The bars in the city of Baotou, Inner Mongolia are looking for ways to innovate these days to survive in the increasingly competitive market, and perhaps nobody is more typical of this than the 36-year-old Cao Shan, who opened a bar in 2010, on Wulan Rd, where much of the city’s nightlife is concentrated in this area in the city.

Cao says that although her bar gets busy every day after 7:00 pm, "During the business peak in the past, every seat was occupied and our bands rocked till midnight," then adds meditatively that the prosperity didn’t last very long, and old bars would close and new ones open.

Today, the city has about a dozen bars in all and they all face competition and changing tastes and most are looking for ways to change themselves with new ideas and marketing strategies and Cao says she never stops changing.

For example, she set up a recording studio on the second floor but turned out to be a flop so she changed it into a small party place, with beer and food available. And there are new challenges, with rents going up and more bartenders and waiters and performers to be paid, but Cao says she'll never give up and will pursue her dream of a bar and music, so she's, "exploring new profit makers beyond the traditional food and drink" to cover her costs.

One of Cao's fellow strugglers who is trying a different approach is the 37-year-old Shi Zheming, who runs a place on the same road as Cao's and says he is looking for innovation in management, and explains that his place is somewhere between an eatery and a bar which gives customers an opportunity to enjoy their dinner with live music.

Shi's bar has special decorations involving bird cages and swings to make it more artistic and provide a certain mood for young people, and, "I want to combine culture and memories." In the past, he says, his bar could bring in 15,000 yuan ($ 2,300) per day, but he knew that he couldn't stay the same so he thought about changing his management mode.

So, he expand his business to include breakfast, lunch and tea time to make full use of the place, and began cooperating with caterers to get his food from outside then added a crowdfunding management mode - searching for partners and gathering investment.

And he says he never stops his pace of innovating. After all, it's precisely because people like Cao and Shi are persistent and innovative that Baotou can have a bar scene, and one that keeps maturing.

Signs of Shi's artistic ambition in decoration. [Photo/Baotou Daily]