The 4th Balagezong Music Festival took place on May 1 at the Shangri-La grand canyon, or the Balagezong scenic area in northwest Yunnan’s Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture.

With the theme of “World’s Shangri-La, Magical Balagezong,” the outdoor entertainment allowed tourists to enjoy music at the foot of the snow mountains, and it marks a step forward for the scenic area to fuse culture into tourism.

Thousands of musical fans across China gathered at the Balagezong scenic area, with the stage set up near the Gangqu River. In the Tibetan language, Gangqu means a river that admits water from nine snow-capped peaks.

At the festival, Sina Dingzhu, general manager of the Balagezong scenic area, delivered a speech, showing his gratitude to the guests and tourists from afar. He also hoped more and more people would come to appreciate the natural beauty in the area.

It was Sina Dingzhu who led the locals, through 13 years of hard work, in building a road to make the area connected to the outside world. Dozens of years ago, Bala was an unreachable village, and Sina Dingzhu paid all he had earned to build the road.

In the past years, the Balagezong music festival, together with the horse-racing festival and the Xuanzi festival, has shown the unique landscapes of Shangri-La to the world.

A visitor from the neighboring Sichuan province said he joined the music festival last year, and this time he came again for scenery and music.

“It’s really beautiful here, pure, natural and intact," said another visitor from Guangzhou. She came to the event via the newly opened Guangzhou-Shangri-La air route.  

Reporting by Zhu Dongran and Li Wenjun; trans-editing by Wang Shixue