On the evening of Feb. 23, after famed Hong Kong pop star, film & tv actor, and composer Jacky Cheung finished the last Haikou performance on his world tour, Cao Meng, a fan from Fujian, felt ready for even more. This was his fourth time traveling to Haikou for a concert.
Cao Meng’s choice to come to Haikou shows how effective the city has been in the recent campaign to become an ‘international performing arts capital’. In recent years, more and more big-name music artists have chosen Haikou as the venue for the first concert on their tour, to premiere new pieces, or to hold other unique, significant events. Many of them have had such a great time here that they’ve returned over and over again!
Jacky Cheung’s World Tour Haikou concert (Photo: Department of Tourism, Culture, Radio, Television, and Sports of Hainan Province)
Jacky Cheung’s World Tour Haikou concert (Photo: Department of Tourism, Culture, Radio, Television, and Sports of Hainan Province)
Haikou is cool enough for the 1st or even only performance!
On the evening of Feb. 23, the third concert of Jacky Cheung’s World Tour was held in the Haikou Wuyuanhe Stadium. This was a very important concert – the 1,000th concert of Jacky Cheung’s career!
“From his 2018 concert in Wuyuanhe Stadium to this year when he held his 1,000th concert here, it’s clear that Jacky Cheung really loves Haikou!” Li Yanni, a Haikou local, couldn’t suppress her excitement as she posted this message to WeChat, along with several photos of the concert.
Li is a major fan. She was very excited to attend Cheung’s 2018 concert and she’s been looking forward to the next one since then.
To her surprise, she was able to not only attend another Jacky Cheung concert in Haikou, but was also able to see several other top musical acts in the city. Kanye West and Charlie Puth from the US, along with a slew of top Chinese performers including Jay Chou, Xu Song, Xue Zhiqian, Angela Chang, and Li Jian have all played to packed audiences in Haikou. Plus, the Hunan TV New Year’s Eve Concert has been held in Haikou for the last four years!
First time visitors become frequent arrivals
Actually, the choice to hold these special concerts in Haikou is not just thanks to the preference of the individual artists.
Haikou has been the venue for:
lAngela Chang’s birthday concert and Jacky Cheung’s 1000th concert in 2025
lThe only stop in China on Kanye West’s world tour and the first concert in Asia of Charlie Puth’s world tour in 2024
lJay Chou’s first world tour concert on the Chinese mainland and the first concert of the newly formed Teens in Times group in 2023
What’s the reason so many big-name stars have come to Haikou?
“Haikou offers excellent services and strong security, which were the main reasons we chose to come to Haikou and to perform at the newly built Wuyuanhe Stadium,” explained Jacky Cheung’s concert organizer.
Let’s take a look at Kanye West’s internationally popular ‘Listening Party’ concert. For international performances, the first consideration is the visa. Hainan’s visa-free policy has eliminated troublesome red tape for international performers and audiences. This was an important consideration for Kanye West’s team in choosing Haikou.
Then, the impressive ticket sales made Kanye West Listening Party organizers so happy that they decided to add another impromptu performance date in Haikou right after the first one! Thanks to Haikou’s fast-track large-scale performance approval policy, the additional performance date was approved that same night, and the second date was announced the following day.
The Kanye West World Tour Listening Party in Haikou (Photo: Department of Tourism, Culture, Radio, Television, and Sports of Hainan Province)
The organizer of Charlie Puth’s World Tour Haikou saw the great success of Kanye’s event and reached out to local authorities. Thanks to the warm welcome from Haikou, Puth decided to make Haikou the first stop in Asia on his world tour.
That’s why there are not only so many performers coming to Haikou for the first time, but also so many coming back again and again. Hunan TV’s New Year’s Eve Gala has been held in Haikou four times. Jacky Cheung has performed in Haikou four times as well. Angela Chang has chosen Haikou for her first concert of the year twice in a row.
The 2024-2025 Hunan TV and Mango TV New Year’s Eve Gala was held in Haikou. (Photo: Zhang Wanli)
Policies and subsidies provide additional support
Not long ago, Hainan Zhongsheng Cultural and Sports Group, the organizer of Kanye West’s Haikou Listening Party, received a one-time monetary award of 2 million yuan ($280,000) from the Hainan government. This was the first monetary award after Hainan’s new measures promoting closer links between culture, sports, tourism, and commercial exhibitions were implemented in 2024 in order to expand consumer spending.
At the beginning of 2025, the Hainan Province Government Work Report also proposed developing Haikou as an ‘International Performing Arts Capital’, giving more market players confidence in Hainan and Haikou.
Haikou also has plans to become a fashionable consumer spending capital by means of hosting high-quality large-scale performances and international sports events, optimizing event approval and supervision, and offering subsidies at both the province and municipal levels.
“We will further leverage the policy advantages of the Hainan Free Trade Port and work to bring more high-quality, well-known domestic and international cultural, sports, and performing arts activities to Haikou,” said the director of the Department of Tourism, Culture, Radio, Television, and Sports of Hainan Province.
,https://www.haikou.gov.cn/enhaikou/lyxw/202503/t1411640.shtml