Tunes that travel

The country's outdoor music festivals are growing rapidly, spreading from the big cities to the second- and third-tier cities. One of the most popular is the Strawberry Music Festival. Xu Xinlei / Asia News Photo

Music industry veteran Song Ke has a new plan to save the business. He is organizing large-scale outdoor music festivals to tour 60 cities around China for a year. Chen Nan finds out the details.

Being a central figure in the development of China's music industry for nearly two decades, Song Ke seems to have a little monster in his head guiding him to make wise decisions. "I am a good foreseer of music market," says the 48-year-old Song with confidence. "When I watch music shows on TV while studying in the United States in 1990, I could tell which song would be a hit and which singer would be popular. Within three months, the news would confirm my judgment."

It could be an inborn talent coupled with his science training at Tsinghua University, which had provided him with sound logical thinking.

In the transforming music industry where traditional market formula is dying, Song has announced a new plan to save it.

Instead of holding an outdoor music festival once a year, 60 outdoor music festivals titled Evergrande Star Music Festival will be held in 60 cities around China from Sept 14 until August 2014.

The plan is this: Two neighborhood cities will have the music festival, one on Saturday and another on Sunday, each with a target audience of more than 20,000.

The first two cities to launch the festival will be Xi'an in Shaanxi province and Zhengzhou in Henan province.

Special coverage: Music Festivals