Visiting Wang Chaoge's "Fantasy City": Will the new concept of "Only Henan" be popular?

Since the end of last year, the development of Henan cultural tourism has been constantly innovating. In addition to the best-selling archaeological blind box of Henan Museum, the "Miss Tang Palace", which is popular all over the network in Henan Spring Festival Evening, and the opera theme scenic spot "Weiyu Opera Fantasy City", which has just opened its doors to welcome guests.

On June 6th, "Weiyu Opera Fantasy City" officially opened. To enter the park, you need to cross the wheat field of 100 mu first, and then step into the gap between two rammed earth walls with a height of 15 m.

Different from the antique towns, drama towns or other theme parks in China, the format in the fantasy city is extremely simple. In addition to 2/kloc-0 cinemas and more than 30 dramas, there is only one cultural and creative store with unified style, two centralized dining spots and a supply station selling ready-to-eat snacks, water drinks and Modu cultural and creative ice cream.

In the view of Wang Chaoge, the general director of Fantasy City, a large number of cultural towns in China are just "cultural performances and economic singing"; In the fantasy city, "with the theme of watching drama, it matches other formats according to the needs of tourists." "

The Fantasy City tries to present the suffering and brilliant story of Henan in different spaces by changing the scenery. In the immersive performance of the railway station theater, the audience will first watch the protagonist's life on the circular curtain. The ring-shaped stage around the theater in mid-air, plus special metal screen projection, is presented by moving actors and screen projection on the stage.

Then the audience was guided to the next space by actors dressed as hungry people in Henan, and entered different small tents in batches to watch the actors in each tent perform their own role stories at close range. Then people entered a larger space, and the tourists themselves became part of the audience in the play.

There are about 800 actors in the whole park of Fantasy City, among which a large number of amateur actors are employed, all of whom have been trained by the general director.

According to an industry insider who has planned scenic spot interpretation, Wang Chaoge's interpretation works, from the traditional stage play of Impression series, to the close-range immersive performance of Goodbye series in closed scenes, and then to the immersive performance of Only series in open scenes, also represent the evolution of domestic interpretation formats.

In addition to Henan, Wang Chaoge's "Unique" series has been staged in Emei Mountain in Sichuan and Yancheng in Jiangsu, and the "Unique Dream of Red Mansions" project in Langfang, Hebei has built five theaters. But "only Henan" is the one with the earliest start, the largest area and the largest total investment.

According to the data, only the Henan Opera Fantasy City project covers an area of 622 mu. Henan Jianye Group invested 6 billion yuan in construction, and the construction cost accounts for one seventh of its real estate income in 2020.

There are real estate projects under construction by Jianye Group, the "only theater hotel" with 394 rooms under Jianye Group, and the "movie town" jointly developed by Jianye Group and Huayi Brothers, which opened in September 20 19.

Jianye Group is a major local real estate developer in Henan. Although the cultural tourism project has a driving effect, it is not easy to build such a cultural tourism project with 6 billion yuan in four years. According to statistics, the asset-liability ratio of Jianye Group has increased from 87.04 in 20 18 to 9 1. 1% in 2020. When will such a large investment bring economic benefits?

Taking Song Cheng Performing Arts, a typical representative of the domestic performing arts industry, as an example, from 20 16 to 20 18, the annual growth rate of the group's income gradually decreased. According to public information, the total investment of Zhangjiajie Song Cheng Tourist Area is about 654.38+0 billion yuan (300 cast members), and the income in the first 50 years of 2065.438+09 is 65.47 million yuan. It will take several years to realize the return. At the same time, the income scale of deductive projects located in different tourist destinations is also quite different. In 20 19, Song Cheng tourist areas in Hangzhou, Sanya and Lijiang had the best income (920 million yuan, 390 million yuan and 330 million yuan respectively).

Cultural tourism projects have an obvious driving effect on scenic spots. "Only Emei Mountain" received about 6,000 tourists in the Golden Week of epidemic recovery in 2020, and the conversion rate of tourists entering the mountain was 5%, which was higher than that of Zhangjiajie in the same period of that year (2.88%- the number of tourists in the Golden Week divided by the total number of tourists in the scenic spot). Only Love, which premiered in Yancheng, Jiangsu last June, increased night consumption and stay time for the local Lotus Sea Scenic Area.

"I hope that a large-scale live performance can make money quickly, which is beyond the reach of others. It should be responsible for the interpretation of local content and even the supplement of the core attraction of the destination. " Gu Peng, who is engaged in scenic consultation and operation, thinks so.

The ticket price of Henan Opera Fantasy City is 200-300 yuan, and the reception capacity of all theaters in the park reaches 654.38+10,000 people, among which three theaters can accommodate nearly 5,000 people at the same time, which is larger than the previous "only" series.

One of the challenges faced by the Henan Opera Fantasy City is that the literary dramas in Emei Mountain and Yancheng, Jiangsu Province can rely on large-scale scenic resources to attract tourists. However, zhongmou county, Henan Province, where the Henan Opera Fantasy City is located, has almost no original scenic resources, no historical sites and scenic spots, and needs to rely on the Fantasy City itself to form scenic spots.

Zhongmou county is an integral part of the new city in the east of Zhengzhou. Supporting facilities are still under construction, but they still have advantages in transportation, and they are located between Zhengzhou and Kaifeng. Drama Fantasy City is less than 40 minutes' drive from Zhengzhou East Station (forming a national 6-hour high-speed rail economic circle), and about 40 minutes' drive from Drama Fantasy City to Kaifeng Qingming Shangheyuan.

"The theater fantasy city and the nearby film city, as well as the Qingming Shanghe Garden in Kaifeng, can prolong the stay of tourists in Henan and enrich the cultural experience on the tourist route." Zhou Mingxi, founder of Jingjian think tank, said to the interface news analysis. According to the data, it takes nearly 700 minutes to watch all the plays of Fantasy City, and it takes three days to watch all the performances.

Zhou believes that "the drama" Fantasy City "is undoubtedly an innovation of China's tourism industry. However, the operating cost of a large number of cast members is high. If there is not a lot of passenger flow support, whether it can be replicated in the future and the economic benefits of the park need further observation. "

He pointed out that the annual passenger flow of Song Cheng's "thousand years of love" is several million, but there are only dozens of cast members in a single performance. For example, there are about 36 cast members in Guilin, which is both economical and reproducible. The cast and project scale of the drama "Fantasy City" are large, and the operation cost is high, which poses a greater challenge to the operation ability.

Zhou pointed out that if the Fantasy City of Henan Opera can further enrich the tourism and holiday facilities, combine with the surrounding richer accommodation, leisure and entertainment formats, extend the stay time of tourists, increase consumption scenes and increase the per capita unit price, it will help improve the project efficiency.