The 1st Edition of ZCON Amusement Fair Leads the “Fashion Trend” and the “Happy Economy” Gushed with New Vitality

2023-12-12

With the support of Xiamen Municipal People’s Government and China Culture & Entertainment Industry Association, the first edition of ZCON Amusement Fair (hereinafter ZCON 2023), an immersive experience consumption scenario is co-hosted by Hannover Milano Fairs Shanghai Ltd. and Magic Geo Exhibition Technology (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. Focusing on the young customers of Generation Z, it will be held at the newly completed Xiamen International Conference & Exhibition Center from 15 to 17 December, 2023 with a scale of 60,000 square meters, showcasing a super carnival with the integrated development of fashion, culture and entertainment, leisure and life.

ZCON 2023 adopts green materials for the construction of exhibition booths, which can be called China’s first and largest environmental-conservation construction project. Concerning addressing climate change, this measure not only creates a new exhibition construction model but also actively responds to the national “dual carbon” strategy, contributing to the zero-emission system of new technology, new materials, and new fields for Xiamen’s exhibition industry.

Having fun as your choice and embracing the latest fashion trends
IP, China chic, and entertainment-oriented gratification respectively represent the three major preferences of Generation Z in consumption. Along with the continuous cultural export of popular domestic trendy toys overseas, original IPs carrying traditional Chinese cultural characteristics have given China’s "trendy toys" economy greater cultural dissemination value and commercial value. The ZCON trendy toy section will be a combination of multiple well-known national trendy toy brands to launch more than 200 limited co-branded trendy garage kits and debut new products, which will interpret a new consumption experience that caters to the social values and spiritual needs of the Generation Z.

Coinciding with the fact that 2024 is the Year of the Dragon in China, Chunhui Wang, a famous China chic artist and founder of the "Chinese Dragon" IP, will make a dominant appearance with the Chinese Dragon, the leader of the China chic IPs, and express the spirit of the dragon in the hearts of today’s youth groups through visual language. Maison Mai, which was selected in the official schedule of the Paris Fashion Week, will showcase a super-trendy fashion show.

ZCON Art Gallery gathers over 100 paintings and life stories from more than 10 contemporary artists, bringing art lovers and collectors a wide range of contemporary and ultra-pioneering artworks, including oil paintings, sculptures, prints and so on. The artists combine trendy elements favored by young people to create works that express their feelings and opinions. Across the barriers of language and culture, the artists hope to use their works to build a bridge of intuitive and profound communication with the visitors. In addition, visitors also have access to a variety of art IP and creative peripherals at the art gallery.

Fujian Zhengshantang Tea, a high-end black tea brand that has inherited black tea for 400 years, will specially launch Zhengshan Lapsang Souchong Black Tea Ice Cream at ZCON 2023, which indicates that Chinese tea culture has gained wide dissemination via combining the ice cream category.

A new era of e-sports for all
Following two decades of exploration and growth, the new industry of e-sports has been on a bull run. At this year’s Hangzhou Asian Games, e-sports made its debut on the field as an official competition event. Today’s e-sports is no longer just a popular sport among the young people but has also become a national sports event. As per statistics, China’s e-sports user scale was 487 million people in 2023, and the e-sports industry revenue was RMB 75.993 billion in the first half of 2023.

In recent years, Xiamen has also been actively laying out the e-sports industry to foster new drivers of economic growth and has gradually formed a city e-sports brand of the “capital of e-sports, trendy toys, and leisure -- Xiamen”. E-sports is both a sport competition and a community. To further promote the e-sports industry to empower the urban development of Xiamen, the ZCON e-sports game zone creates a one-stop new consumption experiencing site for e-sports entertainment for the audience, and specially sets up a 5V5 Arena of Valor competition for normal players, inviting “All Gamers”, the backbone brand in China’s e-sports field, to come to the spot.

Through immersive interactive experiences and sports performances, ZCON skillfully combining sports with traditional culture and trendy culture, providing a platform for showcasing trendy sports events such as teqball and street football, further advancing the deep integration of national fitness and national health, and flourishing China’s sports industry.

Tengbo (Xiamen) Teqball Club, China’s first FITEO certified and authorized professional teqball club, will debut at ZCON. Junming Zhang, as the only Chinese player in the 5th Teqball World Championships held in Nuremberg, Germany in 2022, will compete with other four players in the Teqball Challenge in Pavilion 1. Visitors can interact with the players one-by-one and experience the unique charm of different ball sports.

Personalized, customized and novel culture with strength
Automobile culture constantly blends with the context of the times, reflecting the aesthetic preferences of different times and groups. Therefore, the core of automobile culture is not the car itself, but the “people”. The culture of car modification not only reflects the pursuit of performance by car enthusiasts, but also becomes a “work of art” for car owners to manifest their attitude towards life and culture. ZCON Auto Culture Hall has gathered the world’s most influential top car modification brands such as RWB (Rauh-Welt-Begriff), Darwin Pro, Top Fire and Teck Wrap, and nearly 60 customized modification models are on display, showcasing powerful modification car culture with visual impact for fans.

As the ACGN culture trend sweeps across the globe, a new derivative culture has come to the stage with the ACG industry as its central foundation. This time, Bilibili and ZCON closely cooperated, debuting Hatsune Miku, EVA, Luo Tianyi and other well-known animation IP-related car models and officially authorized character derivatives.

The rising domestic comics of China break limitations to seek a new impetus
Animation has penetrated deeply into people's life in the digital media era, becoming a form of pan-entertainment that provides direct cultural products to the general public, as well as a pillar cultural industry that shores up the growth of the national economy. With AIGC (Artificial Intelligence Generated Content) sweeping the world, China’s animation industry is developing rapidly, witnessing the output value rising year by year, and demonstrating diversified cross-border integration and development modes. ZCON 2023 joins hands with Sparkly Key Animation Studio to deeply explore the connotation of Chinese aesthetics, bringing well-known animation IPs and popular derivatives to illustrate Chinese aesthetics with animation and boost Chinese culture to go further.

Feeling the “trend” through exploring the city and creating new opportunities for economic and trade cooperation
In the new stage when cultural consumption has entered a blowout period and new demands for consumption are evolving with the times, emerging cultural tourism modes such as immersive experiences empowered by science and technology have been highly valued. Against this backdrop, the first edition of ZCON Amusement Fair chooses Xiamen International Conference & Exhibition Center, one of Xiamen’s new-generation landmarks as its debut venue. ZCON is expected to be a bridge of communication and connectivity for different brands and enterprises, as well as an important carrier for industrial exchanges and investment attraction.

Gary Liu, Managing Director of Hannover Milano Fairs Shanghai said, “By creating a diversified immersive experience consumption scenario, ZCON presents Carnival as a new type of exhibition and creates a relaxing atmosphere for the ‘Happy Economy’, so that the young people can immerse themselves in feeling and learning about different kinds of trendy culture, and pay for happiness in a vibrant and positive atmosphere, thus contributing to Xiamen in cultivating and developing new types of consumption and promoting the upgrading of the consumption market.”

Meanwhile, Mr. Ming Kong, Secretary-General of the China Culture & Entertainment Industry Association, said that the ZCON is a circle-breaking journey that integrates traditional Chinese culture and international trendy culture. By gathering the power form the young people, ZCON is committed to becoming a strong impetus for the innovative upgrading of Xiamen’s culture and tourism and the development of the city’s new consumption. The China Culture & Entertainment Industry Association will support the organizers and continue to expand greater development opportunities and cooperation space for Xiamen in strengthening the integration and development of multiple industries, attracting external investment, and facilitating the flow of technologies and talents.

During December 15-17, we welcome you to Xiamen to feel its charm and experience the fashion trend of the Generation Z.