Jimu News commentator Wen Qingman
This year, the “fever” of the music festival came a bit violently. According to incomplete statistics, from March to May this year, there were more than 50 officially announced music festivals across the country. According to a reporter from Beijing Youth Daily, at least nearly 10 of them have announced postponement or even cancellation. Nearly one-fifth, many of which are “one-off” music festivals, but there are also established music festivals. In recent years, music festivals have shown a trend of expanding their scope, moving from niche to mass. However, this year's music festival has gone in the opposite direction, and the official reasons are mostly "force majeure."
Music Festival scene (screenshot from the Internet)
"Force majeure" is a legal term that originally refers to unforeseeable, unavoidable and insurmountable objective circumstances, usually including natural disasters such as earthquakes and some sudden social anomalies. But it has appeared frequently in recent music festivals, almost as a unified rhetoric. What exactly was the "force majeure" they encountered? Some analysts believe that the guest lineup has a high repetition rate, hasty planning, chaotic management, coupled with shabby after-sales service, high ticket prices and low experience. As a result, despite the surge in the number of offline performances, it has not made the industry move forward. Positive development has confounded the market and made the audience complain frequently.
It can be seen that the official so-called "force majeure" is nothing more than an excuse for the temporary cancellation of the music festival. If you do a lot of things but the quality is not up to par, you will just use "force majeure" to cover up the dismal situation. This kind of running away and going back on one's word is irresponsible to music fans and audiences, and it is also a blasphemy to the music festival culture. The “wave of cancellations” of the
music festival also revealed the difficulties the outdoor music festival industry is facing. In the fiercely competitive music festival market, it is no longer possible to support one's own development by simply setting up temporary stages, patching things together, and inviting a few artists with a fan base. The music festival is essentially a cultural feast and cannot be used as a tool to quickly "make money". If you want long-term development, you still need to find your own characteristics and positioning, "simmer slowly" and tap into cultural connotations. Although "force majeure" will stop losses in time, organizers should also know that promoting the iterative upgrading of music festival culture is the password to promote the healthy development of the industry.
(Source: Jimu News)
