Event postponed

Meanwhile, the Midi Music Festival, due to be staged at Cuiyun Mountain Forest Skiing Resort, Chongli county, Zhangjiakou, Hebei province, on Friday and Saturday, has been postponed because of extreme weather conditions. The event was to have featured more than 20 singers and bands, including some of the nation's biggest rock acts such as Tang Dynasty and Muma.

According to the organizer, the event was originally due to be held in June last year, but had to be postponed due to the pandemic.

In 2000, the first Midi Music Festival was staged at the Midi School of Music in Shangdi, Haidian district, Beijing. Founded in 1993, the school is the first of its kind in China dedicated to contemporary music. Since 2000, the festival has been held annually in cities across the country.

The event in Chongli, the first Midi Music Festival this year, had long been anticipated by fans.

Jing Jia, from Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong province, said: "About 10 years ago, my friends and I made our first trip to Beijing. We took a 24-hour train journey to the capital for the Midi Music Festival. I watched (Beijing rock band) Miserable Faith, as I am a big fan of the group. I traveled to Beijing just to see this band, and it was the first time that I had attended such an event."

Since then, he has traveled to the capital for events such as the Midi and Strawberry music festivals, but he hasn't attended any outdoor performances for about five years. Now a father of two, Jing was planning to attend the festival in Chongli with his family.

The festival organizer said an area of more than 6,000 square meters had been allocated as a camping zone for fans, which could accommodate about 2,000 tents.

On July 17, the NetEase Camping Music Festival, the nation's first such event themed on camping, was launched by Net-Ease Cloud Music, an online music streaming service operated by internet company NetEase Inc.