For the second year in a row, the Enfoirés show will take place without an audience, due to health restrictions linked to the Covid-19 epidemic, we learned on Tuesday, January 4. A huge shortfall for the Restos du Coeur, as the boss of the association Patrice Douret pointed out to the Parisian.
New blow for the famous troop of the Enfoirés. The next show scheduled for January 20-24 in Montpellier will ultimately take place without a spectator, for the second consecutive year, due to health restrictions linked to Covid-19, allowing a maximum of 2,000 people in closed rooms. “Given the latest government announcements related to the current health situation, the Restos du Cœur regret to announce that the concerts of the Enfoirés ‘2022 Un air d’Enfoirés’ will be played without an audience.“, indicated the official site this Tuesday January 4th. And to specify:”The Enfoirés concert will be, this year again, recorded behind closed doors and broadcast on television in March. “A huge shortfall for the Restos du Coeur, which lost several million euros because of the health crisis.
“This situation has unfortunately significant financial consequences for the future financing of social assistance missions for the Restos du Cœur“, is it specified on the site of the Enfoirés. Contacted by The Parisian, the boss of Restos du Coeur, Patrice Douret, said that this decision represented a terrible loss for the charity he runs: “The ticket office is an important source of income. This year, we had already planned a reduced capacity with 8,300 seats, out of 13,500 possible. Corn it still represented revenues of 4 million euros, i.e. 4 million meals to distribute to our beneficiaries. And it’s really not a year we could afford it“, he lamented, specifying that this decision was”a heartbreak“.
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Avoid making the public take the least risk
If this decision was difficult to take for the Restos du Coeur teams, Patrice Douret explained that this cancellation was preferable because of the current health context. “After having turned all the possibilities in all directions for a week, it was the only possible decision in the current state of the health crisis“, explained the president of Restos du Coeur. Thus, no exemption has been requested from the Ministry of Health, as pointed out The Parisian.
“The contamination threshold is very important and we do not know what it will be on January 20. We don’t want not take any risk to our audience and to the 400 volunteers and technicians who work on the show. The main thing is that it can stand and be filmed so that it is broadcast on TF1 and sold on CD and DVD. (3rd CD sale in 2021, with 217,036 copies and 121,544 DVDs, editor’s note) “, Patrice Douret justified himself. Especially with “more than forty artists on stage“, who each have busy schedules, it was not not possible to postpone the Enfoirés show to later dates. For those who had already taken their tickets, they now have two options: to be reimbursed before January 31 or to transfer the amount of the ticket to the social missions of the Restos du Coeur.
Photo credits: CHRISTOPHE CHEVALIN / TF1