China dances to a new, electronic beat

The 2016 Storm Festival in Shanghai. [Photo provided to China Daily]

The annual Anheuser-Busch InBev SA/NV-sponsored Storm Electronic Music Festival, being held since 2014, generated 388 million yuan ($57 million) in profit for five cities last year with over 150,000 tickets been sold.

But to break into a market dominated by pop music is not as easy as it sounds.

Netease Cloud Music is one of China's mainstream music websites says one of its most popular electronic music song lists has been hit more than 83 million times. But among the 120 songs on the list, there is hardly any Chinese producer. And, according to Netease data, a third of the users prefer pop.

This is something even artists can relate to. In AB InBev's promotion film Fang, Eason Chan, better known as a pop singer, says that though he would like to go beyond pop into electronic dance music he is unsure how his fans will react.

"I would love to try a different genre and I can definitely dance," he says.

"But most of my fans love my slow pop songs and they want me to sing such songs."