The Vieilles Charrues, the Nuit de l'Erdre, the Eurockéennes de Belfort, Solidays, Lollapalooza... The musical festivals found their audience again this summer, after two years of restrictions, even cancellations, linked to the Covid-19 crisis. 19.
But for many of them, the party was almost ruined by logistical problems.
In a press conference on July 14, Jérôme Tréhorel, director of Vieilles Charrues revealed that he almost did not open the doors of his Breton festival.
“We had to deal with a very big failure of our stage provider, which almost led us not to open the doors of the festival on Thursday (July 14),
he then explained.
We didn't know when the material would arrive, what was in the trucks and what personnel we had available”
.
Same topo in Loire-Atlantique at Nort-sur-Erdre.
The president of the Nuit de l'Erdre, Marc Jolys, spoke in the columns of Le
Parisien
:
“We considered canceling.
We received the scene very late and we had no info.
The service provider, with whom we have been working for several years, is completely disorganized this summer.
For us, it created a monstrous mess, enormous stress, the teams worked nights, but we had the stage complete.
»
Shortages of personnel and equipment
More fear than harm, therefore, for the July festivals, but Marc Jolys says he is
“very worried about the end-of-season festivals”
.
In addition to a particularly full schedule due to the rescheduling of events canceled over the past two years, providers are facing a shortage of staff.
In
Liberation
, Philippe Pasin, technical director of Nuits sonores in Lyon explains:
“Following the Covid, there are 10 to 15% of the workforce who have abandoned the profession, who have left to do something else.
We saw from this winter that a lot of people had left the circuit, we felt that the summer was going to be complicated.
Sound engineers, security guards, technicians, production managers... Professionals in the sector no longer know where to turn as demand is strong and labor is limited.
Finally, a last problem is added to this list which portends further difficulties for the festivals in August.
Beyond the disorganization of service providers linked to the tight schedule and the lack of staff, festivals have to deal with a shortage of equipment.
“There is nothing left, nothing at all.
Neither new nor used, neither in France nor in Europe.
We must surf on the gains.
We cannot invest, we must therefore maintain the available equipment
, ”explains to
Liberation
Maxime Gaudefroy, operating director of the service provider company Mx Event, based in Val-d’Oise.
In August, Rock en Seine, Motocultor or the Cabaret Vert will have a lot to do to avoid these logistical problems.
Music festivals, strongly impacted financially by the health crisis, sometimes struggle to cover their costs and the cancellation of a concert for technical reasons could prove fatal for the most fragile among them.
