Organizers for the annual four-day music festival Spring Scream, now in its ninth year and one of Taiwan's largest concerts, declared that it will take place from April 3 to April 6 at the Liufu Ranch (六福山莊), the same site at which it was held last year.
Last year's Spring Scream included performances by 160 local and foreign bands -- most of them far from mainstream -- on four stages for four days of music, drawing an estimated crowd of 3,000, according to organizer Wade Davis. This year's event will see only minor changes to that format, with the number of bands possibly slightly reduced to make for less hectic scheduling, he said. Band registration deadlines have also been moved up, with the final deadline set for two days from now, Sunday, March 10. According to Davis, at least 140 bands have registered so far, with all registration taking place through the Spring Scream Web site (http://www.springscream.com). Returning foreign acts will include Mimie Chan from Japan, King Lychee from Hong Kong and 40 Minutes of Hell and Q from the US.
The biggest difference this year will probably be in the event's awareness of interest directed towards it as well as the scene that has sprung up around it. Last year, at least three large raves were held in Kenting on the same weekend, one of which received widespread negative publicity after police raided it for drugs. So far Spring Scream has only alluded to this through a FAQ on its Web site posted earlier this week. The FAQ's second entry simply reads: "Is Spring Scream a rave? No." However Davis said that the event may comment further in upcoming weeks, likely issuing its first ever press release to local Chinese media in order to clarify differences between it and the concurrently held raves.
PHOTO COURESTY OF SPRING SCREAM
In addition to bands, Spring Scream will again include a half pipe for skateboarders and events related to visual arts and film. Ticket prices have not yet been announced, but four day passes have cost NT$1,000 each year since 1999. Last year in an effort to boost advanced sales, four day passes were only sold in advance and on-site day passes cost NT$500. To make sales simpler and more accessible this year, Davis said they are considering selling tickets through a system that would involve banks' automated teller machines and the Internet.
“Why does Taiwan identity decline?”a group of researchers lead by University of Nevada political scientist Austin Wang (王宏恩) asked in a recent paper. After all, it is not difficult to explain the rise in Taiwanese identity after the early 1990s. But no model predicted its decline during the 2016-2018 period, they say. After testing various alternative explanations, Wang et al argue that the fall-off in Taiwanese identity during that period is related to voter hedging based on the performance of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). Since the DPP is perceived as the guardian of Taiwan identity, when it performs well,
The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) on May 18 held a rally in Taichung to mark the anniversary of President William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20. The title of the rally could be loosely translated to “May 18 recall fraudulent goods” (518退貨ㄌㄨㄚˋ！). Unlike in English, where the terms are the same, “recall” (退貨) in this context refers to product recalls due to damaged, defective or fraudulent merchandise, not the political recalls (罷免) currently dominating the headlines. I attended the rally to determine if the impression was correct that the TPP under party Chairman Huang Kuo-Chang (黃國昌) had little of a
At Computex 2025, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) urged the government to subsidize AI. “All schools in Taiwan must integrate AI into their curricula,” he declared. A few months earlier, he said, “If I were a student today, I’d immediately start using tools like ChatGPT, Gemini Pro and Grok to learn, write and accelerate my thinking.” Huang sees the AI-bullet train leaving the station. And as one of its drivers, he’s worried about youth not getting on board — bad for their careers, and bad for his workforce. As a semiconductor supply-chain powerhouse and AI hub wannabe, Taiwan is seeing
Jade Mountain (玉山) — Taiwan’s highest peak — is the ultimate goal for those attempting a through-hike of the Mountains to Sea National Greenway (山海圳國家綠道), and that’s precisely where we’re headed in this final installment of a quartet of articles covering the Greenway. Picking up the trail at the Tsou tribal villages of Dabang and Tefuye, it’s worth stocking up on provisions before setting off, since — aside from the scant offerings available on the mountain’s Dongpu Lodge (東埔山莊) and Paiyun Lodge’s (排雲山莊) meal service — there’s nowhere to get food from here on out. TEFUYE HISTORIC TRAIL The journey recommences with
RSS