Living the indie dream

Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn

In 2010 Cui organized the tour for the German singer Maximilian Hecker who was responsible for creating a new wave within the indie rock movement. The tour consisted of 12 cities in China and every single show was packed with avid music fans.

Cui describes the experience as something he expected because, "the newly-developed music market still craves for more fresh blood rather than only mainstream music."

"The awareness among Chinese audiences is changing," Cui adds. "They have started to pay for what they like. Especially when it comes to live shows, they are not only willing to pay for the experience; they also love to buy CDs afterwards as souvenirs."

For Cui, the perfect way to promote good music is to create a streamlined service, from magazines, CDs, live shows, souvenirs, and flea markets to music festivals which include everything. And it was from out of those elements that the idea for the Dreamer International Music Festival was hatched.

"There are a lot of music festivals each year but more often than not the bands they invite are mostly similar. I want to subdivide the market by featuring one type of music at each festival."

His plan is to hold six different small festivals both in Beijing and Shanghai next year. "It’s not easy," Cui takes a deep breath when he utters this wish. The upcoming festival was supposed to be held last autumn but was canceled at the last minute because of site approval issues.

Ticket refunds were sent out along with Cui’s apologies to every music fan in the form of free CDs and magazines. "We lost almost one million yuan ($162,800)," Cui says. "But I wanted to try again."

Cui says that although his company only has 13 employees, he has organized some 150 volunteers to help with the festival.

"The motto for the festival is Indie Music, Indie Life," he says while playing with a flyer that has a muted rainbow hue on it. A stream of colorful bubbles pouring out of an elephant’s trunk features the names of the bands, the image vividly depicting the festival’s Chinese name Meng Xiang, which means "dreaming elephant".

"To be independent and to stick to your dream can be hard," he says. "But I always have faith in the future."

Related special: Music Festivals

If you go:

Time: starting from 12:40 on May 18 and May 19

Address: Chaoyang Sports Center, 77 Changjiayuan Road, Chaoyang district