The ax fell on Wednesday February 10.
The Solidays festival, where artists from all over the world perform in support of AIDS patients, will not take place for the second consecutive summer.
This decision stems from the first bad signals from abroad, with the cancellations of major events, such as Glastonbury in England or Coachella in the United States.
Read also: A second year without Solidays, the festival cancels its 2021 edition
"It's a difficult decision, but it is our responsibility to take it"
, details to AFP Luc Barruet, boss of Solidays.
The event brought together 228,000 spectators over three days in 2019, at the Longchamp racecourse, in western Paris.
"The hopes that we can play this summer, with a large gauge and standing, are hypothetical and weak"
, he notes, helplessly, specifying that
"the variants linked to Covid-19 have gained ground"
and that
"the projections show that the vaccination will take longer than expected ”.
"A small gauge formula was not viable,"
he concluded.
Worried hellfest
Like last year, the cancellation of this festival represents a shortfall of 3.5 million euros for the action of the Solidarité Sida association, organizer of the event.
This money is used, above all, to finance the 114 aid programs for HIV patients in 21 countries,
"from Montreuil, to the Philippines, via Ukraine"
, as Luc Barruet, also founding director of association.
Last year, these losses were offset by the maintenance of aid from public institutions - ministries, Ile-de-France region, city of Paris - and support from private partners.
Not to mention the festival-goers who had donated, partially or entirely, for the purchase of their ticket.
Read also: The Stations of the Cross at Hellfest, a festival canceled by the epidemic and threatened by its insurer
For this year, Luc Barruet calls again for the generosity and solidarity of public institutions and private partners.
But Solidays did not have time, this time, to put his tickets on sale, thus cutting off a considerable source of income.
A
"TV project and a mobilization campaign on the dates of the festival"
are in the pipeline to compensate for these losses, adds the director.
Beyond the particular case of Solidays, a shadow hangs over the summer season.
Printemps de Bourges, scheduled for early May, has decided to dispense with its largest enclosure, the W, with 10,000 seats.
Even more worrying, Ben Barbaud, boss of Hellfest, a metalworking festival usually bringing together 180,000 people in mid-June in Loire-Atlantique, was alarmed, in an open letter addressed to the Minister of Culture Roselyne Bachelot, of a lack of visibility, in the absence of an established cultural calendar.
Read also: For Roselyne Bachelot, it would be "irresponsible" to set a date for the reopening of cultural places
"The question of the sustainability of other festivals arises, because they spend money without knowing whether they will be able to play or receive aid in 2021"
Luc Barruet, director of the Solidays festival
“Our question is therefore the following
,” he wrote to him, “
with less hospital pressure, combined with a summer period when we know that this virus is less virulent, is it conceivable to consider holding our mega events?
Or, should we consider from now on that until collective immunity is reached, it will be impossible to set up events hosting tens of thousands of spectators? ”
A meeting is scheduled, in the afternoon of February 18 (and not on the 15th as was initially planned) between Ms. Bachelot and those in charge of current music festivals.
A key meeting in the eyes of Luc Barruet.
“Solidays is a special case, we have public aid and our goal is that it is perhaps easier to find people to help us.
But the question of the sustainability of other festivals arises, because they spend money without knowing whether they will be able to play or receive aid in 2021 "
, he confesses, insisting that
" the question of the large gauges standing be decided ”.
“We have to allow festivals to adapt to constraints and see how far they can be helped.
A guarantee fund must be set up, in order to be able to bear the risk, this is what is done for filming in the cinema. "
Read also: Roselyne Bachelot opposes the vaccine passport and hopes for a return to festivals this summer
And the boss of Solidays to want to be rational about the specificities of his branch.
“An electro or urban music festival in a reduced gauge and seated is not possible.
It's like saying, the cinemas are reopening, but the spectators will be standing and the lights on ”
.
Speaking of cinema, the Cannes Film Festival, which also attracts a lot of people, has already shifted its dates to July but does not completely rule out having to postpone its edition to the fall. What the CanneSéries did. Initially scheduled for April, the fourth season of this event is postponed from October 8 to 13, 2021.
