Overseas returnees bring rave culture to China

Zhang Xiaoyi

With a DJ on stage and extremely loud electronic music in the background, a crowd waved and danced at a music festival held at Bao’an Stadium on National Day.

Just like many other outdoor music festivals on the mainland, Jungle Electronic Music Festival chose to open during Golden Week at a sports stadium where an array of food and beverage booths lined up to cater the gathering. Among the festival-goers, some had dyed hair, tattoos or wore clunky boots.

It was the first time Zhou Boyi, or B.Z., who studied marketing in the United States, and three of his friends held a large-scale music festival in China. Scheduled to run from 2:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m., the festival was forced to close around 8 p.m. when pouring rain paid an unexpected call. To carry on the rave, they held an after party at Pepper Club later that night.

“It was slow and there was no alcohol or water at the beginning,” said a South African woman about the show. “But then it got better and I stayed until the end.” She said her name was Rain and that she had traveled down from Guangzhou for the festival.

There was quite a long line outside the Heineken booth and the 21 Cake booth, where people waited to get a small piece of cake for free. Outside the booths, at an opening farther from the stage, a girl wearing long straight hair, jeans and boots danced freestyle while her friend video recorded her on a cell phone.

“It was very fun. An interesting crowd of people,” said Andrew Strauss from the United States. “Great to have big events in China to bring Chinese and foreigners together to have fun, dance and listen to music.”

It was what B.Z. had wished for his festival. “Young people long for spirits like P.L.U.R., which stands for peace, love, unity and respect, but they don’t know how to achieve that. And electronic festivals are all about rave culture. I saw the changes among the young people who went to electronic music festivals — they became more outgoing. It’s a meaningful thing,” said Zhou on the reason why he decided to establish the electronic music festival.

There have already been a series of large-scale and well-known music festivals such as Midi Music Festival and Strawberry Music Festival on the mainland. Yet local young people might not be as familiar with electronic music as rock and country music.

B.Z. said electronic music is a music form that can be more easily understood by locals than hip-hop and rap, which have far more lyrics to remember. “And for other music festival, the highlight and the leading roles are always on stage. At electronic festivals, the focus is on the audience off the stage,” he said.

According to him, approximately 10,000 tickets had been sold and the festival saw a peak attendance of around 8,000 people.

As an overseas student, B.Z. was interested in music. After attending a few music shows, like Ultra Music Festival, Electric Daisy Carnival and Escape Wonderland, he became more and more intrigued.

So he started an official Wechat account called Jungle Music where B.Z. and three other team members, who also studied in the United States, wrote articles about electronic music festivals for Chinese overseas students. As of today they have produced over 200 articles.

Starting last year, they organized and led overseas students to electronic music festivals. This year, they took over 200 people to a Miami-based festival and over 800 to a Las Vegas one.

Their zest for rave culture eventually led them to launch their own electronic music festival in China, and they invited a group of DJs from the Netherlands, Egypt, Taiwan and the U.S. to perform.

After the show wrapped up, B.Z. said, “The atmosphere was awesome, and it would really be great if there was no rain and the show could continue.”