Against the backdrop of tens of thousands of fans singing “Southern Girl” by popular Chinese folk singer Zhao Lei, a man in the audience drops to one knee, a woman in a wedding dress rises to her feet, and the two begin hurling wedding candies into the crowd.

But soon the audience turns, and instead of congratulating the happy couple, they start shouting, “Sit down” and “That’s enough,” drowning out Zhao’s singing and requiring several security guards to intervene.

The scene, which occurred at Zhao’s Sept. 12 concert at Beijing’s National Stadium, soon was heavily criticized after being posted on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok. Related topics on microblogging platform Weibo have been viewed over 130 million times as of Thursday.

Proposals at concerts are common in China, but pushback has grown in recent years. A 2025 survey of over 800 young Chinese by online tech news platform youth36kr found that over one-third of respondents ranked wedding proposals at concerts as “unwelcome” and “disruptive.”

Concert ticket prices are also climbing, making some feel that on-site disturbances come at a personal cost to their experience. Data from October 2024 showed that average concert ticket prices were nearly 525 yuan, up from roughly 485 yuan the previous year. In May 2025, average ticket prices climbed to nearly 750 yuan. 

Many argued the couple had overstepped the bounds of acceptable public behavior. One online comment read, “I came for the concert, not your proposal.” Another user posted, “I paid to watch a performance, not to be the backdrop for your little sideshow.” 

The discussion intensified on Monday when the video’s original poster, surnamed Xie, told domestic media that a user claiming to be the fiancé featured in the video had messaged him demanding he delete it. Xie said the user apologized for disrupting the concert but said the video infringed on the couple’s portrait rights, that they had filed a police report, and that they would pursue legal action if it was not removed. 

Zheng Xiaoqiang, a senior partner at Beijing Tiantai Law Firm, told Sixth Tone that privacy claims usually fail in large public venues such as the concert arena where the incident took place. “They chose to actively draw attention (to themselves) in a public setting with tens of thousands of people present,” Zheng said. 

However, he said that close-ups, repeated edits, or mocking captions of the incident reposted online may cross into portrait rights infringement. He added that the minor disruption to audience members is rarely compensable in court.

Other recent concert marriage proposals have similarly sparked controversy in China. In 2023, at a Beijing concert for the popular Taiwanese rock band Mayday, a couple in wedding attire took photos in front of the stage, sparking jeers that drowned out the music. Many said they disrespected both the audience and the performers. 

Wang Yao, a concertgoer who proposed to her partner at pop singer Zhang Jie’s 2025 Beijing concert, told Sixth Tone that audiences differ depending on the music genre. Folk fans tend to value immersive musical experiences, while pop fans are more tolerant of interruption, she said.

Those who witnessed her own proposal sent her their videos, which Wang then posted on social media, earning hundreds of thousands of likes. “The proposal was brief, and people mostly cheered and wished us well,” she said. 

“A concert proposal can be a touching surprise, but it ultimately shouldn’t disturb other audience members,” she added.

A university student from Wuhan, capital of the central Hubei province, surnamed Chen, told Sixth Tone she and her friends oppose marriage proposals during concerts, but used to support them. “As consumers, our sense of agency and public order has grown,” she said. “Singers and fans put a lot of effort into performances, and proposers piggyback on that at no cost. That’s selfish and insincere.”

Additional reporting: Xu Ruishuo and Xiao Chuhan; editor: Marianne Gunnarsson.

(Header image: A screenshot of a video of the viral marriage proposal at Zhao Lei’s concert in Beijing. From Douyin)