China's Live Music Scene to Focus on Domestic Acts as Zero-COVID Eases

HONG KONG — Zhang Haisheng feels like his business may never go back to normal under China's strict and constantly changing pandemic policies. Zhang, who runs three live houses in Shanghai under the brand Yuyintang, struggled over the past three years to navigate China's "zero-COVID" curbs, which shifted from blanket bans on live events in early 2020, to quarantines, to sudden city-wide lockdowns last spring when cases surged — bringing Yuyintang's operations to a halt. Since early 2020, Zhang has canceled close to 1,000 shows. Even during some windows when performances resumed, to meet the country's strict testing rules he…