Veteran singer not yet over the hill

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Shen Lihui, founder of indie label, Modernsky, home to more than 100 indie acts, such as New Pants and Queen Sea Big Shark, remembers the early days of the label, when indie bands were a tough sell.

"It was a very lonely and disordered world for the first few years," he said at a conference titled Facts and Future of China's Music Market, at the Dongdong Music Festival and Convention last weekend.

"There was no format to follow. I just followed my intuition to sign artists. I insisted on the music that I like, rather than counting on data collection or market research."

The front man of pioneering Chinese rock band Sober, Shen is also the founder of the Strawberry Music Festival, which hosts over 50,000 music lovers every year. Before his success, he used his own money, which he earned working at a printing factory, to invest in the bands.

"I often asked myself then why I signed those bands. Nobody knew them and their albums didn't make money. Then I repeated to myself 'because the bands are great and I am playing an important role in China's music history'," Shen recalls.

Shen's story got some laughs, but it underscored the challenge that the three-day Dongdong Music Festival and Convention is trying to address. With the current money and interest around the booming Chinese music market, how do you break and establish an artist for the long term?

The panels also included concert promoter Live Nation's China managing director Robb Spitzer, music distribution service R2G's vice-president Mathew Daniel, CEO of Nova Entertainment Xiang Zheng, and Nathaniel Davis, operation director of Split Works.