By Dean Irvine, CNN
May 4, 2011 - Updated 04:07 GMT (12:07 HKT)

(CNN) - Jean-Jacques Verdun is a French entrepreneur who also spotted an opportunity to bring something culturally different to one of China's second-tier cities.

The Beishan World Music Festival in Zhuhai last month - which claims to have been first world music festival in mainland China - was on a much smaller scale to Li's operation, but the principles of festival production were much the same.

"Sometimes the management of the government is much more open than you may think," he says. "If you try to do it by yourself and at the last minute, you ask them for authorization they will freak out and that's not good news."

Verdun's Delta Bridges company partnered with a local PR firm and education business to promote the festival.

It attracted around 4,000 people, as well as headline sponsors BMW. Lines of convertibles from the German car-maker were lined up next to a 200-year-old former temple and theatre.

[Available on: http://edition.cnn.com/2011/TRAVEL/05/03/china.festival.music/]