Performance on stage by DJ Petit Biscuit at the Vieilles Charrues festival, 2019. -

LOIC VENANCE

  • The summer festivals will be able to be held but with a maximum gauge of 5000 perdsonnes, seated, and with distance.

  • Jérôme Tréhorel, director of Vieilles Charrues, and Matthieu Duco, director of Rock en Seine, are determined that their respective festivals take place.

  • Different formats and viable alternatives, respecting health safety standards, are being studied.

The announcement of the Ministry of Culture does not answer their many questions.

Thursday evening, Roselyne Bachelot explained to actors in the world of festivals that summer artistic events would be authorized, if the health situation improves, in the open air, with a maximum of 5,000 festival-goers seated, and with social distancing.

While waiting for more precise answers on the possibilities of organization (what about refreshments, toilets, queues?), Festivals continue to mobilize to anticipate all possible scenarios and offer a viable alternative to festival-goers this summer.

"So that the summer is not silent"

For Jérôme Tréhorel, director of the Vieilles Charrues festival as well as for Matthieu Ducos, director of Rock en Seine, the objective is very clear: “not to relive a silent summer” and “to avoid a new white year”.

They heard the Minister of Culture, Roselyne Bachelot, "there will be no summer without a festival", and hold this line with perseverance.

There are of course important cultural and economic issues, but beyond the event itself, it is also for them to maintain a social commitment, which gives space to the social bond.

"It is our duty to find solutions to adapt" explains Jérôme Tréhorel.

Matthieu Ducos also shares this dimension of duty: "In this difficult period, we have to be a responsible actor but who also have to be there to participate in the world after, who is there to recreate a warmer atmosphere and environment. , to recreate links between people ”.

Offer new adapted formats

Jérôme Tréhorel evokes various possible scenarios concerning the Veilles Charrues but is reassuring: “We will adapt.

This is the commitment we had with festival-goers last fall.

We really want there to be a festival.

It might be different, but we'll be there.

He also gives some alternative avenues that he and his team are thinking about.

It is not a question of adapting the old festival, but of creating a completely new project: "What we imagined following the declarations of the Minister is that, if we are talking about a 5,000 [festival-goers] seated, they will be bleachers or flower beds seated facing stages.

[…] The bubbles or others, it can be complementary shapes.

"

Indeed, as Matthieu Ducos explains, all the festivals have "reworked [their] formats, [their] logic".

He underlines the difficulty of these scenarios, especially for standing festivals, welcoming several thousand people per day.

For him, it is essential to preserve this freedom of festival-goers to go from one concert to another, to live a unique experience, "to do things all the same, beautiful things" he tells us.

While caution is in order, the two directors still provide a glimpse of the creativity and flexibility of their respective festivals.

Something to give festival-goers good hope.

"Today, we are waiting for answers"

With lucidity and optimism, these two directors of major festivals in France are now awaiting clear answers from the Ministry of Culture.

"We must give a framework to the events of this summer" says Matthieu Ducos.

These answers are imperative, as Jérôme Tréhorel underlines, who explains that "then technical, logistical, health and financial feasibility studies must be carried out".

Among the most crucial questions, there is of course the question of the maximum gauge, the frame and the format that will be allowed, but also the question of the PCR tests which could be made compulsory before the festival.

This delicate legal question is still under discussion.

The state will decide.

Finally, the economic question.

The challenge is not only to achieve a balance for this edition, but to continue to exist next summer.

Jérôme Tréhorel thus hopes that the government has “perfectly integrated the fact that to organize different festivals […] there will have to be support”.

Indeed, without this, we can fear that “[these] actors will be harmed even more and disappear”, according to Matthieu Ducos.

Roselyne Bachelot also presented Thursday “an envelope of 30 million euros” to accompany the festivals towards alternative formats or to limit the breakage in the event of cancellation.

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  • Coronavirus

  • Culture

  • Covid 19

  • Roselyne Bachelot

  • Festival

  • summer