瓜州音乐节 2017 Music Festival

 

Another year, and another festival in Yangzhou, but this year is a change of direction for the festival as it moves away from rock and pop to folk and hip-hop.

 

 

 

This years festival was scorching hot with temperatures reaching 37, but the crowds still came and security was everywhere.

 

 

 

 

One of the strangest things that I have seen in China, was the appearance of the gay pride flag at a festival. Usually, the flag would be taken away by the police but this time, they seemed to ignore it and everyone was waving it around and posing for photos with it.

 

 

The folk music scene in China is heavily dominated by female spectators, and many came this time to listen to their favorite idols. The temperature and humidity were insanely high, but the brave fans came in droves during the day and stood under the cruel sun.

 

 

 

 

Some local Yangzhou artists started the festival off and got the crowd into the swing of things to come. It was a strong start to the festival.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Towards the evening, the crowd had grown to over 30000 people, and the police were out in full force to control the crowds. The crowds were well behaved and there were no major incidents at the festival.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hip hop was the surprise for me at the festival. Chinese hip hop had always been small and very underground but this year it has exploded in popularity and thousands of young fans came out to see the rising stars like Higher Brothers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The evening brought some of the big folk stars to the stage and the temperature dropped but the fans went crazy in delight as the big stars took the stage and entertained them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Evening towards the end of the evening, the fans stayed and continued to sing along and scream for their favorite stars.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The end of day one left all the staff exhausted, with temperatures rising towards 40C but the fans had a great time, and that is the most important part of a festival.

Day 2

 

Day 2 was just as hot as Day 1 and this time the crowd came in more slowly than the first day. The day started with a local Yangzhou rock band and then quickly went back to folk music for most of the day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nothing exciting really happened on day 2, except for a lot of staff and photographers getting heat stroke. I was one of the victims of heat stroke on the second day and spent most of my time cooling down between sets, not really shooting a lot of the crowd as I did on day 1. It was a good festival overall, though, and I will come back and shoot the festival again in 2018. If you’re around the Jiangsu region during the May holidays in 2018, then attending this festival is a good idea. The city of Yangzhou is beautiful, and the festival is a lot of fun.

Shaun