As a major outdoor music festival launched over two decades ago, Midi Music Festival will be held at three Chinese cities during the upcoming May Day holiday.

From May 1 to May 4, over 50 Chinese bands and indie musicians, headlined by rock singer-songwriters Cui Jian and Xu Wei, as well as rock bands Second Hand Rose and Joyside will perform in Jinan and Binzhou. Both Jinan and Binzhou are cities of Shandong province which are about a two-hour drive from each other.

Local bands of Chengdu, Sichuan province, will also perform along with 34 acts during the festival from May 3 to 5.

In 2000, the first Midi Music Festival was launched at the Midi School of Music in Shangdi, in northern Beijing's Haidian district. The school, founded in 1993, was China's first school of contemporary music.

Since then, the Midi Music Festival has been staged every year in cities not only in Beijing, but also across the country such as Shanghai and Suzhou, Jiangsu province.