USEUROPEAFRICAASIA 中文双语Français
Culture
Home / Culture / Music and Theater

All Wuzhen's a stage

By Dominic Morgan | China Daily | Updated: 2016-11-17 07:28

All Wuzhen's a stage

Chuanju Opera from southwestern China is featured at the annual festival. Photo by Wang Jia/For China Daily

Such is the festival's appeal to young Chinese that Qiu Ling, vice-general manager of Culture Wuzhen Co, claims the company has cut back significantly on advertising during the last two years as online buzz and word-of-mouth has done the job.

So what is behind Wuzhen's extraordinary drawing power?

Backing from such famous stars as director Stan Lai and actor Huang Lei certainly gives Wuzhen credibility, as do high-profile international productions like The Tiger Lillies Perform Hamlet on the lineup each year.

However, only around one in 10 of the people who come to Wuzhen for the festival actually buy a ticket for a show.

The majority of the young crowd says that they had not come to see any production in particular.

It's really about the atmosphere the festival generates.

Wuzhen has invested huge amounts of money and effort in creating this feel.

Chen Xianghong, director of Culture Wuzhen Co and chairman of the festival's organizing committee, also masterminded the 1 billion yuan ($147 million) development of the West Scenic Area during his term as head of the Wuzhen government.

In many ways, the area and the festival are two parts of the same vision.

Editor's picks
Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.
License for publishing multimedia online 0108263

Registration Number: 130349
FOLLOW US