The Angoulême Festival could be one example among others of major events postponed or canceled due to the latest restrictions intended to curb the Covid-19 epidemic. After the announcement of the postponement of the International Comic Strip Festival, the events sector said Tuesday “Amazed” by limiting gatherings to 2,000 people indoors and 5,000 outdoors, decided by the government.
“In a year and a half of crisis, we have never experienced such a measure, so sudden and disproportionate. The consequences will be terrible, and we ask, like the Italian model, for logical compensations ”, said Renaud Hamaide and Pierre-Louis Roucaries, the co-presidents of the French Union of Event Trades (Unimev), in a statement released Tuesday evening.
“In January 2022 alone, 130 events have already been canceled and a loss of turnover of around one billion euros, and as much in economic benefits for the regions”, supported the union.
Among its 400 members, Unimev counts organizers of fairs, exhibitions and congresses, exhibition centers and congress centers. The area “Records abysmal losses, which will increase with these new measures”, she worries.