It was a huge weekend for music festivals, with Midi returning to the capital and the second Strawberry festival taking place down in Tongzhou. So now that all the action is over, how did the two festivals stack up? Beijing Daze has posted reviews of Strawberry day one and Midi day two – and Strawberry came out second by a long way.

This is what Daze had to say about problems getting into Strawberry:

“There were 2 ticket booths only to access the festival area… I got there with my crew at 1pm, we managed to get in around 4pm! At that time, I would estimate that there were a good 4000 to 6000 people still waiting in line…”

“Modern Sky made no provision for a crowds and lines… The small shops in the vicinity were caught by surprise and ran out of a whole bunch of things by 3pm… as they saw the lines getting increasingly bigger, the staff and management made NO ATTEMPT to rectify the situation as far as I was aware!”

Then inside the festival grounds:

“There were 3 or 4 mini official Strawberry Bar tents where one could buy refreshments on the grounds! That was it!!! 3 or 4 small tents in total for a crowd that I estimate at over 10000 persons. When we got in finally after 4pm, all the tents were out of beer!... Somehow, by 6:00 pm, they found beer again but had run out of everything else…”

I was at Strawberry the same day, and concur with many of Daze’s criticisms. I was fortunate to have friends who had arrived early and managed to procure tickets, but the queues when I arrived around 2pm were unbelievable. I had other friends who, like Daze, were left baking in the sun for hours. In fact for most of the day it felt like there were more people trapped at the gates than there were spectators inside the park.

It also wasn't easy getting to the park from the subway. This was partly a traffic issue - which of course was not the festival's fault - but the free shuttle buses were also extremely over-crowded, and the buses seemed to be sitting at Tongzhou Beiyuan subway station a very long time before leaving.

The bar situation inside the festival grounds was also ridiculous. Hopeless staff compounded the problem of tiny counters, as bar tenders took their time to pour each drink into a paper cup while dozens and dozens of people crowded around them attempting to get served. And while I had no trouble getting beer all day, there was no water to be had by late afternoon.

On the up side I thought the sound systems were ok, and unlike Daze I thought Carsick Cars were great. In fact the line-up all round was fantastic.

Daze had a much better time at Midi on Sunday. He reports he was inside within 15 minutes of arriving, and food and drink were plentiful all day.

I didn’t make it to Midi (one festival in a weekend is enough for me), but the only complaint other Beijinger staff who made it along had was the difficulty in obtaining cold beer, and the fact that the advertised RMB 5 beers seemed to run out very quickly.

So it seems there were thumbs up all round for Midi, while the organization at Strawberry left a lot to be desired.