Years go by and unfortunately look the same for Solidays.
The festival, intended to raise funds to help people affected by AIDS, was to be held at the end of June and welcome nearly 200,000 people.
After a cancellation in 2020, it will not yet take place in 2021. Its director Luc Barruet confides exclusively.
You have decided to cancel Solidays for the second year in a row, why?
LUC BARRUET
.
The probability of being able to play outdoors and in a large capacity this summer is so low that it does not seem reasonable to us to want to believe in it any longer.
This uncertainty weighs on the very future of Solidarité Sida and we cannot take the risk of waiting any longer, we are forced to take the most reasonable decision, that of canceling.
Next week, the Minister of Culture must specify the conditions under which the festivals could be held, could that not wait a week?
No.
Concretely, it is the future of Solidarité Sida and of these programs that is at stake and what will be decided next week will not change much.
Solidays is not a festival like the others, we do not have vocation to promote such musical color or to energize a territory, for Solidarité Sida, the music is a vector and Solidays a tool which serves us primarily to raise funds for finance the structure and the 121 programs that we support throughout the world.
We are convinced that the great outdoors will not be able to play, so let's save a week to get the 3.5 million euros we need, which represents 70% of our resources.
Why wait a week or ten more days when obviously Solidays won't bring them to us?
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It is not an easy decision to make ...
It is even a very difficult decision.
Last year, everyone suffered the emergency but the decision was clear, large gatherings were prohibited.
This decision was not taken today, we understand that the government maintains hope, it is a good thing given the morale of the French to send positive signals rather than negative.
But the festivals this summer and especially the big ones have calendars and economic realities that they cannot wait any longer.
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Was it not possible to postpone it?
The worst-case scenario is postponement followed by cancellation.
We cannot afford to believe that Solidays will be held until the end, until September, and then say that we were wrong.
What would we have said to all of our partners around the world?
The risk is too great, we prefer to cancel and develop new solutions to fulfill our commitment.
If you had persisted and canceled at the last moment, was it the end of Solidays?
Yes, because there we would not even have had time to set up alternative projects to face the financial challenges.
Reducing the gauge for Solidays is not possible?
It is not an option for Solidays and others.
Economically, it is not viable.
Can Solidays survive a second cancellation in quick succession?
We survived that of last year thanks to the solidarity and collective intelligence of the people and the public, the artists, the providers, the partners.
Everyone came together to find solutions.
No artist has requested compensation for the costs he may have incurred, almost all public and private partners have maintained their contribution.
This is exceptional.
And the same must be true in 2021.
Do you have the assurance?
No, we ask.
We need public funding to support us, this is really the priority.
And we hope that a number of private companies will still maintain their support even if it will be harder than last year.
The big difference is that last year we had already sold a lot of tickets and that many festival-goers donated their tickets to us contributing up to one million euros.
This year, the ticket offices are not open.
How are you going to do it ?
The contributions therefore, and then we work so that Solidays exists differently.
We have a Solidays project on TV so that we can celebrate youth and solidarity in music in a different way.
And also on a major mobilization campaign over the weekend of June 18 to 20 to find the money that will be missing.
In November, a hundred festivals signed a platform to say that they believed in it.
This is no longer the case… ?
I can't say that no one believes it anymore, not all festivals are the same.
Those who today have more difficulty believing it are those who have large gauges, programming for many international and need a significant financial package, and especially private.
Those today, yes, surely have more trouble believing it and expect answers from the ministry.
Deep down, everyone agrees that an open-air, large standing gauge is very unlikely this summer.
The trend is clear.
Roselyne Bachelot said this Wednesday to exclude the hypothesis of a summer without a festival, but that there is a festival and a festival.
And that those which pose difficulties are the festivals standing.
When we read between the lines, we cannot tell that the indicators are green on the large standing outdoor gauge.
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Have you been able to discuss your cancellation with other festival organizers?
Yes, they understand the particularity of Solidarité Sida, our need to generate significant benefits.
They are saddened and of course, that echoes their own realities because the questions we ask ourselves, other festivals are asking.
The festivals with large gauges are very seriously questioned.
What is clear is that in eight days, there is a very important deadline with the meeting with the Minister of Culture.
Today, how do we save festivals?
France has put in place significant aid for culture, but it is not enough.
We must go further, decide quickly and take into account their specificity.
Today a certain number of festivals must say whether or not they take the risk of working on an adaptation of their event.
If the decisions are not taken next week, festivals and especially the big ones will find themselves in even more difficulty.
What answers can you give them?
The standing or the sitting, yes or no, the large gauges yes or no, how many.
France must also set up a guarantee fund.
In May 2020, a film compensation and guarantee fund was set up to guarantee the risk of filming under Covid.
The same device is urgently needed for festivals, as is the case in Norway, Germany or Belgium.
It must be done with a budget, from next week.
This is the only way to get the organizers to take the risk of adapting their event for those who can.
Not all will be able, the one who has to sell 60,000 tickets to reach the balance cannot divide his gauge by 10, he does not know how to do.
If they don't have quick answers, their very existence is at stake.
