Hello, welcome to Roundtable where we serve up piping hot debates on the issues that sizzle in China and beyond.
I'm Niu Honglin.
In recent years, live performances have transformed from simple entertainment into powerful engines for urban vitality.
Concerts, festivals and stage plays don't just fill seats they ripple into dining tables, hotel rooms, shopping bags and social media feeds.
What was once a fun night out has become an ecosystem, a phenomenon showing how culture, emotion and economy intertwine today's customer landscape.
Today Roundtable takes you to check out the before, during and after fun of live performances here in China.
For this episode, I'm joined by Yushan and Steve Hatherly.
Now grab your virtual compass and follow us to the heart of the discussion.
Let's be honest, these days going to a concert is much more than just about music.
There's the planning of your outfit booking the perfect hotel, trying out a special concert makeup look and maybe even a heated bargain for a glow stick outside the venue.
The stage may be inside, but the real show is happening all around.
Fans, vendors and businesses are busy remixing culture and consumption into something bigger than anyone expected.
Let's hear from someone with first-hand experience first.
Yishan, hello welcome to the show and what has been your favorite or most memorable live performance experience?
That's kind of shame to admit because I've never really been to a live concert before.
When we talk about concert, the way I understand it, is within the music hall, within a performance center where people dress up to anticipate classical music.
That's what a concert sounds like for me.
That's the total complete opposite of my definition of a concert.
But to be honest, in preparation of those kind of concerts back in the days when I was too young and naive, let's say, I would wear full makeup and dress up as formally as I could as a college student and still managed to be there and maybe 30 minutes ahead and just get myself involved in that environment and just embrace the whole vibe of the golden and black.
You're talking about a classic concert, like with orchestra and stuff back then it's also kind of like um, an experience where you just want to prepare yourself in the way that you think best fit the scenario before you're going there.
So that's kind of like a thing for me, but i don't know how has it been for you, steve?
No, i was teasing before.
That's totally a concert experience.
There are different styles, right.
The ones, the formal ones, where you dress up, and that's part of the experience right, it's part of the fun because you're you're almost involved in the experience before you even arrive at the venue, because you're choosing your clothes so carefully in anticipation.
I've been to those types of performances.
I've seen an opera or two.
I've seen musicals.
I even saw a ballet, which was probably the only ballet I'll ever see.
They, they ask you to clap too much.
It's just like they ask you to clap.
Well yeah, i mean, they do something right and these are very talented individuals um, really talented dancers but they, they'll do something, and then you clap, like the audience claps, and then they'll do something immediately after, and then they just stand there and wait for you to clap again.
And i was like i just clapped like 30 seconds ago, like do some more stuff first, you know um, But it was a good experience.
I enjoyed it.
It was the nutcracker, actually.
But my favorite concert experiences that I've had have been like festivals, like outdoor in an open park setting where you'll have like stage one, stage two, stage three and then like a DJ tent or something like that.
Those have been the most fun for me.
Yes, and those have been the kind of scenarios where young people would show up, they dance along with the music they shout out, so you cannot really hear the singers, but the one next to you who's not perfectly tuned, and they would dress up and have special makeups.
And those scenarios are not only for the live performances or the outdoor music festivals anymore.
Usually we thought those are the most engaged ones.
But these days, this kind of experience or this kind of preparation, along with going to different festivals, cities for a live performances, are becoming more and more popular among especially, the younger generation of the consumers.
So let's take a look at the bigger picture here, shall we?
Yeah, it's really popular in China these days.
And in the first half of this year, for example, the nationwide concert ticket sales have already risen about 40 year on year.
And that's announced by the Ministry of Commerce.
So in 2024 alone, China hosted nearly 490000 commercial performances, and that's up nearly 11 from the previous year.
And among all these, the 2700 large-scale shows with over 5000 attendees definitely generated nearly 30 billion yuan and that's over US4 billion in ticket revenue, and it drew 365 million viewers.
I just couldn't believe these data and these are from Sina Financial News.
So the rise in concert events is totally driving massive people flows as well.
So it's boosting not just the ticket sales but also travel, accommodation and dining and the local tourism in general in the host cities.
And the concert economy has even been called a mobile GDP, with a good reason, I'll say, because wherever the concert is moving to or hosted, the local cities got a chance to increase their GDP via venues.
So, for example, there is a recent Jay Cho's concert world tour.
If you don't know j-cho, he is one of the pop music icon that my generation, if not gen z also.
Yeah, he's the one that we listen to when we grow up.
That's a weird way of saying that someone is famous, But yeah, either way, his tour in Nanning in southwest China.
One tour it attracted 170000 fans and 85 were from out of town.
And it's filling local hotels and generating over 1 billion yuan that's roughly 140 million US dollars in citywide consumption.
That's just how big of an influence the live concerts nowadays can have. on individual cities i remember i think it was a little post-covid when taylor swift was doing her was it the arrows tour um yeah there were so many stories on the internet about the taylor swift economy and how because people couldn't travel during covid they were using the money that they kind of had reserved for covid travel and and made a vacation experience out of traveling to a Taylor Swift show.
So they would book flight tickets and hotels in a different city and then think about how many people are doing that, and it's the same thing we're talking about here.
You get hotel bookings that are through the roof.
You get restaurants that can benefit from that, shopping that can benefit from that.
It just does so much for the local economy.
I remember there being a downside, though.
One of my coworkers at the time was from Australia and Taylor Swift was doing her show in Australia and my coworker was going to be flying back for that time period, not to see Taylor Swift, but just to be going home.
Uh-huh and couldn't book a hotel room within X amount of kilometers of the city because all the rooms were fully booked with Taylor Swift concert goers.
Yes, that was definitely a thing.
And I remember at that time, Taylor Swift made an agreement with a country saying that she would yes, a country.
You heard me.
Yushan's eyes were like widely opened.
And it was because she decided to have six consecutive concerts in one country, meaning that for the entire Asian viewers, they can just go to those concerts.
Right.
So she didn't have to or didn't plan in doing some other concerts in other countries, which would be a loss of opportunities for those countries.
That was the thing.
That was how big it was.
And during those times there was research talking about the more expensive the ticket for a concert is, the more money people would plan on spending on traveling abroad, around in the city or traveling enjoying the experience, because you've already spent too much and you feel like you should make the most of it, and at that time the ratio was one to four.
But here in today's china, the ratio is getting higher and higher and a lot of people are taking different opportunities or taking enjoying a live performance as an opportunity to have a more comprehensive experience in different scenarios.
So let's take a look at the scenarios one by one to start with.
A lot of people are planning their live performance experience with a traveling experience already.
So instead of, oh, I'm watching this concert, I would also tour the city a little bit.
They're just putting them together all together.
Yeah, because once you're there, you'll kind of be there for a time.
And nowadays people just think that the concert that they're going to, which is primarily their target of why they're going there, is just one stop during the trip.
They are kind of extending their trip, or rather extending their experience in that city, to a more dimensional trip.
So many people went to, I believe, went to the 2023 tour of Jackie Chen, that's Zhang Xueyou in Mandarin, in Chengdu back in 2023.
And that one drew 121,000 fans with Jackie.
Nine shows.
And about 34 of them, and that's roughly 41000 people.
They traveled in from outside of the province and just spent a few days there in Chengdu, because Chengdu is quite a spectacular city itself.
Yes.
And also from Damai, which is a major concert ticket platform data, on May 18th, 2024, 66% of the audience at May Day's Beijing concert, that's Wu Yutian's Beijing concert, were cross-city travelers from outside of Beijing as well.
I remember, wow, that one excited our friend Yushun quite a bit back then in May last year.
And He was part of a small group, if not a large group rather, where people from all over China just joined in one stop.
And they tour around Beijing a little bit.
And they get to know each other before the concert, just so that they can dance and sing happily at the concert because they're all May Day fans.
So that's just quite an experience for these young people.
They're traveling abroad while they're listening to the concert, even though the concert is kind of why they want to travel in the first place.
Using it as an opportunity to socialize.
Yeah, that's another kind of side benefit, I suppose.
There was another concert in Suzhou last year.
I guess last year was a big year for concerts.
We've already mentioned that.
It was JJ's JJ20 concert.
I was just about to say that.
Thank you.
Just kidding.
That generated over 700 million yuan.
That's almost 100 million dollars in additional consumption.
More than half of the people who went to that show were from outside of Suzhou.
And the local governments, they're aware of this, right?
The tourism agencies, they are also aware of this.
So they are designing incentives to. to link the concert itself with city tourism events.
And an example of that would be in Beijing before the May Day 25th anniversary tour began.
Fans were already headed over to Chaoyang Park.
They wanted to take some photos there.
There were five 10-meter tall colorful installations representing the band.
So that park beautiful park, by the way became a tourist destination just because of those installations there.
So that's just one example of how tourism when, when the agencies are involved and when local governments are involved and they're aware they can make it an even more special experience for the people experiencing it.
The local governments are smart and i have to happily and proudly present my hometown taiyuan, which is the provincial capital of shanxi province.
We were aware of, oh it's really proud of, the situation even before this year, taiwan has been famous for hosting a lot of different concerts and inviting people to go and travel there, even before black myth wukong became popular and yes, the tourism related to black myth wukong was popular, i think, last year.
So even before that, Taiwan was famous for the concert economy and the local government did provide certain incentives for those who are traveling for the concert to be able to enjoy it more.
Now they would plan a day or two to have a even better experience, which means they're going to stay in the city a bit longer, enjoy the food a little bit longer and maybe if enjoy the hotel, if the hotel is really good and with local characteristics.
Yeah and um, that's the news from um, kind of like recent, from baotou in inner mongolia up in northern china.
They allow people to use their ticket stub of a concert to access multiple local attractions for free or at a discount.
I'm not sure if your hometown shanxi, is doing the same homeland, but I believe this is one way of bringing incentives very closely tied to the concert economy that's kind of popular in various Chinese provinces, cities and regions nowadays.
That's really helping synchronizing the entertainment and tourism industries in such a good way.
And it's also a good chance to kind of just enhance city branding by turning concerts flow into promotional platforms.
Because I would imagine Shanxi has a very historical area where a lot of the you know the cultural relics that represent different dynasties throughout Chinese history can be a very good name card on its own.
But aligning pop music concert with all those kind of tourism highlights of that comes from the local tourism industry will be a very good spot.
It's like an even bigger highlight for the place itself If the coordination I mean the coordination is really important, right.
Yeah.
Things have to run well.
And if it's run well and successfully and it's well organized, then it can really do a lot for the reputation of a city, right?
All these thousands and thousands of people are. traveling outside.
And even though they're traveling from outside the just for a concert and then doing other things, they're still left with an impression of the city right.
So if it's organized very well and people leave with a good impression, they're probably quite likely to to return to the city and also, through word of mouth marketing, tell other people about their great experience in that city.
Um, If it's organized poorly and things don't go well and people have a negative experience for one reason or another, that could reflect poorly on the city unfairly, right.
But it could still reflect that way, which is why the coordination if local governments and tourism groups are going to be involved, having very well-organized events, is really, really important as side events to the concert.
They also dress up for it and they would require special makeup and outfit services.
And these services are definitely done before the concert, meaning that they would go find these services in the city hosting the concert.
But we'll touch upon that just a little bit later, because I want to talk a bit about the accommodation and dining experience in different cities.
Last year there was this survey talking about for those who are going to a concert.
Around 20 of them have been setting their budget between 3000 to 5000 yuan.
That's a lot of money.
It's a lot of money and half would set the budget between 1000 to 3000 yuan, which is still quite a lot.
And we see that a big chunk of their spending goes straight to hotels and meals about 57 on accommodation and 54 on dining, which makes a lot of sense.
If I'm going to a different city, I would definitely like to try some local specialties.
Yeah.
You got to book early and that's what people do, right?
You have to book well in advance because what people want is they want to stay near the venue.
They don't want to be super, super far away from that.
So planning in advance is a good idea.
That's a huge priority for people.
And the smart owners of restaurants would also showcase a little bit of the elements of the concert going on during the concert, so they can attract more fans to have a meal or two in their restaurants.
This is also happening across China.
And after having a good meal, that you have around two to three hours before the concert, what would you do, Yushan?
Or maybe not you, some young concert goers.
Ouch.
Excuse me?
Younger.
Fine.
So two to three hours before a live concert.
I'll just wander around and maybe buy souvenirs.
Sure.
But I'm doing it in an old school way for sure.
You probably get something to eat too, I would think.
After the meal, just after the meal.
Or just wait at the front of the queue, just so that I can be allowed to get in among the first batch.
So that's just my way of, know getting to a very crowded place i always try to queue first but nowadays young people they don't waste those two hours just by standing there and queuing it's also smart to do so by the way but now nowadays they do other services they kind of book other services before they go along with accommodation they also book for makeup service in say for example a representative color of their idol And the makeup stand is also just located very close, maybe next to the venue where the concert will be hosted so that you can just be there maybe two to three hours earlier and enjoy your makeup done or your hair braided for you with some colorful, maybe idol related outfits.
You shouldn't told me that.
That's what they got last year outside of the May Day concert venue, where there are like hair artists doing people's hair.
If you're a guy and you've got long hair, you can also get that to to.
You know, braid the color blue into your hair and maybe paint it a little bit, because blue is the color representative color of may day.
I heard that's cool and the way they do that is.
It happens on social media, right?
So they'll choose a site like red note and the makeup artists themselves they'll promote their service there and they'll show pictures of their you know, previous looks, things like that.
They show their prices there too.
And then you can book weeks ahead of the show.
So it's good for the, for the makeup artists because they can book their clients early.
It's great for the concert goers because yeah, you do want to get to the venue.
I agree with that.
Maybe a couple of hours early, but it gives you something to do outside, right?
Definitely.
Yeah, so you can do that.
Then there's photography services that are there.
So, you know, if you're not a great selfie taker, then you can hire a pro to take your picture.
They can take your picture and I guess sell it to you.
I guess that's how that works.
You'll pay like up to $100 at times for their professional studio quality photos.
And again, you can do that before the show.
You can do it after the show.
Kind of like a before and after look.
Yes, and also...
Probably a better look before than after, I would think.
For those of you who haven't done anything like this or observed the experience, the reason that you would hire a professional photographer to take pictures is not only because you dressed up especially for the occasion, but around the venue there would be a lot of different huge posters of the one who's doing the concert, and also different types of decorations with elements of the one that you hope to see in person.
For so long time is definitely the kind of consumption people would like to make, especially to make themselves feel closer to the people that they want to see.
And recently, just recently, I went to Wukesong area in Beijing.
And the Wukong Song area is with a venue that can host concerts.
Almost every weekend, a concert would be held there.
And for this time it's quite special because I see a lot, a lot of people wearing very beautiful Chinese-style costumes.
Han-style costumes, hanfu, and also qipao, and also it's just...
It's stunningly beautiful with so many people on the ground on the square in front of the venue, and they are all dressed up with full makeup, with very, very professional costume.
I think it's definitely a theme and seeing so many people willing to do so.
For a live performance, you know the enthusiasm in the younger demographic of this line of industry.
And besides that, another major part of the whole experience would be souvenir.
I myself had an experience of souvenir.
It's quite fun.
I realized that, well, for me, it was not a live concert.
It was stage play and also stage drama and also ballet.
I've experienced ballet for once.
How many times did you clap?
I think too many times.
But the idea is that because before yes, there were, and I'm pretty sure, in a lot of different occasions there are a lot of stalls, a lot of booths selling souvenirs.
And now here in China you can change your concert ticket to a special edition ticket, so you can take it as souvenir and laminate it or something.
And for me it was after the performance.
You kind of feel like you have a special bond with the performers, the ones who have said something during just for you, just for that performance.
Maybe the next time it will be different.
And after bonding a little bit with the performance, you would like to buy the souvenir even more sure yeah, they'll sell t-shirts or hats or mugs or.
But merchandising is a huge, huge thing.
There's lots of different choices and it's a great way to kind of remember your event.
Take a little keepsake with you.
Even for classical music concerts, the organizers they kind of like to do that too.
It's a just a fun meetup between the artists themselves and the fans.
And And I remember attending, like after concert, CD signing events many times where say, a violin is sitting there and all of us, after attending his concert, will be waiting outside and it will just keep on going on for say, about an hour or two where people wait in line to just deliver a little bit of gift.
They prepare for the artist and get a CD signed, purchase the CD on site and get it signed by the artist themselves himself.
In my case, and it was quite a fun experience, it got me a chance to just be able to speak to the artist himself and appreciate just how much I like his music.
So maybe it's not that practical for say, in a stadium of music icon is there and imagine something similar to happen just soon after the event, but still it's just a good way for people to keep a little bit of that experience and take it back.
It can happen in music festivals too.
I remember um, I was sent to.
It was a great experience for me because I was working for a radio station at the time where I was sent to cover the concert festival, and So some interviews with some of the artists were arranged.
But the bigger name this was an international concert, so the bigger name rock bands who had flown from America.
They were staying the event was about an hour and a half outside of Seoul, but the bigger names they would stay at the five-star hotels in Seoul, right.
So they would play the show, get on a bus, and leave immediately.
But I had access to kind of the area where they were ready to get on the bus.
And I met with the guitarist from one of the more popular rock bands.
I just ran into him because he's just standing there waiting, right?
But I asked, oh, where's the lead singer?
And he said, oh, he doesn't come out this entrance.
He goes out a different entrance.
He takes a different bus.
And then, when we get to the entrance of the highway, his bus stops and he gets onto our bus because he's super famous, right.
So the fans, if they know where he is, they'll go there.
But the guitarist, you know, nobody really knew who he was.
But you talked to him, which was nice.
Yeah, he was cool.
Yeah.
That's the drummer too.
And, like Yushan has mentioned now, on top of meeting the artists, you can also have a cute meetup with your fellow fans of whoever is performing and talk with them and maybe form a little social media group so you can share info and also share your love, your understanding about the performances, which is also a great part of music.
You know entertainment life.
You'll be able to find the similar minds in these occasions.
So with all that, with the concert economy expanding so fast, what might the future hold?
Well, I think basically nowadays we're seeing concerts and the culture of attending live concerts or live performances so closely aligned with local economy.
It's just kind of like a trend where concerts are merging as part of a lifestyle and just creating this hub in local cities.
And cities.
They might really turn areas around major concert hosting venues into say, year-round cultural and entertainment hubs.
I kind of see this, I think, somewhere back in Manchester, I think.
There was one time where I...
Actually traveled by a train from London to Manchester just for a stage drama there.
And I remember there, nearby the venue, they just put a big poster of all the big, or rather major state dramas they've ever done, invited to their venue and so that people can walk around just like visiting a museum.
So that's how cities, or rather venues, they are trying to transform their own culture to its visitors is to demonstrate itself and include all of these concert as part of his own culture.
I think that's where we're heading nowadays.
And then you yeah, so you do that?
You accomplish that with bundled packages, i would think so you can combine the concert tickets and transport and dining or local attractions to make the trip to the city if you're traveling from outside the city or even if you're a citizen of that city, to make it more of a kind of an immersive experience where you can enjoy so many more things other than just the concert itself.
Yes, and in this way, I guess the performance is never really over.
It continues to echo in the streets, in the shops, and in the lives it touches.
