Storm, a two-day festival of electronic and dance music, is set to be held along the Xuhui Riverside on Saturday, November 16, and Friday, November 22.

A newcomer on Shanghai's music festival scene, Storm will feature more than 30 DJs and other artists from around the world performing on two stages, over two consecutive weekends.

The festival is organized by A2LiVE, the organizers who brought Pitbull, the Black Eyed Peas, Tiësto, Elton John and Kanye West, among other big stars, to Shanghai in recent years. "Storm was an idea that A2LiVE has been nurturing for years," said Steve Sybesma, the President of A2LiVE, and Eric Zho, the company's CEO. "We've been watching closely the global trend of electronic music and realized that it is about time to launch Shanghai's own large-scale electronic music festival."

Zedd will attend the two-day Storm Festival. Photos: Courtesy of the organizers

"We see over the years many top night clubs bring in top DJs from around the world and people are starting to understand the electronic music scene. Shanghai needed something like Storm to progressively follow this global trend," they said.

Some of the big names playing the festival include New York hip-hop pioneer Afrika Bambaataa, Swedish DJ and four-time Grammy nominee Axwell, Italian DJ and producer Benny Benassi, who was behind the 2003 summer club hit "Satisfaction," and the Dutch house DJ and producer best known for his 2006 track "Put Your Hands Up 4 Detroit," Fedde Le Grand. "There has never been a festival in China with this many top ranked international DJs," the organizers said.

Jay Sean will attend the two-day Storm Festival. Photos: Courtesy of the organizers

"I believe Icona Pop and Zedd are going to be some of the crowd's favorites. Icona Pop is very hot right now and just started to break into the US market big time, and Zedd is a fast-rising star with two hit songs right now on the US Billboard Charts. We are very happy to be able to bring them both to Storm this year," said Zho.

Icona Pop is the Swedish synthpop duo responsible for the summer hit "I Love It" and Zedd is a Russian-German electronic music producer and DJ known for the song "Clarity," who worked with Lady Gaga on her forthcoming album.

Icona Pop will attend the two-day Storm Festival. Photos: Courtesy of the organizers

"Personally I am looking forward to Headhunterz, the number one hardstyle DJ in the world," said Zho. "Although his music may be a bit intense for most people, he nonetheless has the most powerful tunes that can make the crowd wild. A very slick DJ in my opinion."

The festival will take place along the Xuhui Riverside. "The venue is a great choice for us to launch the first year of our festival because of its close proximity to the Shanghai city center," the organizers said. The venue features two stages. "That will be the part of the excitement with the ability to easily move from stage to stage for continuous, diverse and high energy music," they added.

Headhunterz will attend the two-day Storm Festival. Photos: Courtesy of the organizers

The organizers said that the most difficult task in booking the festival was finding a large number of top artists available on the same day. "The top DJs and other artists are busy all over the world, and many are just not available on the date we need. We reached out to every DJ in the world. We didn't leave anyone. Then we picked the best international DJs that could be available for our festival."

General one-day admission tickets start at 380 yuan ($62.42) presale before November 1, 580 yuan advanced sale after November 1 and 680 yuan on the door. Two-day passes are 980 yuan presale. There are also VIP tickets starting at 980 yuan for one-day entry or 2,080 yuan for two days that give access to a special area at the front of the stage, exclusive use of VIP restrooms and a separate catering area. Visit www.a2live.cn to book.

Axwell will attend the two-day Storm Festival. Photos: Courtesy of the organizers

The organizers are hoping that Storm Festival will become a yearly event. They said that next year they will focus on bringing in people from all across China, and later on from all across the Asia Pacific region.

"We believe Shanghai's live music scene is missing the mid-tier artist shows," Sybesma and Zho said. "Most Chinese are still only exposed to major pop stars from the West. It is still mainly driven by celebrity culture, rather than strictly music. If we can successfully bring mid-tier artists and promote them successfully, we believe we can open the market to more people purely interested in the music and not just major stars."