Fort Boyard: do the candidates sleep there?

Fort Boyard is a game that does not weaken: year after year since the early 1990s, the Fort has brought together entire generations in front of the television set, passionate about the scenery, the events and the riddles of Father Fouras. In a few decades, the game has taken a real place in the hearts of the French, but also internationally, because 35 countries have declined it and come to shoot their version there. But where are the candidates housed?

Fort Boyard: until 2005, candidates housed in the Fort

The first decades of candidates were lucky enough to stay inside the Fort, in particular because of certain events that took place at night. Since 2005, only the crane operator, who is also a guard, sleeps in one of the cells of the Fort from its opening in March to its closing at the end of the season. The candidates are housed in a hotel in La Rochelle and get up at dawn at 5:30 a.m. for filming starting at 10 a.m. and ending at 6 p.m. Nearly 150 people from 35 different trades meet at the Fort, and the cells are equipped for equipment as well as food, animals and technology.. You don’t realize when you see it like that, but the Fort is a real hive of activity before, during and after the episodes are broadcast on television.

The building that was bought in 1988 by the designer of the game, Jacques Antoine, was sold by him for a symbolic euro to the Departmental Council of Charente-Maritime, in exchange for a lease for filming. Only the production of Fort Boyard therefore has the privilege of entering and staying there for the time to prepare the Fort, the sets and the filming. Thirty days are necessary for the preparation of the Fort which remains uninhabited apart from the filming which lasts two and a half weeks, after a month and a half of preparation. The candidates only stay one day on the Fort!

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