Beijing MIDI Festival 2012 – Final Lineup and Venue Revealed
Well folks, in the nick of time, MIDI has somehow managed to get their act together and release the final lineup for the festival along with a confirmation that we will have a change of location: The event will now be held at Shunyi Olympic Rowing-Canoeing Park also known as Shunyi Olympic Water Park… I’ll post some details on how to get there at a later time!
http://www.midischool.cn/bbs/viewthread.php?tid=54937&extra=page%3D1
As far as the bands go, it’s slightly underwhelming to say the least with day 2 being the best lineup: Yasiin Bey ( Mos Def), Muma & Third Party, Backyard Surgeons etc… Miserable Faith will be on hand to close the festival on May, which was pretty much expected!
Click image for the full lineup:
I’m gonna try not to give them too much mafan because god knows what kind of problems they managed to run into while planning this thing but I’m sure that their lack of professionalism also had something to do with it.
More on this very soon…
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Day 3 is looking good too, Miserable Faith as you said, but also SUBS, Good 4 Nothing, Misandao, AIS and Arcane Saints.
Line-up over all is a little disappointing though, apart from the big names it’s like they’ve taken all the kids who play at Mao and chucked them on a big stage.
And I’m a little confused at their scheduling too with some good bands on early slots, for example Residence A playing at 5.30 – followed by Christmas & Hell City? They should have the better set out of those three!
Honestly, it’s so incredibly difficult and complicated to license and actually get approval for these beasts. Midi have had no less than 3 venue changes during this planning process, which makes things incrementally harder. Beijing is also in lockdown this year in the run up to the 18th Congress – that shouldn’t be underestimated
Having said that, we are dealing with a couple of these festivals for artists that we represent and as always I am pretty blown away by the fact that they never seem to actually improve at this, their main job (not just talking about Midi here). I don’t want to be overly critical, but I wish a company would just get one thing right before trying to dominate the whole of China. Honestly, if you can’t do an excellent job with one festival, why are you trying to do 6 across the year? This is slightly my problem with business in China generally at the moment – everyone is trying to run before they can crawl…………
@Ruby:
Yeah, it’s a bit lightweight. I like that they’re giving all the new bands a chance but i don’t think they picked or planned wisely!
Day 3 is definitely kick ass but I haven’t seen XTX in way too long. Unless i hear major drama with strawberry, I’ll make an effort to head over there this year.
@Archie:
I’m sure it’s no easy task.. props to them for doing it! that said, after this many years, they should not still be dealing with structural problems, at least not this late in the lead-up to the event.
I’ll still support them though… MIDI has the heart! I wish they could find some brains to match.
How set in stone is the lineup? I’m really psyched to see Mos Def (although kind of wondering how they talked him into this) but I don’t want to drag myself all the way out there just to be told he couldn’t get a visa or something like that.
Also, how DO you get out there? It looks like the subway falls short and there’s not a bus to be seen. And I’m guessing MIDI isn’t organized enough for shuttle buses…
@Natalie: MIDI is pretty much all confirmed at this point.
From what the organizers said, there will be a shuttle bus to take folks from the end of line 13 to the festival grounds, much like last year.