China's live music performances go viral, fueling consumption growth

BEIJING - Driven by rising consumer spending on entertainment and tourism, China's live music performance industry, particularly concerts and music festivals, has expanded rapidly, emerging as a key growth driver for services consumption and economic growth.

Under a sky streaked with a molten gold sunset, the air hums with the salt-kissed breeze off the Bohai Sea. Zhao Sisi adjusts her pulsing light-up headband as she laughs with her friends. Zhao's friends traveled two hours from Beijing to join her at the Bubbling & Boiling Music and Art Festival, which is being held at Dongjiang Port, Tianjin.

"It's quality time for me to meet my best friends -- people I rarely see while busy with work -- and enjoy our favorite singers together," said Zhao, a Tianjin resident.

After booking a three-day pass and a nearby hotel, 28-year-old Gu Chengbo relaxes with his girlfriend on a sofa at a makeshift massage stall, surrounded by pop-up merchandise stands and street food vendors. "I came here for the May Day holiday, and nothing has disappointed me -- not the music, food, accommodations, or entertainment facilities," he told Xinhua.

The main audience of the festival is aged between 18 and 30, among which female audiences account for as high as 70 percent, and out-of-town audiences take up to about 70 percent, said Zhang Chongshuo, CEO of Sparkle Live Entertainment Co., Ltd, host of the festival.

Zhang noted that these attendees are drawn to the event to fulfill their spiritual and cultural needs, reflecting their active engagement in cultural and tourism consumption. He emphasized that this trend has fostered a new cultural consumption model centered around music festivals.

According to industry experts, the May Day holiday is usually a peak period for hosting music festivals, and a 1-yuan ($0.14) music festival ticket can drive about 7 to 8 yuan of consumption in the host city, including hotels, catering, and shopping.

Besides music festivals, concerts are also good excuses for audiences to explore a city and splash the cash on travel, food and accommodation. Among the major tourist cities, Haikou saw significantly higher hotel reservations during the May Day holiday, growing by 3.4 times compared to last year. A popular boy group called Teens in Times is holding concerts from Saturday to Sunday in the coastal city known for its tropical beaches.

According to data from the China Association of Performing Arts, the number of concerts with over 10,000 people rose by 84.37 percent from a year earlier in 2024, making it the category with the most outstanding box office performance in China's performance market.

So far, China's live music performance industry, led by concerts and music festivals, boasts a market size of around 30 billion yuan and drives the development of more than 120 related industries such as food, accommodation, transportation, sightseeing, shopping and entertainment, said Han Yuanjun, a researcher at the China Tourism Academy.

Han noted that this plays a key role in shaping a city or a destination by comprehensively driving its soft power and economic growth.

In the latest plan on special initiatives to increase consumption released in March, the Chinese government has vowed to expand consumption in culture, sports and tourism. It will optimize the approval process for commercial performances and increase the number of tickets available for sale based on safety, according to the plan.

Local governments have also beefed up efforts to encourage music performance activities in a bid to stimulate consumption growth. In southwest China's Sichuan province, the organizing units that introduce large-scale concerts and music festivals in 2025 will receive an incentive of up to 5 million yuan based on the total number of ticket sales and sales revenue.

Dongguan in south China capitalized on the debut of the Strawberry Music Festival during the holiday, rolling out more than 500 cultural activities and six tourism routes to transform festival buzz into economic gains.

Zhao is already looking forward to her idol's concert in Beijing this October. "I will definitely go as long as I have time, and I will probably reunite with my squad there," she said.