Festivals, large gatherings canceled in Beijing 

Springtime in Beijing usually brings out bustling crowds for rock concerts, food festivals and other outdoor revelry amid the smog and catkins. But this year, police in the Chinese capital have been canceling everything from an Earth Day event to a heavy metal concert, stoking worries that the authorities are cracking down on any large gathering deemed politically risky.
The cancellations have hit the city’s music scene, with annual summer mainstays such as the Strawberry Music Festival going dark. Police also recently shut down the Gaymazing Poker Race, a mix of pub crawl and poker tournament that was set to raise funds last week for the Beijing LGBT Center, a gay and lesbian service and cultural group. The race’s co-sponsor, the Great Leap Brewing pub, responded by pre-emptively canceling its own massive June craft beer festival for fear of a last-minute police shutdown.
Lucia Wang, of Great Leap, said city authorities cited concerns about excessive crowds, while John Shen, a program manager at the LGBT center, said he was given no explanation at all. Beijing police did not respond to a faxed request for an interview yesterday.
“This year it seems impossible to do large events like this,” Wang said. “We have a high chance of being canceled in the last minute.”
As for the reasons behind the cancellations, Wang said, “That’s the question for all big event organizers now.”
The cancellations in Beijing hit as the government tightens its grip nationwide on independent civic groups and activity, with non-governmental organizations and university professors saying they’ve been working under tighter scrutiny. Chinese officials also have been promising tighter crowd controls after a New Year’s Eve stampede killed 36 people along Shanghai’s famed Bund riverfront due to inadequate policing.
Archie Hamilton, who promotes music festivals and other events in China, said he believes the clampdown in Beijing reflects the overall political atmosphere, with Communist Party authorities trying to rein in what they see as a society too accepting of liberal and Western influences.
“My pocket view is that as far as the powers that be are concerned, society is a little out of control, with too much expression and frivolity and general chaos,” Hamilton said. “And I feel that (President) Xi Jinping and the new administration have come in and gone, ‘We need to focus on this a lot. We need to get this right and make sure this doesn’t get too out of control.’” Jack Chang, Beijing, AP