The third edition of the Budweiser STORM Festival is set to take over Xuhui Riverside from October 3-4. It's been an amazing ascent for Shanghai's EDM megafest. In its inaugural year, Paris Hilton was among the 24,000 people who partied hard. Last year's festivities attracted 35,000 people and this year looks even bigger with a star-studded lineup that includes three-time DJ Magazine's No. 1 DJ Tiesto, Skrillex, Paul Oakenfold, Flo Rida, A-Trak, Laidback Luke, Blasterjaxx, DVBSS and so much more. The organizers will also be hosting the first International Music Summit China on October 2. With such a packed slate, we chat with the festival founder Eric Zho about what's in store for this year, how they grew and the state of China's music festivals.
This will be the third Budweiser STORM Festival. What were some of the activities you did in promoting this year’s festival and EDM in general?
In order to create the biggest brand in EDM in China, we’ve begun our nationwide expansion intiative. This year, 2015, we will launch Budweiser STORM in Shenzhen, and we will continue to grow one to three new festivals under the same brand each year going forward. In addition to our festival-level experiential product line, we will introduce a new, smaller, warehouse experiential product line starting from Q1 of 2016 that would tour 4-8 cities.
On the promotion of EDM side, we will continue our mega star collaboration between Chinese superstars and top DJs from abroad. This year, Tiesto and Jane Zhang collaborated on a song.
Finally, this year, we are partnering with International Music Summit (IMS) to launch an IMS China in Shanghai on October 2. IMS China will certainly bring many EDM experts from abroad to mingle with Chinese promoters, club operators and local DJs. It will become the gateway allowing the cross flow of talent between the East and the West.
I believe EDM is set to take China over the coming years, and everything we are doing now sets the foundation for it to happen in a big way.
How does this compare to efforts last year and during the festival's first year?
Building a festival brand is not an easy task, especially in its inaugural year. In the first year, we just wanted to test the market and see how our consumers, sponsors, would respond. Due to the overwhelming success of the first year, we’ve attracted many new corporate sponsors, like Budweiser of AB-Inbev, that has allowed us to rapidly grow.
We market ourselves as the most premium of all the music festivals in China due to the unique TA base, and they are the young millennial generation that grew up very active with smartphones and the Internet, these TA rarely use traditional media and are more vocal than their predecessors.
EDM in the beginning will be seen as a fashion statement, but as consumers look deeper, they will find that EDM is sub-genred into more music types. There is an EDM genre for everyone, and we are seeing that our consumers are becoming aware of this.
Because of our success from the get-go, we are fortunate to grow rapidly, and are hopeful that our endeavors will inspire many others from around China to do the same. Only when more and more promoters start to pay attention to the power of EDM will we see a fundamental shift in consumer music listening habits. You will soon see more festivals, more EDM events popping up around the country, and before you know it, like the US, it will become mainstream music.
One of STORM's missions was to popularize EDM in China outside of the festival itself. Do you feel that you have succeeded on this and do you have any examples?
I believe we have begun to do it. First of all, our superstar collaboration strategy has been paying off, with the track 'Lose Yourself' by Wang Leehom ft. Avicii topping the charts last fall. We believe our new track 'Change your World' by Jane Zhang ft. Tiesto will be just as successful this year.
The reality of an EDM track hitting the top of the charts will for sure make more listeners aware and like the genre. Once the track peaks their interest, they will start to look for more EDM tracks, and thus more likely to convert into an EDM fan.
The process continues… As other DJs and producers are noticing that an EDM track is topping the chart in China, they too will start to make more EDM tracks. Soon, more and more pop stars, producers and DJs will enter the market and do the same. We are just setting a benchmark example allowing the rest to follow.
How would you describe the evolution of the outdoor festival market from the first STORM to now? What are some things you credit for this growth?
I certainly see more and more promoters trying to do outdoor festivals around China. From STORM 2013 to now, I’ve seen more than 15 presentations of local promoters trying to do an EDM festival. Not all of them succeed, but the interest is definitely there. We are also getting multiple interest from different regions in China to license our brand.
Recently, we found out someone in Lanzhou infringed on our brand and launched their own version of the STORM festival there. Our legal is looking into it, but honestly, we are humbled that someone would want to pirate our name, because they will do so only when we are successful. Beyond more promoters trying to put more EDM events together in China, we are also seeing the consumers are starting to like the music genre as well. Across all social media sites in China, we see EDM rapidly growing. From within the music industry chatter, we hear more EDM being used.
What are your thoughts on the outdoor music festival market in China in general and what are some of the unique challenges that you face as a promoter compared to others around the world?
I believe music festivals in general are still in their infancy. If you look at Holland, it's a tiny country of 16 million people with over 200 festivals a year. China, with a population of 1.4 billion – far bigger than Holland in population – has around 200 festivals a year. You can do the math on the opportunity.
The key challenges in the China market are: administrative challenges such as permits (MOC & PSB); market challenges as the EDM genre is still a niche; third is financial challenges, building a music festival brand takes a lot of money and time, not all investors understand the concept of brand building and most live entertainment investors are looking for short term gains. Solve these three, and the vast market opportunity abounds.
// Oct 3-4, 2-11pm, RMB380-480 (RMB480-1,180 for two-day pass). Xuhui Riverside, tickets. See event listing.
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