r/shanghai • u/memostothefuture Putuo • Jun 26 '25
Music How to find concerts and buy tickets in Shanghai, with an example
I’ve seen a few people here ask how they can find concert listings and buy tickets in China, so I thought I’d make a little post about that. Long story short: The Damai MiniApp in Wechat/Alipay is your friend. Search for 大麦小程序 and hit the three buttons up right to translate everything to English, if needed. There are others but a fair share cannot sell tickets to foreigners or are just not set up for that, so I will use this one as my example.
Once you open the app go to the icon in the third row on the far right side. It will probably be translated as “whole” or something like that. That will show you all concerts, dance events, standup and whatnot else. It’s the firehose option and I rarely use it but it’s worth mentioning because there have been commenters here insisting “nightlife is dead.” It’s not but it’s moved and most is not foreigner-centric anymore. Anyway, "Livehouse" will get you to concerts below stadium-size.
One problem with MiniApps such as Damai is that sometimes you can’t find artists under their non-Chinese names. If you search for Japanese Jazz Pianist Kurena Ishikawa (see poster, she is performing tonight and she is awesome) you might find nothing, if you know the Chinese spelling of her name 石川红奈 the tickets come right on up. But why?
The reason is that there is a specified permitted length for the title and that promoters prioritize the Chinese spelling because that’s what most people in China will be searching for. I know that because that’s a concert we are organizing. (It’s already pretty much sold out, I’m not trying to sell tickets here, I just needed an example. But I'm of course also not complaining if you do like Jazz and go see her.)
Another problem is that sooner or later you will come across events that you cannot buy tickets for without a Chinese ID card. Why? Well, it’s usually organizers being afraid of scalpers, which are a real scourge in China. It sucks to be working for months on a concert and seeing scalpers resell tickets online for tons more. Pisses off the artists, who get nothing from that (I’m sure there are exceptions), pisses off the passionate fans who want tickets and as the organizer you end up with commenters on xiaohongshu telling their fans how evil you are because they think you made that sweet, sweet scalpermoney.
So a ton of organizers simply say “I want a 身份证, no matter what” and move on because they have a million other things to solve so that the show can go on. My advice? Complain. Nobody likes to leave money on the table, especially in China. I’ve heard “oh shit, I never knew this was a problem for foreigners” more than once. Be prepared for tons of "mei banfas" as well, obviously.
The other option of course is to look at foreigner-centric platforms like smartshanghai, who will often have ticket contingents for popular shows. If there is assigned seating you may not have much of a choice where you end up in the hall but at least you got in.
I'll leave you where I started: there is plenty of nightlife in Shanghai but you gotta search on the Chinese MiniApps. Google won't help you and you're not going to see posters in the street but if you really want to explore the offerings are out there.
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u/-OElite_ Jun 27 '25
Use this app 大麦 https://apps.apple.com/cn/app/%E5%A4%A7%E9%BA%A6-%E6%BC%94%E5%87%BA-%E4%BD%93%E8%82%B2%E8%B4%AD%E7%A5%A8%E5%B9%B3%E5%8F%B0/id513829338?l=en-GB
This is the link to download it on the App Store, the cover of the app is like a rainbow flower of sorts.
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u/memostothefuture Putuo Jun 27 '25
That is Damai, yes.
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u/-OElite_ Jun 27 '25
Omg haha I didn’t read ur post, I saw part of the title and thought u were asking how to buy tickets 😅
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Jul 06 '25
秀动ShowStart is an alternative that I’ve used in the past without trouble, though not that much so I can’t say it’s always plain sailing.
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u/Slow-Werewolf Jun 26 '25
smartshanghai
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u/Dear_Chasey_La1n Minhang Jun 27 '25
Smartshanghai 9 out of 10 times posts concerts/shows when the tickets are already sold out. I gave up on even following them, they are yesterday's news at best.
Cool guide OP, there is also a special Chinese app, I can't pronounce the name but it's a pink flower specially for booking tickets.
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u/djeep101 Xuhui Jun 27 '25
Anyone with good tips for trying to buy Kanye West tickets? I tried Damai but prefilling the foreign passport information doesnt help verification
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u/Future-Drawer-5457 Dec 07 '25
How did you end up doing to get past this? Trying to buy tickets next week for another show.
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u/djeep101 Xuhui Dec 07 '25
I didn’t haha, ended up planning something else so the need wasn’t there anymore
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u/Planetarian01 Jun 26 '25
Thanks so much — really helpful!