Chinese singer Wang Feng performs during the Zebra Music Festival in Chengdu in May 2009. Photo: Courtesy of Zebra Media

The Zebra Music Festival (ZMF), an annual rock and pop music festival staged by Zebra Media, a Beijing-based comprehensive interactive entertainment company, is heading to Shanghai. A two-to-three-day event that is put on in cities across China about two or three times a year, ZMF Shanghai will run from August 27 to 28 at the Jiangwan Shanghai Stadium with high-profile stars such as Jolin Tsai, Huang Zitao, and Coco Lee.

One of the earliest rock and pop music festivals in China, ZMF was first staged in Chengdu, Sichuan Province in 2009 to help lift the shadow that had fallen on the region in the aftermath of the devastating 2008 earthquake. Encouraged by the turnout, Zebra Media decided to host others. ZMF live shows have drawn over 500,000 patrons since the first show in Chengdu, and a lot more people have watched the live shows online. 

As one of the leading new media platforms in China, Zebra Media has innovated and expanded considerably since it opened for business in 2008. In December 2014, Zebra Media introduced a special night running activity called the Electric Run to China and held it in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province.

Originally from the US, Electric Run has taken place in 45 cities in 23 countries and regions and has garnered hundreds of thousands of followers worldwide. More than 10,000 sports and fashion lovers dressed in fluorescent outfits and hit Shenzhen's streets for the five-kilometer run in the night, creating a cool and colorful fashion atmosphere as the runners traversed the streets.

In May 2015, Zebra Media held another Electric Run in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, attracting about 6,000 runners. At that event, they introduced live broadcast.

Scarlett Li, the founder and CEO of Zebra Media, said people who were unable to participate in Zebra Media events could watch them live on their mobiles via Showtime, a mobile app launched by Zebra Media in early 2015.

According to Li, Showtime is a live broadcast mobile media platform that gives fans direct online access to watch their idols and other Internet celebrities from anywhere in the country.

"Different from other live broadcasts [that operate] with the help of many cameras and TV, our interest is to showcase the events online through our individual hosts," said Li. "Some of them might photograph pretty girls, and others would focus on cool boys or outfits [during the events]. Different people have different angles of shooting and sharing."

Currently, there are up to 400 hosts working on the platform.