadium. And a performance requires a certain cycle from stage construction, rehearsal, to official performance and withdrawal. Therefore, the second challenge facing the venue is how to quickly complete the transition when the schedule is saturated? It is understood that at present, the Beijing Cadillac Center will match the needs of the performers to tour multiple cities according to the principle of "schedule advance, one-stop booking". As long as this schedule is determined, all the needs of the performers can be met. And, from an operational point of view, the venue has achieved uninterrupted staff and continuous rotation 365 days a year, enabling fast switching between venues.
After the market surge, it will calm down, and there is still room for improvement as a whole
Will the recovery of the performance economy be sustainable or "retaliatory rebound"? Wen Wen believes that, on the whole, people’s spiritual and cultural needs match the speed of economic development. China’s performance market still has a large market potential waiting to be tapped, and there is still a lot of room for improvement.
From a single year perspective, the explosive growth in 2023 is not a completely normal state, but a big surge after the market has been backlogged for a long time. This surge will gradually calm down, but calm does not mean the decline of the overall market, but a return to the normal state. "The box office of many artists this year has exceeded our expectations. It will take time to test whether it becomes normal."
In addition, with regard to the negative phenomena such as scalpers caused by the explosion of the performance market, Wen Wen said that currently, from the government to ticketing companies to venues, they are all working together to promote this link on the right track, including the implementation of strong real-name electronic tickets, on-site verification of the integration of people and witnesses, and on-site reservation of blank areas to deal with personnel changes and other measures to further standardize the market.
Break the "self-investment and self-construction" joint performance upstream and downstream to solve the problem of the venue
In recent years, Wukesong Stadium has hardly undertaken any large-scale events and performances except for the protection of important sports events and the Honor of Kings Winter Champions Cup Finals in 2020. This "cold winter" is regarded by Wenwen as a process of survival of the fittest in the entire industry. Now that the performance economy has recovered, Huaxi LIVE hopes to further exert its blood-making ability and travel lightly to drive the development of the industry. For example, the small and medium-sized venues built in Chengdu that can accommodate about 3,000 people can realize standing performances, which is equivalent to a large livehouse, which is more in line with the needs of young people and more flexible for holding piano concerts, e-sports competitions, concerts and other activities.
At the same time, Huaxi will break through the "self-investment and self-construction" model, turn the team’s operation and maintenance capabilities, management standards and other resources into "light assets", and cooperate with other existing cities (first-tier and quasi-first-tier) sports venues to operate, such as the current attempt in Xi’an. In addition, it will also contact the upstream and downstream industries to match some cities and venues for performers in a targeted manner, so as to provide better venue services quickly.
By our reporter, Chen Si
