atomicskate - Shanghai…

3 weeks ago, when I read on Internet:

The “Rock It” Dino Beach Rock Festival takes place from June 29 to July 1st at Dino Beach. An amazing 36 bands are scheduled to participate in the massive 3-Days  “Rock It!” festival and they are primed to unleash rock and roll mania on us all!

I was pretty enthusiast learning such kind of news, moreover with the following lineup:

I was eager to watch that!

But, the first day, reaching Dino Beach, we’ve experienced our first unpleasant surprise of the night…
Indeed, arriving at the main entrance (around 10:30pm), we were asked to pay 120rmb in order to get inside!
During the afternoon, I had watched the official website, and they never said we’ve to pay any fee to attend the concert…
Actually, these 120rmb correspond to Dino Beach swimming pool ticket!… Moreover, officially closing at midnight…
Uuuuh… It would be the first time in my life going to a rock concert and requiring to buy a swimming pool entrance ticket!?!?
 
 
Therefore, me and my friends decided to turn back!… and just walk 200 meters up to the staff entrance! The door was open, so why not enter?
There was just a guard at a window, so we just had to creep under it and  then search for some stairs going down!
Not so hard actually, except that one of our friend was caught by the staff and escorted outside. That’s game’s rules!
 
 
For us, the survivors, arriving on the beach, it was time for the second bad surprise…
In front of the stage, only 30 to 40 people!!!
And 80% of them were regular Dino Beach customers (it means that they probably came here without knowing there was a "rock festival"!!!).
 
Except that, the vibes were good, the public assiduous and joyful, the music and the artists proficient
Here are some videos of 新裤子 (truly good performers! I love them!!!):

So, what’s the conclusion?
Shanghai Rocks? or Sucks?
Unfortunately, maybe we should consider the second option…

This “Rock It” Dino Beach Rock Festival is a very good initiative. We should thank Bonbon Club, because they were the main actor of this festival. But we can also harshly criticize their conception and promotion of this event.
Dino Beach is far away from the downtown (around 60rmb from People’s Square). Moreover, they didn’t specify that if you wanna hear music you’ve to buy a 120rmb swimming pool ticket…
Total cost if you wanna attend the rock festival: around 250rmb! I’m not sure that students and a lot of Chinese people can spend that amount (more over it was a 3 days events!!!).

In addition, the communication plan was execrable! Indeed, the Friday I was calling some friends, telling them that we’re going to the "Rock It!" festival, and they had all the same question: "Which festival???". The fact is that, concretely, there was only 10 people (I mean real rock fans, coming especially for rock n’ roll) attending the concert on the first day.
 
 
I think that such kind of failure is not related to China, but to… Shanghai…
It seems that the lack of culture here and the lack of interest in culture both impact any cultural event…
Easy to compare with Beijing, Kunming, Sichuan, Xinjiang underground, alternative, creative and open-minded rock scene & artists…

No need to say that we didn’t attend the 2 other days of "Rock It!" festival…