At first glance, TongZhou district kind of looks like anywhere else in Beijing. Big, wide roads, and generally quite pleasant.
There was a free shuttle to the park, which saved 0.4 RMB (7¢) in bus fees. WooO!
This place has huge stores and busy intersections and all that jazz too. Who'da thunk it?
Arriving at the YunHe GongYuan (Canal Park, or 运河公园) park, trying to figure out where everything else.
It's a huge park, and the music festival only monopolised the north part.
Key, cool little kid's park!
????
Checking out the Canal that borders the western edge of the park.
Panorama of the Canal
Underneath the big road going overhead, lots of people rollerblade, skateboard, and otherwise hang out to stay out of the sun.
¡¡Aiee!! It's a fighter jet!! Oh wait, just a kite.
The park is very well maintained.
I was a bit worried about the weather — The clouds seemed to be saying "thunderstorm", but the weather stayed nice and fine, and the clouds soon passed.
With a nice breeze, everybody was out with kites.
This T-Shirt says "I love you condoms" (我爱你CONDOMS).
There were two lanes to get into the festival. The "fast lane" on the left, and the "common lane" on the right.
This is the lineup for the left lane. Needless to say, not very fast.
Big security booth. Gotta check for ... illegal beverages! No bringing in outside beverages. Everything else, ok.
This was a little shopping area they set up. Kinda cool.
I honestly have no idea what band this is. I don't think they're one of the big ticket bands for the festival (the biggest, XiuXiu from San Francisco, suddenly got "asthma" and had to cancel) ...
That didn't stop local girls from buying their record and patiently queueing up to get autographs ....
I didn't even know they still pressed vinyl.
Any ideas who it is?
No music festival would be festival-y without lots of booths selling stuff.
This was pretty cool — there was a big wall to which you could write and attach notes. Lots of fun and creative stuff here. All the 16 year old girls thought it was the BEST-EST THING EV-AR!
Wanna listen to rockin' tunes in China? Here are some stations.
This is the "Love Stage" (爱舞台). It had most of the small cover bands and weird modern experimental rock bands, mostly local.
This early in the day, the crowds were still pretty light.
Lots of people just hung out on the grass lounging around, playing games and taking in the fine day.
Even cute kitty cats hafta eat.
This is the Electronic Stage (电子舞台). Should have been called the "White Rabbit Stage", since today was drum & bass day, which means all the DJs were basically White Rabbit regulars.
Took a while for attendance to build.
But - most importantly. Excellent and cheap drinks. Huge (I mean tubs) mojitos for 50 RMB.
Pretty good food, including Döner Kebaps, etc. All cheap.
This is the little shopping bazaar area. I wanted to buy a shirt, but unfortunately, they only brought Chinese sizes...
I was a little surprised to see this: A full array of emergency vehicles and people at the ready. The levels of organisation for this festival were really impressive.
I continued my wandering.
There was some good impromptu music playing going on. 
This is the main, or Strawberry Stage (草莓舞台). The biggest crowds and the biggest setup. All the big ticket bands came here.
Attending concerts appears to be the same the whole world over.
This is some famous Chinese folk singer, Zhou Yunpeng (周云蓬). He's blind, so he gets to wear cool sunglasses around and sings about peace and love and all that jazz.
People hanging out around the main Strawberry Stage. Sorry for the dizzying pan speeds... 
not quite such a raucous or zany place that you can't bring kids here.
Or try really hard to get the perfect close-up of pretty purple flowers.
Back at the Love Stage, still pretty quiet.
Well, of COURSE you can buy strawberries by the carton.
And that would be the TUB of Mojito.
Hey, it's kitty cat girl again!
We called this guy "bad-ass tattoo guy".
This girl spent the entire evening playing guys off on each other. It was bizarre.
This guy was simply too cool for school. The fancy modern tobacco pipe and massive camera setup.
Yaaa-baby!
Incredibly enough, I stumbled into Alex and Renée.
"Oh, more incredibly cool stuff to look cool photographing? I'm on it!"
The Electronic Stage was slow in picking up traffic, but the great Drum & Bass tunes kept people coming. 
I decided to do another walk around as the sun went down. This is back at the Love Stage, where the crowds were building.
Huge power generators to keep everything running.
As the sun set and between sets, the Strawberry stage area was kind of quiet. 
The Strawberry Stage was between sets at this time.
Still good crowds.
Back at the Electronic Stage, things were picking up.
The tunes just kept getting better and better at the Electronic State, so I grabbed another video of it. Check out the girl wearing a white tube sock (pretty much), the girl with bunny ears, and the alarming white guy's face. 
Great music, great dancing, perfect temperature for it all.
I was sad to leave, but had to make the trek back to the city for a friend's birthday party. I hope this festival sticks around.
