This is so interesting! I’ve been to a few music festivals in Taiwan and there are some similarities with what you described, e.g. smaller city governments providing better support for festivals, and political protest signage in the crowd. While I don’t think the festivals completely restrict what people are allowed to say here, I have noticed that attendees are selective about which bands they choose to wave political flags for (for example, you won’t see any independence flags when mainstream bands popular across the strait like 告五人 are performing). I’ve wondered in the past if the festival organizers/band staff have something to do with this, but can’t say for sure!
Thank you for sharing that's fascinating! Definitely seeing parallels here. The fact that Rose split up bands and idols into two separate line ups on two different days is 100% a deliberate decision of the organisers, because they know, like you said, people would be attracted to different things and are selective. The demographic of the attendees on those two days was very different in terms of gender, age and background, and what they wanted to get across with signages and flags etc.
I've seen similar splits in other festivals where 二手玫瑰 would headline one night, and the crowd (with significantly more men) would have wrestling matches in the pit, light firecrackers (?!), wave flags about freedom and world peace and reforms, and the next night it would be mainly female fans singing along to idol groups/mainstream pop artists, like a concert. I wonder about the reasonings of the segregation - financial? more efficient crowd control?
This is so interesting! I’ve been to a few music festivals in Taiwan and there are some similarities with what you described, e.g. smaller city governments providing better support for festivals, and political protest signage in the crowd. While I don’t think the festivals completely restrict what people are allowed to say here, I have noticed that attendees are selective about which bands they choose to wave political flags for (for example, you won’t see any independence flags when mainstream bands popular across the strait like 告五人 are performing). I’ve wondered in the past if the festival organizers/band staff have something to do with this, but can’t say for sure!
Thank you for sharing that's fascinating! Definitely seeing parallels here. The fact that Rose split up bands and idols into two separate line ups on two different days is 100% a deliberate decision of the organisers, because they know, like you said, people would be attracted to different things and are selective. The demographic of the attendees on those two days was very different in terms of gender, age and background, and what they wanted to get across with signages and flags etc.
I've seen similar splits in other festivals where 二手玫瑰 would headline one night, and the crowd (with significantly more men) would have wrestling matches in the pit, light firecrackers (?!), wave flags about freedom and world peace and reforms, and the next night it would be mainly female fans singing along to idol groups/mainstream pop artists, like a concert. I wonder about the reasonings of the segregation - financial? more efficient crowd control?