Shanghai fervor to help Spring Festival leisure spending soar
An audience member posts tickets for a Shanghai dialect stand-up comedy performance on social media.
Shanghai marketing consultant Jimmy Wu was surprised to see the long queue for a Shanghai dialect stand-up comedy show at a downtown theater last week during the Spring Festival hiatus.
"The tickets were sold out about a month ago ... my friend and I were lucky enough to grab a few and embrace the festive mood in local dialect," he said.
The rising popularity of local dialect comedy performances and a bigger audience for traditional cultural relevant programs were a bright spot during the Chinese Lunar New Year holiday, which concluded on Saturday.
A wide range of entertainment venues and leisure activities boosted spending in Shanghai over the eight-day break.
Comedy UN, the above-mentioned stand-up comedy club, has already made preparations for upcoming local dialect performances in the first half this year, and two more shows in Shanghai dialect are scheduled for the coming weekend.
According to online shopping platform Meituan's consumption data, the overall number of orders for local leisure activities surged 220 percent over last year, and entertainment venues welcomed audiences in big numbers.
Huanghe Road, a downtown street famous for restaurants serving Shanghai-style cuisine, saw hordes of avid visitors.
The TV series Blossoms Shanghai was aired last month and its depiction of Shanghai's economic boom in the early 1990s as well as local delicacies have been surprisingly popular, drawing huge crowds of visitors and diners to restaurants and sites featured in the series, especially Huanghe Road, a downtown street famous for serving Shanghai-style cuisine.
Heytea was the latest food and beverage provider to tie up with the TV series. The tea brand revealed that more than 1 million cups of milk tea with jade orchid and jasmine flavor were sold during the Chinese New Year holiday.
Shanghai Heytea stores also topped other domestic cities in terms of physical store holiday sales.
The Spring Festival also pushed up spending at major retailers in the city, with sales of products with dragon elements witnessing explosive growth on major e-commerce platforms.
On JD.com, shoppers embraced souvenirs inspired by cultural relics and decorative accessories, and sales of Chinese Lunar New Year embroidery items and Chinese New Year pictures surged 9.6 times.
Heytea's latest tie-up with TV series Blossoms Shanghai has been warmly welcomed by shoppers.
