Live shows are back, and more to come

Tourists watch a fireworks show at the Shenyang Fantawild Adventure in Shenyang City, northeast China's Liaoning Province, May 1, 2023. (Xinhua/Long Lei)

BEIJING, May 5 (Xinhua) -- The charm of live performances is irreplaceable. China's market for offline shows had a hopeful spring after about three years of stagnation, and the five-day May Day holiday has given it new impetus.

Many Chinese choose to spend their holidays at outdoor music festivals, enjoying the nice weather and the chill environment.

"I was literally crying," said Jiang Shan, who traveled by high-speed train from Beijing to Shanghai during the holiday to see her favorite singer at the Restless Music Festival. She even purchased a VIP ticket for a better view.

"I could not wait to see his performance. So I went to Shanghai, and I will definitely go to his solo concert set to be held in Hefei this summer," she said.

Data from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism shows that 31,100 commercial shows were organized around the country during the five-day period, pocketing 1.52 billion yuan (about 220 million U.S. dollars) of ticket revenue and attracting 8.65 million audiences.

The ministry said on its official wechat account that the trend of combining tourism with cultural elements is rising, adding that more people are inclined to include watching performances, visiting museums and exhibitions in their traveling itineraries.

Hotel reservation in the areas where concerts and music festivals took place saw significant growth compared to previous years, and the festivals greatly boosted other areas of consumption in the host cities, according to the ministry.

Tickets for the Midi Music Festival in Yantai of east China's Shandong Province and the Strawberry Music Festival in Beijing were almost sold out, it said.

Pan Yan, vice president and secretary-general of the China Association of Performing Arts (CAPA), said the large number of major performing projects launched during the holiday and the increase of travelers helped promote performing arts sectors nationwide.

During the holiday, concerts and music festivals brought over 1.2 billion yuan of non-ticket consumption, mainly on transport, dining and accommodation, said Pan.

A company employee in Beijing surnamed Peng visited Nanjing for the holiday, and she took a night out to join in a music festival in the city after she snatched a ticket online. "The performers and the fans were both very excited to be able to meet offline again after the COVID-19 pandemic," she said.

Chinese audiences also enjoyed other forms of live performances during the holiday, such as livehouse performances, talk shows, comedy shows and interactive theater performances.

The Nanhu Theater Festival opened in Jiaxing of the eastern province of Zhejiang in the holiday, featuring theater dramas in a wide range of forms and traditional operas from all over the country.

China's performance market has seen a revival since the beginning of this year. According to data from the CAPA, tickets revenue of commercial performances was close to 5 billion yuan in the first quarter, surging about 111 percent from a year ago; the number of audiences skyrocketed 143 percent to 22 million.

The May Day holiday has made a good start for the second quarter. Schedules of many theaters and venues have been filled with concerts and other performances through the year end.

Facing enthusiasm and a large demand for cultural experiences, industry analysts urge companies and theaters to provide high-quality productions, and they believe some of the online performance forms developed during the last few years will remain in the market but need to adapt to compete with offline shows.