2023 will be the year when domestic offline music explodes.
From first-tier cities to third- and fourth-tier cities, livehouses have become a symbol of a city’s multicultural development and an important consumption scene for urban young people. In live houses in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and some popular tourist cities, performance tickets are often sold out quickly, and fans queue up before the show starts.
livehouse has only been in China for more than ten years. Now it is constantly copied and its popularity continues to rise. As a business, it has attracted attention from capital and music circles both inside and outside. The more people entering the market, it means that the market is both lively and chaotic.
At the 2023 Second China Livehouse Industry Summit held recently in Chongqing, hundreds of livehouses from all over the country gathered together to discuss the real dilemma behind this hot wave of livehouses from an industry perspective, as well as the future of Chinese independent music.
livehouse has not become popular. Zhu Ning, the founder of
vox, started doing livehouses in Wuhan as early as 2001, and single-handedly built vox into one of the most important rock music venues in China. But as more than ten years passed, he increasingly felt a "squeezing feeling."
For more than ten years, he has witnessed countless mainland Chinese bands move from obscurity to the big stage. To this day, the walls of vox still retain the imprint of many big-name bands performing in venues with only a few hundred audiences. As the original stage,
vox has accompanied the band's growth. Watching them go from venues with hundreds of people to stadiums and stadiums with thousands or even tens of thousands of spectators, it is difficult to wait for them to come back.
"When a band reaches a certain height, it will only move forward forever." Zhu Ning said that over the past decade, as the number of livehouses has increased sharply, the number of bands cannot keep up with the growth rate of venues, and it is difficult for good bands to return. livehouse performance. Famous bands are reluctant to return to small stages, and original bands that sell out at the box office are being competed for, leaving livehouses in the awkward position of "sandwich biscuits."
In October last year, when the Wangwen band toured Taiwan, China, the band's guitarist Geng Xin was surprised to see a promotional poster for the performance of musicians Wu Bai, Zhang Chenyue and Hot Dog at the entrance of a livehouse in Taichung.
"Musicians of their status will still perform in live houses with four to five hundred people. This phenomenon basically does not happen in the mainland." Geng Xin said. Another identity of
guitarist Geng Xin is the manager of Dalian Hertz Space. Wangwen is a well-established post-rock band in China. What he experienced during the Taiwan tour made him realize that if a band has reached a certain level of popularity and still chooses to return to perform in some small livehouses, it will be a healthy and authentic livehouse cultural ecology.
With the popularity of offline performances, livehouse has attracted the attention of the capital market. Modern Sky, Rolling Stone Music, Legend Capital, Taihe Music and other capitals have entered the market one after another, and the livehouse industry has entered the era of "capitalized operation" and theater-style development from "the feelings of the manager".
Folk singer and music blogger Guan Yaliang feels that the offline music performance industry has changed a lot in recent years, and livehouses are blooming in various cities. In his view, as venues surge in number, music content is actually scarce, and the contradiction between demand and supply is becoming more and more obvious. Livehouse lacks real core competitiveness.
music industry observer Fan Zhihui believes that from the data point of view, livehouse is not as "popular" as imagined. Data from Tencent Entertainment’s white paper shows that the number of livehouse viewers in China last year was 2.5 million, less than one-tenth of the number of concert and music festival audiences.
According to the "National Performance Market Briefing for the First Half of 2023" released by the China Performance Industry Association, the most popular offline performances are large-scale concerts and outdoor music festivals. Musical livehouse venue performances and tours have seen a decline in attention and box office. Bao Liang, founder of
on the way, uses "backlash" to describe the relationship between music festivals and livehouses. 2023 will be the year when music festivals explode across the country. Music festivals and concerts are held frequently, and young people's entertainment consumption power Limited, it will inevitably lead to a reduction in livehouse box office.
Looking for different ways of living
Zhuhai Lefang livehouse manager Liang Chu went to Japan last year and saw the vitality of Japanese livehouses that can host many performances a day, and was deeply touched. When
built a livehouse in Zhuhai, a city with a population of just over two million, Liang Chu knew very well that it wanted to provide a venue with high-quality music content. "In 2023, the performance market will change a lot, so I chose to practice my inner strength steadily."
Liang Chu understood that survival is the first priority. In Zhuhai, the life cycle of a livehouse is usually half a year to one year. His method is not to set limits on livehouses, but to treat them as a scene for young people’s entertainment consumption. When it was initially unable to receive many band performances, the band has been doing cross talk and talk shows, making full use of the venue's schedule to form a diversified presentation. He forced himself to consider the issue of survival in a market way, and then build the band he likes step by step.
emilie from Taiwan, China, is a senior behind-the-scenes promoter of independent music. She remembers that in Taipei in the 1980s and 1990s, some British people were running pubs. "At that time, people like Zhou Huajian and Lin Zhixuan all sang in the pub. Later, many musician-level teachers were in the pub. It started." When
emilie was working as a live house in Taipei, she also encountered a shortage of bands and the venue was always vacant. They envision themselves as a music platform, taking the initiative to invite musicians who have not yet become famous, allowing them to go out of their homes and try to perform in front of an audience. Whether there are 10 or 50 people in the audience, encourage them to pick up their instruments and get on stage. They also help young musicians who are not yet famous record online programs to help them expand their influence.
's open ideas also include having a "Chinese Golden Song Night", inviting DJs to perform Chinese songs, and inviting the audience to listen to them for free. These interesting attempts have been made more and more, and the independent music ecosystem in Taipei has become more and more active. "We later invited Zhang Zhenyue to be the DJ for the 'Chinese Golden Melody Night', and thousands of tickets were sold out at once." Emilie believes that as long as the original intention of loving music is followed, all attempts will eventually prove to be meaningful and valuable. "Imagination in content is very important. Imagination is a source of business proliferation. I believe it will be effective."
In different cities, livehouses are looking for different ways of survival. In the same way, they are all facing the most severe crisis. Young customers. When livehouses become a way of life for young people, it also means that multicultural venues can be provided here. Lu Baojin, Director of Expansion and Operations of
Modern Sky Performance Space, believes that livehouses must learn to build their own blood in difficult situations. In different urban cultures, they must make new products that belong to their own urban temperament and gradually develop differentiated and diversified business models. .
"Cities with a population of more than 3 million should have livehouses, because this is the lifestyle of young people." Lu Baojin said that modern sky lab currently has stores in Shanghai, Kunming, Jinan and Chongqing, and will open stores in Xi'an and other places next year. land expansion. In the future, Modern Sky will try to build a venue with a capacity of two to three thousand people. In addition to live performances, it can also host artist concerts and other diverse projects. Starting from the second half of last year, modern sky lab has also accepted registrations from Shanghai local bands, providing performance venues for these new generation bands during the venue's free period.
From the perspective of profitability, livehouse is still difficult, and it is always a sentimental business. Looking at the managers of domestic livehouses, their identity before starting a business is always related to music fans, musicians, and music practitioners. Among the many managers who participated in the forum, there were only two or three people who were asked whether they could make money in five years. More than half of livehouses are unprofitable, which is still a cruel reality.
Livehouses in different cities are thinking about transformation. Some have gained more profit margins through bars, coffees, and surrounding cultural and creative sales areas, while others have participated in the music industry chain, setting up music labels, hosting performances, and starting music and cultural tourism businesses.
invites mainstream singers to break the circle, which is also a way for livehouse to gain traffic.The young So Fun Live in Shenzhen has hosted performances by mainstream singers such as Huang Ling, He Jie, and Wei Li'an. The music style also covers different types such as rock, pop, and rap. It has become one of the few venues in the country to achieve equitable revenue within one year of opening. Wei Jian, chief director of the
Midi Music Festival, believes that in addition to being a venue, livehouse is also a content exporter. If it can organize and plan distinctive performances, it can form the influence of local music in different cities. If livehouse can reach consensus with schools, record companies, and governments and participate in the music and cultural tourism industry in different cities, it will break away from the limitations of venues and become an important part of China's music industry chain.
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