The increase in all costs, including the features of artists, exacerbated competition and a serious shortage of staff jeopardize the financial equation of these cultural events.
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“All costs exploded, and even if the festivals restarted, we remain very far from the lightness that we knew before the pandemic in 2019”, notes Malika Séguineau, Director General of Prodiss, the National Union of musical and variety show. Halfway through summer, musical festivals have, in the best of cases, found their audience, like the Lorient Interceltic Festival (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 technical providers, the complexity of recruitment, the overabundance of the concert offer and the explosion of the features of artists.
Jérôme Tréhorel, at the head of the Vieilles Charrues, in Carhaix-Plouguer (Finistère), who posted, this year, with 280,000 festival-goers, fought to remedy the shortages of equipment, for concerts but also Restoration. He confirms that everything has increased, even the rental of wheat fields, usually transformed into parking during the festival. The cost of transport, especially in semi-trailer trucks, has swelled, like that of raw materials like wood or steel, adds Gérard Pont, the boss of Francofolies, in La Rochelle, which even had to refuse people.
After almost two summers, almost, many organizers wanted to mark their return with exceptional posters, or by multiplying the number of concerts. Even if it means seeing too big. Like the Aluna Festival (Ruoms, Ardèche) which has unnecessarily put in fire! Chatterton, Julien Doré and Angèle by programming them the same evening. Sophie Levy-Valensi, who runs the weekend of curiosities, near Toulouse, has lost 40 % attendance despite a more extensive programming. Sign, in his eyes, that it is necessary to “reinvent new forms of festivals”. A concern shared by Marie Rigaud, Director of Printemps de Pérouges, in Ain.
tense relations
If Sting attracted the public of this festival, “three more or less artists would have changed anything,” she said. However, developing the offer was also paid: Hellfest, in Clisson (Loire-Atlantique), a high place on the Metal scene, passed in marathon mode to accommodate 350 concerts, instead of 150 in 2019, won his Bet, with 420,000 spectators. Unusual, at the Roque-d’Anthéron festival (Bouches-du-Rhône), where the gratin of pianists meets, 106 concerts are currently on the bill, against 78 in 2021, according to the artistic director, René Martin. Building on the success of the mornings implemented during the period of COVVI-19, he perpetuated the format of a concert of contemporary music every day at 11 am.
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