Start: April 28th 2013

End: May 29th 2013

Location: Beijing, China

The Meet in Beijing Arts Festival brings a month-long programme of theatre, music and dance to China's capital. Chinese and international performances take place at both indoor and outdoor venues, including the famous National Theatre and Forbidden City Hall.

Festival hosts

Meet in Beijing is an arts festival on the national level overseen by Ministry of Culture, State Administration of Radio, Film and Television and Beijing Municipal Government, hosted by China Arts and Entertainment Group and Beijing Municipal Bureau of Culture.

Meet in Beijing Arts Festival aim

The festival aims to promote international cultural exchanges by presenting Chinese culture while introducing international arts.

Festival development

In 2000, to welcome the new millennium, the first Meet in Beijing Arts Festival was set up in Beijing and gained wide recognition. Ever since, as the bridge connecting Beijing to the rest of the world, the annual Meet in Beijing has kept running for eleven years and achieved social relevance. With considerable experience at hand, Meet in Beijing established itself as an international comprehensive arts festival and one of the largest spring festivals in Asia, respected by both domestic and international arts communities.

Festival variety

A huge variety of activities is integrated into the festival including theatre, outdoor galas, art exhibitions, charitable events and specialized seminars that fall into different categories, sometimes hosted by the guest country, otherwise devoted to specific themes. In the past decade, over 1,000 companies and 30,000 artists from 110 countries and regions were featured in the festival, including Bolshoi, Mariinsky, Philadelphia Orchestra, Royal Shakespeare Company and Placido Domingo etc. Recently, Meet in Beijing was exploring new frontiers and shifted its focus from inviting productions to independent and original ones that were reverberated by modern life in China. The cultural diversity shown in Meet in Beijing is a combination of inheritance and innovation, exchange and cooperation, as well as a blend of harmony, unity and peace.

Who is Meet in Beijing Arts Festival audience?

With rapid socio-economic development of China, Beijing has increasingly become an important stage of international politics, economy and culture. As a display of cultural diversity, Meet in Beijing Arts Festival is an invitation extended by the confident Chinese people to the world. It is an event created by and for peace and art-loving people, where humanity is pronounced, hearts and souls are linked, and beauty takes centre stage.