From a brand with a thousand stores to cultural expansion overseas, what on earth has Xingjuhe KTV done right?

Ten years ago, when the term "KTV" was gradually equated with "outdated" and "declining" in the minds of many, perhaps no one could have imagined that a company that started as a KTV would be the one shouting the slogan of "Chinese entertainment going global" ten years later.

On July 21st, Xingju Hui held a global strategy press conference at the Shanghai International Convention Center, where it announced many of its plans. The company not only announced a deep - seated cooperation with the 32nd Oriental Fengyun Bang Music Festival but also unfurled an ambitious industrial blueprint in front of the world, including but not limited to co - creating music content, promoting the upgrade of scene experiences, innovating user interactions, incubating original musicians, and going global.

This is not an exaggeration. So far, Xingju Hui has nearly 1,000 stores in more than 130 cities across the country, with over 30 million members, becoming a leading brand in the music social space. Not long ago, Xingju Hui opened its first overseas store in Shibuya, Japan. Weng Peimin, the founder of Xingju Hui (hereinafter referred to as "Brother Xing"), aims to have over 2,000 domestic stores and 300 overseas stores within three years.

What exactly does Xingju Hui want to do? The answer may have already gone beyond the KTV itself. This entertainment brand, established in 2011, wants to link the online and offline worlds to create a "social space" with the attributes of gathering and trendiness, thus responding to an older and more fundamental social need - creating a "third space" outside of work and family for people who long for real connections in the digital age.

To turn this vision into reality, Brother Xing established a systematic strategy: using the "super - scene" as the foundation to create a space that can carry emotions, using the "super - IP" as the medium to deeply bind the scene with emotions, and using the "super - retail" as the carrier to solidify emotions into memorable objects.

More notably, besides the user experience, this logic also provides a new possibility for the business model. "Xingju Hui wants to transform the KTV into a high - sticky offline traffic entrance and evolve the simple business based on floor - space efficiency into an 'infinite game' about brand assets and cultural values," said an investor.

Brother Xing is subverting the outside world's perception of KTVs.

01 Super - Scene: Reconstructing the Social Value of KTV

All business model innovations stem from the redefinition of a core scene. The starting point of Xingju Hui's story is the reconstruction of the traditional "KTV" scene.

To understand Xingju Hui's thinking, we need to start with a classic concept. In 1989, American sociologist Ray Oldenburg first proposed the concept of the "third space" in his book The Great Good Place. He observed that in modern urban life, people's social interactions mainly occur in three spaces.

Among them, home is the "first space", the workplace is the "second space", and the "third space" is a social place outside of home and work. A coffee shop is a typical example.

Oldenburg believes that a healthy community needs a third space. It allows people from different backgrounds to relieve stress and communicate freely, providing a resting space in the high - pressure life of modern society and alleviating loneliness.

The third space is certainly not just coffee shops. In theory, a KTV, a place born for gatherings, should be an excellent carrier of the "third space". However, in reality, since the rise of online entertainment platforms, KTVs have quickly declined into a "doomed business". The aging equipment and single experience are of course reasons, but the deeper problem is that most operators have made a fundamental cognitive error: they think they are selling the "singing" service.

In Brother Xing's eyes, this is precisely the key reason. "The more important value of a KTV is 'gathering'. Singing is just a carrier of social interaction, and 'gathering' is the underlying human need."

He believes that only restaurants and KTVs can meet this need. Therefore, KTVs are still an indispensable business in modern society, but they can be operated in a new way: not just a KTV, but a "super - scene" that can meet various needs such as singing, dancing, playing scripted murder games, having meetings, enjoying afternoon tea, and using a private cinema.

This is exactly Xingju Hui's current positioning. Its core logic is to shift from providing entertainment to "meeting users' most fundamental needs for happiness and emotional sublimation". Whether it's breaking the ice among strangers, proposing marriage, having a team - building activity, or gathering with relatives and friends, these are all important moments of emotional connection between people. Its space creation and service innovation are precisely designed to meet this need, which is also the social value advocated by the "third space".

To achieve this goal, Xingju Hui has made extreme renovations to the private rooms, different from the traditional KTV design. When you step into the private room, the first thing that catches your eye is the "star - filled sky" design, which brings a visual impact. Then, you can experience the social space system built with an investment of nearly 100 million yuan, which supports functions such as private - customized butlers, bilingual intelligent song lists, and personalized sound, light, and electricity adjustment equipment. This system can also distribute timed red envelopes on the interactive screen, conduct AI scoring, and organize real - time PK activities across global stores.

Xingju Hui KTV private room

With its carefully designed high - quality experience, it transforms a static room into a dynamic and surprise - filled "third space" to lower the social threshold, accelerate emotional warming, and efficiently create "emotional value".

"No matter what kind of service you provide to customers, you will find that what they need most is love and warmth, that is, emotional value. This is the biggest pain point in the current environment," said Li Ying, the CMO of Xingju Hui Group, at the press conference. Starting from the "super - scene", Xingju Hui has created a super - ecosystem - Xinglian.

02 Super - Retail and Super - IP: The Business of Emotional Value

The "super - scene" solves the problem of traffic and experience entry, but for an ambitious brand, this is only the first step. The real challenge lies in how to retain the traffic and upgrade one - time experience consumption into long - term brand recognition.

As the number of stores across the country increases, Xingju Hui began to think anew. Expanding the number of stores is of course an indispensable step, but it still doesn't break away from the traditional KTV business model.

Brother Xing realized that there is a ceiling for the business based on floor - space efficiency. The real "infinite game" lies in the construction of brand assets. His idea is to still center around emotional value, cultivate the "super - IP" on the soil of the "super - scene", and then bear the fruits of "super - retail". That is, using the scene as the gene, retail as the vein, and IP as the soul to build a new consumer symbiotic entity and deepen brand assets.

The core of this strategy is a plush toy named "Xingzai".

In Xingju Hui's system, "Xingzai" is far more than just a mascot. It is defined as a "cultural and emotional guide" and is the core IP that runs through Xingju Hui's scenes. From outdoor billboards to indoor giant screens, and then to the interactive animations in private rooms, "Xingzai" is everywhere. Xingju Hui hopes that it can subtly become a part of the user experience, a super - symbol representing "happiness" and "companionship".

In Li Ying's view, creating a super - IP is a necessary step for Xingju Hui because it can represent a company's cultural identity and product advantages. It is both a traffic entrance and the most valuable cultural asset.

Super - retail is a further physical extension based on IP and scenes. Centering around the brand's music genes and trendy attributes, Xingju Hui has established a unique product matrix, including professional music - related hardware and a series of emotional products centered around "Xingzai". The sales of these products rely on its powerful omnichannel network, effectively linking the vast online private - domain resources with the store networks in hundreds of cities offline.

Different from the "function - oriented" logic of traditional KTVs selling drinks and snacks, Xingju Hui's retail logic is driven by emotional value.

Xingju Hui doesn't engage in hard - selling. Instead, through a series of carefully designed creative interactions, it subtly "implants" the retail process into the gathering atmosphere, encouraging users to express their feelings through a cute keepsake when their emotions are high. In this scenario, the material attribute of the product is minimized, and it mainly plays the role of a social currency and an emotional catalyst.

Behind this is Brother Xing's profound insight into the consumption psychology of the new generation. Today's young consumers buy products not only to meet functional needs but also to seek emotional resonance and identity. An IP product that can provide great emotional value has the potential to become a trendy item.

The logic of cross - border retail has been verified many times. A representative case is Atour Hotels, whose retail revenue once even exceeded its self - operated hotel revenue. Brother Xing believes that the core reason for Atour's retail success is the success of the brand, and the promotion by internet celebrities and stars further boosted sales.

In contrast, one of Xingju Hui's natural advantages is that it is the operator of the gathering scene. In a gathering scenario, users are more likely to make impulse purchases, resulting in a higher transaction rate. This is also the reason why Xingju Hui entered the retail business. In fact, this is also a proposition that almost all offline retail formats need to consider: from a cost perspective, it's difficult for offline stores to compete with e - commerce and live - streaming sales, but the emotional connection can make consumers make purchasing decisions more quickly.

Capturing traffic and arousing emotions with the "super - scene", using the "super - IP" as an emotional bond, and finally realizing the value of emotions through "super - retail". Thus, a self - growing "third space for gatherings" that breaks away from the traditional KTV model of "private rooms + drinks" has completed its closed - loop.

03 From an Entertainment Brand to a Cultural Symbol

When the three gears of "super - scene", "super - IP", and "super - retail" engage and start to turn, a more complex problem emerges for Xingju Hui: the business logics of the scene, IP, and retail are very different. How can we drive this machine to operate efficiently, continuously evolve, and finally become a "super - brand" with both commercial value and cultural influence?

Xingju Hui's answer lies in two seemingly ordinary but crucial foundations: organizational strength and content strength.

"In the end, all chain brands compete in management and organizational strength," Brother Xing firmly believes. Without a strong organizational system as the foundation, business collaboration is out of the question. Different from 80% of entrepreneurs who focus more on business lines, he devotes nearly 70% of his energy to "people" and established a support system internally called the "talent production line".

The key to this system is Xingju Hui's own "corporate university", which uses the master - apprentice model of "mentoring" to systematically train talents at all levels, from managers, store managers, senior store managers to regional directors. Taking store managers as an example, the teaching arrangement covers three dimensions: coaches, teaching materials, and teaching models. Each class's PPT is reviewed and improved to ensure teaching effectiveness. Currently, Xingju Hui has 500 store - manager reserves, which is also its confidence for rapid expansion in the future.

A working photo of Xingju Hui's headquarters operation team

If strong organizational strength solves the problem of "scaling up", then continuous content strength determines how far and high the brand can go. Besides talent, Xingju Hui found the ultimate link that binds the scene, retail, and IP - content. Because only content with emotional resonance and social attributes can inject a real cultural core into the brand.

This is also the fundamental reason why Xingju Hui chose to have a deep - seated strategic cooperation with the Oriental Fengyun Bang.

As the most influential music brand list in the Chinese music industry, the Oriental Fengyun Bang not only has 32 years of music industry accumulation but also has a strong ability to incubate original music and influence young users. The purpose of this cooperation between the two sides is to precisely connect high - quality music IPs with offline entertainment scenes.

Global Strategy Press Conference

Specifically, Xingju Hui's data will be included in the list - selection criteria, making the list more in line with users' actual preferences. At the same time, the Oriental Fengyun Bang's "Million - Yuan Debut Support Plan" and the "Music Power Station" AI co - creation plan aim to discover and cultivate original musicians. As an offline music social space, Xingju Hui can attract more original musicians to participate through gameplay such as AI scoring and real - time PK, thus building a complete ecosystem from original content discovery to global cultural dissemination.

This concept reflects Xingju Hui's new exploration of its identity: "Using songs as bridges and music as media", first becoming the "discoverer" of Oriental music, then the "co - creator" of new content, and finally becoming the "spreader" of Oriental culture in the process of going global. This road may be long, but someone has to take the first step.

At the same time, this is also a two - way empowerment that the Chinese music industry has never tried before. It stems from Brother Xing's prediction of future trends: Chinese music may be entering a golden age of breaking through the circle and going global. Recently, Guangdong rapper Lan Lao, with his representative works full of local characteristics such as Good Fortune from All Directions and Great Ambitions Realized, surpassed Jay Chou on Spotify (one of the world's largest streaming music platforms) and topped the monthly listener list of Chinese singers.

Brother Xing's ambition seems even greater at this moment. In his view, Oriental music has an irreplaceable charm and should have greater influence. Using music as a carrier, Xingju Hui, which is accelerating its global expansion, will no longer be just an entertainment venue but also a platform for spreading Oriental cultural content. By attracting more locals to enter Xingju Hui and sing Oriental music, it can truly achieve its vision of "making friends around the world with Oriental music".

Injecting a cultural atmosphere beyond entertainment itself into the physical space is obviously not an easy task. However, when the "iron - clad" organizational strength and the "continuous" content strength form a resonant flywheel, a super - social platform that connects music, culture, and people may be showing us the most anticipated possibility in the new - era entertainment industry.