Nightclub owners skirting the law and fucking over performers? This would never happen in the West. ///
Actually they're trying to follow the law. Maybe you didn't hear? All the foreign bands got kicked off stage at once a few weeks ago. Now there are these onerous restrictions in place and it's a complete pain in the ass for the venue to follow them. So most just don't bother. Byebye decent music.
Not to imply that OP's assessment of Beijing's live music scene is invalid, but I've noticed that lots of cities whose names aren't "New York", "London" or "Los Angeles" seem to have inferiority complexes about homegrown musical talent.
Oops, I got the wrong impression from the link -- I thought the restrictions had always been in place and the authorities simply weren't enforcing them until now.
Well now I have a headache.
Reliable English-language media coverage of this seems to be scarce, so, that's one more reason to learn to read Chinese I guess.
This is bureaucratic nonsense that will be resolved, you're trying to make it into something it's not and I find that extremely sus tbh.
