Pandemic and confinement oblige, the future of summer festivals is uncertain. But the director of the Avignon festival Olivier Py, although worried, ensures that the festival is technically feasible if the deconfinement takes place in mid-May.

In a few weeks, the first summer festivals, which bring together thousands of people each year, will begin, with more than 2,000 events throughout France. But the threat of prolonged containment and a lasting epidemic of coronavirus looms, and risks leading to cancellations in cascade. While the programming for the 74th edition of the Avignon festival was revealed on Wednesday, Olivier Py, its director, says he is "very worried" but still hopes that the event will take place.

Beyond May 15, "it will not be possible"

"I am very worried", he confides to the microphone of Europe 1 before recalling that the maintenance or not of the festival is "neither of his authority nor of his competence. There are health authorities and a prefect who will make the decision not to play if there is the slightest risk to the population. "

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But he believes that in practice, the festival is possible if the confinement does not go beyond May 15. "We have not entirely lost hope: I believe there is a technical feasibility of the festival until the second half of May. Beyond that, we think that technically, no, it will not be possible" .

Big financial losses

The festival represents "a budget of 13 million in which more than half is provided by revenues". Which would represent a loss of 6 or 7 million euros, not counting "the Off festival for which the losses would be terrible, and for the city of Avignon which has a return of 100 million euros each year on the festival and which is one of the poorest cities in France ", recalls Olivier Py.

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The various scenarios envisaged in the event of cancellation, such as a postponement, or a reduced festival, will be presented to the board of directors by videoconference on April 21.

What happens to intermittent workers?

In order to adapt its exceptional measures to the specific case of intermittent performers (musicians, actors, technicians, directors, machinists, dancers, etc.), the government has decided not to take the period of confinement into account when calculating the period which allows them to collect unemployment insurance. An intermittent worker must normally work 507 hours of work per year.

The calculation "anniversary date" would therefore be delayed by the time that the confinement lasted. However, the application of the measure is still unclear. "Artists and technicians will be in a very precarious situation at the end of the crisis", worries Olivier Py. "I do not tend to forget them, on the contrary, that is why I still hope that the festival will take place and I will do everything for if we have the right. I believe that the ministry of culture does not has not forgotten them either, and I am in favor of a moratorium on the two or three months which will have been unemployed and which are likely to make them lose their hours. "