Strawberry Music Festival: A grand spring carnival

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After a four-year hiatus, the iconic Strawberry Music Festival returned to Beijing for the 10th edition, with more than 100 sets of artists/bands taking the stage.

This year’s festival opened in Beijing and Shanghai simultaneously during the three-day Labor Day holiday between April 29 and May 1, making it a grand carnival in the spring.

Music fans at the Strawberry Music Festival in northeast Beijing. /VCG Photo

Set up by the independent music label, Modernsky, the festival features heavily on independent musicians.

Music fans in Beijing. /VCG Photo

There are seven stages with seven different themes, including pop, folk, rock, post-rock and foreign artists.

The host site in Beijing was moved to a music park hailed as “China Music Village” in the northeast of the city. The park is 260,000 square meters, making it an ideal place for such events.

The Strawberry Music Festival in Beijing. /VCG Photo

Three-day pass holders can also camp at the site to save time and energy instead of wasting time commuting.

A game installation at the Strawberry Music Festival in northeast Beijing. /VCG Photo

Glastonbury and Coachella

Whilst the Strawberry Festival is celebrating its 10th year, it is still quite young compared to the major music festivals in the UK and the US – the Glastonbury Festival and the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival.

Festivalgoers watch Ed Sheeran performing on the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury Festival, at Worthy Farm in Somerset, June 25, 2017. /VCG Photo

Glastonbury Festival is the world’s largest greenfield festival, whose history can be traced back to the 1920s when a series of concerts, lectures and recitals called the Glastonbury Festivals was established with a summer school in the town of Glastonbury.

The festival as we know it today began in 1970. The five-day festival usually takes place at the end of June, but it's not just about contemporary music; It also features dance, comedy, theater, circus, cabaret and other arts.

June 24, 2017: Revelers watch the Arcadia performance at Worthy Farm in Somerset during the Glastonbury Festival, in Britain. /Dylan Martinez, VCG Photo

Every five years the festival will have a “fallow” year so as to give the land, local population and organizers a break. 2018 is a fallow year meaning the next festival is scheduled for June 26-30, 2019.

The younger Coachella Festival was founded in 1999. It is usually held in April with consecutive three-day weekends.

The festival is also a combination of music and arts, drawing musicians from many genres of music, including rock, indie, hip hop, and dance music, as well as art installations and sculptures.

The temperature cools down after sunset at Coachella Weekend 2, April 21, 2018. /VCG Photo

Across the grounds, several stages continuously host live music. The Coachella Festival also has several stages: Coachella Stage, Outdoor Theater, Gobi Tent, Mojave Tent, and Sahara Tent.

The festival has also attracted a number of Chinese celebrities, who made their appearances at this year’s event. Though the attendance figure is yet to be announced, the festival has become one of the world’s most popular and most profitable music festivals. Last year, some 250,000 people went to the festival, contributing 114.6 million US dollars overall.

Revelers hang out at the Beer Barn during Coachella Weekend 2, April 21, 2018. /VCG Photo

Unlike these two major festivals, Strawberry has found another way to promote its influence. The host city is not limited to Beijing and/or Shanghai. The festival travels to other parts of the country in different months so that music fans across China can enjoy the musical feast.

Video by Zheng Chenlei and Zhu Danni