Capital poured into the Internet to help the music industry enter a take-off stage

Through the chain operation tour model, the company has hosted more than 4000 performances. There are also many innovations in operating ideas, such as providing "cross-border" venues for musicians. Not only do rock musicians like Zhang Chu enter the theater to perform, but the American folk band lamb chops also appear in the classical music concert hall. The business scope and operating methods greatly exceed that of traditional performance companies.

Original title: Capital breeze has just begun, can music take off?

Zhang Chu, who has not appeared for a long time, recently held his solo concert at the Shanghai Oriental Art Center. After 20 years, he toured 14 cities across the country with new songs. For veteran music fans, it is a matter of joy that Zhang Chu, one of the former "Three Heroes of Magic Rock", has returned to the Jianghu. For Zhang Chu, who has never performed in the concert hall, the new experience has also made him perform on the spot. Very excited.

The concert was not facilitated by the traditional performance company or the musicians themselves, but by an emerging Internet performance agency. Different from traditional performance companies, the website platform of this Internet performance brokerage company also integrates all aspects of ticket sales, performance production, theater operations and other industries. In terms of music performance selection, the Internet performance agency not only targets "box office medicine" such as well-known overseas pop groups such as Backstreet Boys and Mythology, but also pays attention to relatively small groups of original musicians such as Jin Minqi and Maximilian. Through the chain operation tour model, the company has hosted more than 4000 performances. There are also many innovations in operating ideas, such as providing "cross-border" venues for musicians. Not only do rock musicians like Zhang Chu enter the theater to perform, but the American folk band lamb chops also appear in the classical music concert hall. The business scope and operating methods greatly exceed that of traditional performance companies.

What supports its rapid growth in the performance market? The answer is capital. Recently, the company announced that it has completed a new round of financing worth hundreds of millions of yuan. While capital is surging in the fields of live broadcasting, film and television, etc., the music industry, which has always been regarded as a lowland of investment value, has been favored by capital in the past two years and has extended to many fields of performance and music education. Some people therefore predict that the music industry is taking off as soon as the capital breeze starts.

Those who invest in music include Internet tycoons and Wang Feng and Huang Xiaoming's vigorous copyright war that became a footnote in the music industry in 2015. There seem to be very few excellent Chinese works, but Song Ke, CEO of Ali Music, believes that from the perspective of capital, this year is actually undercurrent. In his view, the music industry is now at the stage where the film and television industry took off a few years ago. "The music industry is one of the few industries that has not been 'sunlit' by the Internet. But by 2015, you will find that it has begun to expand, proving that the industry has entered a take-off phase."

A set of data from the Daolue Music Industry Research Center confirms this statement. According to incomplete statistics, there were more than 16 financing cases for music companies that exceeded 10 million last year. These companies have reached out to various fields such as mobile karaoke, crowdfunding, artist development, and music education. In terms of music types, classical music, folk music, and pop music are all included. In terms of financing amount, Sing Bar topped the list with 874 million yuan, and there are not a few companies with more than 100 million yuan.

This "capital craze" has spread into this year. Recently, the Wall Street Journal of the United States released news that China's Internet music company Ocean Music Group plans to go public in the United States this year and is expected to become the second Internet music company to go public in the world after the American Internet music company Pandora. Some industry insiders pointed out that as early as 2014 when Ocean Music Group was established, it intended to go public in the United States.

At the same time, various Internet music companies are gradually completing financing. It has expanded rapidly in the past two years. Modern Sky, which has opened music festivals across the country, completed its Series B financing at the end of last year, received 130 million yuan in cash, and released an investment plan for the next 3 billion yuan. Mustang Live has also completed Series A financing, and its shareholders include musician Wang Feng and actor Huang Xiaoming. At this point, the music industry is no longer just a game between a few Internet giants, and more and more capital parties are involved.

In five years, the investment of a series of capital with revenue of 20 million yuan from the unpopular niche music festival

shortened the expansion time of the music industry. After that, how to deeply integrate with music has become a new topic. Xu Liang, founding partner of Heyi Capital, said that although the user size of the music industry is ten times that of the film industry and the willingness to pay is as high as the film industry, for a long time, the cooperation between music and capital has not been successful. The cases are all marginal goals under the banner of music. He believes that practitioners must not only adapt to the characteristics of the Internet era, but also use the perspective of investors and take the value of time into account, rather than just making "quick money".

"Investment is still the first priority. We invest not because of how much money he makes. Many of the projects we invest in are focused on long-term value." Modern Sky CEO Shen Lihui said at the forum "Voice of the City" that his capital logic is more concerned about the long-term development of the music industry. Today's Modern Sky is different from the early development of independent music records. In the past two years, it has focused on the music performance market. It has not only held Strawberry Music Festival and Modern Sky Music Festival in major cities across the country, but also invested in other small music festivals.

Shen Lihui cited the 500-mile City Music Festival that invested in Kunming as an example. It took five years to transform from a small profit at the beginning to a music festival with revenue of 20 million yuan. Shen Lihui said that many people were not optimistic about early intervention in this project, but in his view, through the grafting of this project with Modern's existing resources, its value exceeds the project's profit itself. This year, Modern Sky became a shareholder of overseas music festivals and invested in the City Sound Music Festival in Liverpool, England. Whether he can make money is secondary. Shen Lihui hopes to use this as a platform to better export China artists and introduce overseas artists.

Zhang Chu sang in "Bright Avenue":"No one knows where we are going. If you want to be lonely, come and participate." The influx of capital has stimulated more possibilities and imagination for the development of the music industry. In the Internet age, it may not be known where the music industry will go, but when the rain is coming, the consensus of the capital side is that only by joining as soon as possible can it be possible to gain the opportunity to seize the commanding heights of the industry.

Editor: Nancy