REPORTAGE
It's a real craze. The concert halls are always full, quite the opposite. A study by Prodiss, the national union of musical entertainment and variety shows that 41% of French people go to a concert at least once a year. That's 11% more than five years ago. To this, several reasons.
More concert halls
Already, there are more and more concert halls in France. For example, last year, 66 new rooms opened. Today there are nearly 2,000 in France, almost as much as festivals. Obviously, the more offers there are, the more the French go there. And they do not hesitate to put the means. Take the seats for Celine Dion at the U Arena: they sold out in an hour and a half. Ditto for U2, despite prices ranging from 80 to 200 euros per place. It did not stop these spectators crossed at the concert of young Toulouse rappers BigFlo and Oli last Saturday: "We wanted with our son to show him some artists that we liked a lot when they were younger," they explain. "We went to see U2 and Depeche Mode, the prices are quite expensive, especially for the big concerts, but afterwards it's easier than the theater, it's always a good time."
But big concerts are not the only ones to show full. The Ministry of Culture has also helped to create so-called "Smacs", scenes of current music. There are already a hundred in France, such as Chabada in Angers, Cargo in Caen or Aeronef in Lille. On their own, they host 6,000 concerts a year and two million spectators.
More concerts
Artists are also doing more concerts today than they were a few years ago because of the record crisis. Since they no longer sell CDs, especially because of streaming, artists have to earn their living differently. "In one year, if you want to be intermittent you have to make 43," says Voyou, a pop artist who has collaborated with Vincent Delerm and Yelle. "Since I started the project, I had to do 150 concerts, where normally ten years ago, on the development of an artist, you would have done thirty instead."
Another shouting example is that of singer Jeanne Added, who has given 150 concerts since January. In a rhythm as dense, Angela, between May and August, was in concert almost every other day. But the risk is to exhaust the artists. Like Stomae, who had decided to stop everything after a marathon tour that had exhausted her.