The year 2020 was punctuated by announcements of festival cancellations.
From Printemps de Bourges to Transmusicales de Rennes, including Vieilles Charrues or Rock en Seine, none of the events which are the spice of French cultural life have been able to take place.
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For the first time since March, the organizers of the main French events express, with one voice, their belief in the classic unfolding of their festivals next year.
Entitled "
We believe in
" this statement released Friday, November 27 at noon, balm the heart of a sector deeply affected by the health measures taken since the start of the pandemic.
“
The challenge that awaits us for the next few months is considerable, but it is surmountable and we are ready.
Weather, financial or security, our festivals have gone through many crises in recent years.
They have always recovered
”, details optimistically the forum, signed by 120 players in the field.
We interviewed Jean-Paul Roland, director of Eurockéennes de Belfort and member of Prodiss, the national union for musical entertainment and variety.
For thirty years, this man of extraordinary energy has been a lover of a profession that he defends with amazing enthusiasm.
LE FIGARO - How did this platform come about?
Jean-Paul ROLAND -
There had been a deafening silence at festivals for some time.
It was time to break it.
After an inexorable series of cancellations, it was important that the festivals decide to assert their determination and their strong conviction to present their events in 2021. I took this initiative, which I tested with Jérôme Tréhorel (Vieilles Charrues ), François Missonnier (Europa Vox) and Rémy Perrier (Musilac).
We shared the calls, and it spread very quickly.
In a few days, we reached a hundred signatories.
This conviction and this determination come at a time when a first stage of the agenda is drawn up by the government.
It is not simply a conviction that we have for the sole purpose of saving our skins: it is based on several factors such as the artists who confirmed their arrival to us and with whom we signed contracts, festival-goers that we meet who tell us "
we believe in it, we are with you
".
Many of them have kept their tickets: the least thing is to give them a sign of life.
In the case of Eurockéennes, Musilac and Beauregard, we will soon be announcing all of our programming.
There are also other partners, such as sponsors, with whom our marketing officers are in the process of signing.
These brands are deciding their budgets at the end of the year.
There is a wind of optimism, which is based on a lot of things.
Finally, the last factor concerns technological and sanitary advances.
If we had been told some time ago that we would talk about vaccines so early, that would have surprised us, but it is a reality that is approaching.
Antigenic tests are linked to technological advances.
In September, we began to consult Covid advisers who worked on the Tour de France.
Applications make it possible to relate the validity of a test to a ticket.
These advances allowed Glastonbury to announce on Wednesday that they are working on the full gauge scenario.
It will be necessary to meet certain conditions, in particular, from January, the holding of a new schedule.
When we met her last October, in Avignon, the Minister told us that she was going to act to ensure that France remains a land of festivals.
We will take her at her word.
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This is the first long-standing optimistic message from festivals.
We witnessed a series of dominoes falling one after the other.
That's why I told my colleagues to speak with one voice.
We had to find the right moment.
By mid-August, we had practically finished our programming.
The various community aids have enabled us to hold out, but our job is to suggest things.
We are also pushed by our local associations and our territories.
This is what led me to propose this speech for which I was not refused.
The end of the year is usually the time when summer festivals unveil their headliners for the upcoming season ...
The months of November December mark the first sequence in which we give our news.
My fear was that if we didn't speak up, we'd give the impression that we didn't believe it anymore, while the programmers and technicians worked, so did the partnership people.
A festival is a marathon that doesn't start too late.
You can't make up the last hundred meters by sprinting.
We must keep the usual pace and this beginning of deconfinement is timely.
Is there a difficulty in programming international artists?
No.
We have confirmed some groups, and there are also new Anglo-Saxon summer tours that have been decided.
We will announce the full program on Tuesday.
Of course, all eyes are on the United States, where it looks like the pandemic is going to last longer, but the tourers tell us that groups barred from touring in their country could spend a little more time in Europe. .
Everything is open.
We are entrepreneurs, we know the risk.
For now, the big festivals are in a classic scenario.
We will need territorial coherence.
In any case, there will not be only Franco-French programming next summer.
There is a working group, at Prodiss entitled "
sanitary protocol and antigenic tests
" for which we are hearing epidemiologists.
We would like to organize - as the Spaniards, the Dutch and the Danes will do under the aegis of their ministries of health - a stand-up test concert.
But for that, we need to define the protocol.
The idea is to see how producers and cinemas could have scientific knowledge and offer medical experience.
What has been your activity this year?
Our management capacity was put to the test, we had to keep teams in partial activity and teleworking.
As an elected representative of Prodiss, I spent my afternoons dealing with questions relating to the CNM, aid, and cancellation announcements.
Morally, it was difficult, but there was a determination from all to get back to work.
And festivals have found another role: we have understood that we are no longer just in entertainment.
When we saw the local businesses falter, the security boxes, the short contracts, the intermittent without work ... Our optimism is saving for them.
Usually we announce all of our programming in April, there we will do it in early December with the confirmation of 50 groups.
We are working on the assumption of a festival with a classical configuration. I have seen colleagues like Transmusicales or Sakifo wear themselves out working on different scenarios.
If however this pandemic remains, of course we will react to reinvent something.
Our sponsorship budget has fallen by 8%, it is only there that we have fallen, it is a marginal decline, in no case a revision of the festival.
Do you feel enthusiasm throughout the chain?
What has changed in the last week or two is that this one is shared.
Our e-mail boxes are filled with proposals from turners, we are starting to talk about the first Anglo-Saxon parties.
Our partner SNCF sets up the trains to transport the public, the works councils buy us the tickets.
And above all, we have hardly any new requests for reimbursement of tickets since July, when we could have imagined a wave.
It's still a sign.
We were often told that we would be the last to open.
On the contrary, with this forum, we want to say that we are the first to believe it.
The platform signed by 120 professionals from French DR festivals
