Taiwanese at Fuji Rock

They're literally everywhere

Earlier we reported that there are possibly over 1000 visitors from Taiwan at this year’s Fuji Rock.

[UPDATE 8/11/2015] That was a bit pre-mature. Now that final attendance statistics are available, we can confirm around 350 Taiwanese bought tickets through Taiwan’s Lion Travel for this year’s fest, while others bought tickets through regular means. Based on this, we can estimate total attendance from Taiwan at 400 to 500 for 2015, which is still the most ever Taiwanese at the festival as well as the largest national group to ever attend from outside of Japan. The total number of 2015 Fuji Rock tickets purchased from overseas was around 1000, according to the event’s promoter, Smash Japan. The earlier estimate of 1000 Taiwanese was based on total sales of overseas ticket buyers. This was an error we would now like to correct.

The Taiwanese presence was in full force Saturday afternoon for an acoustic set by the Taiwanese metal band, Chthonic at the Field of Heaven.

As Chthonic played, at least 100 to 200 Taiwanese fans mixed into a much larger crowd and waved banners reading “Taiwan”, “Taiwan Spirit” (台灣魂), “Taiwan Independence” (台灣獨立) and “I am Taiwanese, I stand for Taiwan’s independence.” The slogans were in both English and Chinese characters, or kanji, which would be legible to most Japanese.

The crowd included the singer of the popular Taiwanese punk band Fire EX (滅火器), Sam Yang (楊大正), who came to Fuji Rock on a last minute decision. Yang’s friend, Gary Chiang (江季剛) explained that he and Yang had been drinking in a Taipei pub called Cao Chang (操場), or That Fucking Place last Wednesday night. Around 3am, Chiang convinced Yang to go to Fuji Rock, used his cell phones to book a flight, and without sleeping the two took an early Thursday flight to Tokyo. Yang had no money and only the clothes he was wearing. When Yang posted the news on his Facebook page, the post quickly received more than 2700 “likes” and was also reported by The Liberty Times, a major Taiwanese newspaper.

This year two Taiwanese bands will perform at Fuji Rock, Chthonic and Manic Sheep, winner of the 2014 Fuji Rock Rookie-a-go-go competition.

Several Taiwanese fans reported that all through the festival site, they frequently hear people speaking mandarin Chinese or Taiwanese.

We should note that the figure of 1000 Taiwanese at the 2015 Fuji Rock Festival is an estimate, based on preliminary ticket reports received by Smash, the festival organizer. After reporting this information in an earlier web report, the story became the most viewed English news item on the FujiRockExpress.net website.

According to sources at Smash, they are interested to pursue this Taiwan connection and work with Taiwanese travel agencies to create package tours and other initiatives that make it easier for Taiwanese to travel to the festival.

This year, the weak Japanese yen also made it cheaper for Taiwanese to travel to Japan. Exchange rates give Taiwanese at least 20% savings compared to two years ago.

Taiwan’s large summer music festivals, Hohaiyan and Formoz, are also not being held this year.