The golden autumn of October is full of fruitful results. The five-month "Joy from Near and Vibrant Tongzhou" 2024 "Drama on the Canal" performance season concluded successfully on the afternoon of October 25 at the Shuangyifa Performing Arts Center in Tongzhou District, Beijing.

In the golden autumn of October, the five-month "Joy from Nearby and Vibrant Tongzhou" 2024 "Drama on the Canal" performance season concluded successfully on the afternoon of October 25th at the Shuangyifa Performing Arts Center in Tongzhou District, Beijing.

The performance season once again demonstrated the unique charm and cultural vitality of Tongzhou District as the sub-center of Beijing with its rich cultural activities, high-quality performing arts programs and extensive social participation. Since the press conference on May 20, Tongzhou District has carefully planned and successfully held nearly 1,300 exciting performances. The three key series of performances - Taihu Jazz Festival, Fanxing Theater Village Parent-Child Theater Festival, and Happy Twist Comedy Life Festival not only attracted a large number of citizens and tourists to watch, but also attracted widespread attention on social media.

In order to implement the work deployment of "Watch Beijing with Great Drama" and "City of Performing Arts", and realize the urban development vision of "people from near and far, people long for it", Tongzhou District will innovatively launch the "Play on the Canal" performing arts brand in 2023, focusing on bringing Citizens will have more cultural happiness and sense of gain. Over the past two years, the "Canal Theater" performing arts brand has continued to grow. The two "Canal Theater" performance seasons and multi-category dramas have been staged in turn, integrating ancient and modern, local and international, highlighting the cultural prosperity and vitality of the city's sub-center. Full of vitality, he delivered a brilliant answer. “Drama on the Canal” has become an attractive and iconic cultural business card of the sub-center. As an important carrier of performing arts brand building and a concentrated display of the construction achievements of the sub-central performing arts area, the performance season has also become an annual cultural event and a grand festival for all people to share art.

At the closing ceremony, Hou Jianmei, director of the Propaganda Department of the Tongzhou District Party Committee, on behalf of the organizer, reviewed the wonderful performance of the 2024 "Canal Play" performance season, which focused on four major characteristics:

First, the scale and number of people reached a new high. The 2024 "Play on the Canal" performance season attracted 2.5 million people to attend art appointments, doubling the number of performances, box office revenue, and number of spectators, creating an art feast with diverse content and a collection of masterpieces for the audience.

The second is the premiere of a masterpiece. Many original masterpieces with the characteristics of the sub-center, such as "Going North", "The Grand Canal", "The Mystery of the Burning Lighthouse" and "Canal Breeze", were premiered during the performance season, fully embodying the organic unity of ideology, artistry and appreciation.

The third is the diversified expansion of the performing arts space. Various performing arts spaces such as large theaters, small theaters, parks and green spaces, shopping malls, and cultural and creative parks allow art to interact closely with the city, promote the integrated development of performing arts, commerce, and tourism, and effectively stimulate the vitality of new cultural formats.

Fourth, measures to benefit the people are pragmatic and precise. During the performance season, more than 10,000 benefit and discount tickets were distributed in the form of convenient and affordable subsidies. The total discount amount reached 800,000 yuan, benefiting 11,000 people, driving more citizens to enter the theater and getting closer to art, and enhancing their sense of cultural gain. , happiness.

As a regional performing arts brand carefully created by Tongzhou District, "Play on the Canal" has achieved a series of remarkable results since its launch, assisting the construction of the sub-central performing arts area, while also adding to the construction of Beijing's national cultural center and "Performing Capital" New color. Five major achievements in the construction of the "Canal Theater" performing arts brand were released on the spot.

First, top-level design provides protection and policies and measures are effective. Formulate the "Tongzhou District Work Plan for Promoting "Canal Theater", focusing on building a sub-center performing arts gathering area with complete functions, distinctive features, and demonstration leadership, and comprehensively draw a beautiful blueprint for future development. The "Implementation Opinions on the Approval of Commercial Performance Venues in Tongzhou District" was issued to reform and revitalize the district's performing arts space resources. Since the beginning of this year, the number of commercial performances in Tongzhou District has reached 1,900, an increase of 152% over last year.

Second, brand activities are strongly driven and high-quality resources are widely gathered. The "Canal Play" performance alliance was established to carefully plan the 2023 and 2024 "Canal Play" performance seasons, and continue to light up the sub-center performing arts stage. The Grand Canal Music Festival and Beijing Infinity Music Festival attracted 120,000 visitors, strongly driving cross-city performance viewing and cultural tourism consumption. Original plays such as "Going North", "The Grand Canal", "The Mystery of the Burning Lighthouse" and "Canal Breeze" were premiered for the first time. The originality and identity of the "Canal Show" brand continued to increase.

Third, the performing arts space is diversified and new business formats are bursting with vitality. Since its opening, the "cultural granary" Beijing Art Center has performed more than 180 performances and received an audience of 290,000 people. The “Universal Studios × Grand Canal” international consumer experience zone has toured more than 1,000 shows this year. The Beijing Symphony Orchestra has permanently settled in Taihu Performing Arts Town. Taihu Stage Art Center, Taihu Performing Arts Workshop, Shuangyifa Performing Arts Center, Hilton Hotel, and Wanda Cinema have been certified as new performing arts spaces, activating the "pool of spring water" for the development of the sub-center's performing arts industry.

Fourth, efforts to benefit the people continue to be upgraded, and cultural achievements are shared by all. Performing arts consumption vouchers were issued, and more than 10,000 benefit and discount tickets were issued, with a total discount amount of 800,000 yuan, helping to make "The Canal Theater" a high-quality cultural feast loved by the people and shared by the citizens. Innovatively implement the "little music fans" training plan, actively cultivate youth symphony orchestras, aesthetic education bases and other art popularization projects, injecting inexhaustible impetus into the development of the sub-center's performing arts.

The fifth is to promote the brand in an intensified manner to help brand innovation and communication. A comprehensive information platform for "Canal Show" was built to promote the "Canal Show" performing arts brand in a three-dimensional manner. The total popularity of related topics reached 780 million times.

After two years of careful cultivation, "Canal Theater" has incubated a number of excellent plays with excellent quality, driving the overall improvement of Tongzhou District's performance and cultural industries. At the event, the "Canal Theater" performance alliance released the first round of excellent original play incubation plans, including about 52 original plays from 19 alliance member units. Among them, outstanding works will be incubated and included in the 2025 "Canal Theater" performance plan. Happy Mahua, a member unit of the "Canal Theater" performance alliance, has released a brand entry plan to deeply explore the Tongzhou market. It will take root in Tongzhou through the establishment of a company, jointly building a theater and creating a theater base; while operating on a regular basis, it will also provide services through cross-border cooperation and resource sharing. The cultural development of Tongzhou District has injected new vitality and impetus. The three-year action plan for artistic nourishment of the "Canal Little Music Fans" of the Beijing Sub-Centre was officially launched, establishing a "1+1+7+n" work system to promote the cooperation between Beijing Art Center art venues, talent teams and other resources with school, community and village youths Accurate docking of art education needs.

At the drama-themed forum "Drama in Tongzhou·Caiju Canal" held subsequently, guests from Li Changjun, director of the Beijing Symphony Orchestra, Xu Xiaohui, deputy secretary of the party committee and general manager of Tianqiao Shengshi Group, Li Gang, president of Beijing Institute of Modern Music Training, were happy Liu Yan, co-president of Mahua, Luo Xi, director of the Beijing People's Art Theater and creator of "Breeze on the Canal", and famous Happy Mahua actor Allen and other guests, respectively developed from the Tongzhou District performance market, tapped regional culture to achieve inheritance and innovation, and grew young drama talents. From the perspective of paths and practical opportunities, and high-quality resource platforms to help industry development, in-depth exchanges were conducted around the themes of regional cultural performing arts brand development and resource aggregation, performing arts innovation to promote the integrated development of culture, business and tourism.

Looking back on the wonderful journey of these five months, every performance is an affectionate tribute to the cultural heritage of Tongzhou District, and every applause is a high recognition of artistic innovation. With its unique geographical location and profound cultural heritage, Tongzhou District is gradually becoming an important platform for the exchange and development of drama art in Beijing and even across the country.

Looking forward to the future, the "Canal Play" performance season will continue to adhere to the core concept of "please come from near and far, and vitalize Tongzhou", continue to explore and innovate, and bring more high-quality and in-depth cultural feasts to citizens and tourists. At the same time, the in-depth entry of brands such as Happy Mahua and the implementation of the excellent original play incubation plan of the "Canal You Drama" Performance Alliance will further promote the prosperity and development of the performance market in Tongzhou District and provide more stages for young drama talents to showcase their talents and realize their dreams. .