For music festivals, a recovery strewn with pitfalls despite the return of the public

“All costs have exploded, and even if the festivals have restarted, we are still very far from the lightness that we knew before the pandemic in 2019”, notes Malika Séguineau, general manager of Prodiss, the National Union of Musical and Variety Shows. Halfway through the summer, the music festivals have, in the best of cases, found their audience, such as the Interceltic Festival of Lorient (Morbihan), which even announced a record of 900,000 visitors. But all had to face a litany of difficulties, between the inflation of the prices of the technical service providers, the complexity of the recruitment, the overabundance of the offer of concerts and the explosion of the stamps of the artists.

Jérôme Tréhorel, at the head of the Vieilles Charrues, in Carhaix-Plouguer (Finistère), which was sold out this year, with 280,000 festival-goers, fought to remedy the shortages of equipment, for the concerts but also the restoration. He confirms that everything has increased, even the rental of wheat fields, usually transformed into parking lots during the festival. The cost of transport, especially in semi-trailer trucks, has swelled, as has that of raw materials such as wood or steel, adds Gérard Pont, the boss of the Francofolies, in La Rochelle, who even had to refuse people.

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After two summers at a standstill or almost, many organizers wanted to mark their return with exceptional posters, or by multiplying the number of concerts. Leave to see too big. Like the Aluna Festival (Ruoms, Ardèche) which put Feu! Chatterton, Julien Doré and Angèle by programming them on the same evening. Sophie Levy-Valensi, who directs Le Weekend des Curiosités, near Toulouse, lost 40% of attendance despite a more extensive program. A sign, in his eyes, that it is necessary “reinventing new forms of festivals”. A concern shared by Marie Rigaud, director of Printemps de Pérouges, in Ain.

Tight relationships

If Sting attracted the audience to this festival, “three artists more or less would not have changed anything”, she says. However, developing the offer has also paid off: Hellfest, in Clisson (Loire-Atlantique), a hotspot for the metal scene, went into marathon mode to host 350 concerts, instead of 150 in 2019, won its bet, with 420,000 spectators. In contrast musically, at the Festival de La Roque-d’Anthéron (Bouches-du-Rhône), where the elite of pianists meet, 106 concerts are currently on the bill, compared to 78 in 2021, according to the artistic director, Rene Martin. Building on the success of the mornings set up during the Covid-19 period, it has perpetuated the format of a contemporary music concert every day at 11 a.m.

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