A Year Without (BJ) MIDI?
Rumors are flying that on the heels of the highly anticipated Shanghai Midi cancellation, the original BJ Midi’s future is tenuous. Although nothing’s confirmed, and we heard that all visas were approved as of last week, but an organizer close to the festival told CW that, “Beijing MIDI Festival will be canceled or rescheduled.”
There’s a lot of speculation as to why but with the sensitive political situation right now we’re sure the government isn’t a fan of large groups of people gathering (unless it’s in front of a Carrefour). On top of that, the French don’t seem to be all that poplar right now in China and with a large number of French bands grace the Midi stages (albeit along side Chinese band), it might be ground zero for just the kind of protests the government would rather not see.
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It's not looking good - just spoke the manager from The Honey's and she said it's off.
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Interesting point about the protests possibly crossing over into the festival. When I first got into the scene a few years back now, the anti-Japan thing was very much mixed in to the scene with then high-profile bands like 'sui' singing songs like '1937' etc.
But the outlook is good, most local people I know through music don't seem to be too caught up in the recent stuff.
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Here's the official notice:
*I'm deeply sorry to giving you all a very extreme bad news. We've just got order from the city government, that due to the increasing tension recently from the Western world on certain issue inside of China, some of the very extreme technique has been used on protest against Beijing Olympic this year, concerning this very delicate period of time, and also to prevent any further inappropriate action against Olympic, the city government has just decided to restrict all out door event before and during the time period of Olympic, that includes Midi festival, so Midi festival 2008 will not proceed.
I'm deeply sorry that this change came so suddenly without precaution, and I hope you can understand that there's nothing we can do to against our government's decision. Please let me know what's gonna be your next action, and we will help what we can.*
How f*cking annoying.
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I'd take the Midi and 1234 festivals over the Olympics any day.
Annoying nationalist showpiece full of boring sports with no real competition in the fields.
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Noooooooooooooooo - tell me you're joking.
Like anyone at this gathering would be in 'riot' mode - this is what we need more of, not less.
Anyone hear anything? Please tell me this is just a rumor.