Rennes, fertile ground for cultural enterprises

Despite a stagnation of public subsidies for culture, the city of Rennes remains an ecosystem conducive to cultural and creative businesses. We explain why.

The decline of State aid to culture is a reality and yet the sector of cultural activity is very dynamic in Rennes metropolis. "It represents more than 5,000 employees in the private sector, probably 10,000 jobs in total," says Gaëlle Andro, vice president of Rennes Métropole in charge of economic development. If the associative employment stagnates, the one in company develops. Our sector of excellence is that of the animated image, the audio-visual to the video games. We have the whole chain from schools, research and development to production companies, like Vivement lundi or JPL Film, and, of course, events such as the Afca Animation Festival or the Traveling Festival. The edition is very present. Music labels, although they often have only a few people, are more and more numerous. "

Help for emerging artists

The association Elektroni [k] co-organized, this Wednesday, with Rennes metropolis, the forum "Entreprendre dans la culture". Her bridgehead is the digital arts festival Now (until Sunday, October 13th), but she employs seven permanent year-rounds. "Since the creation of the association in 2001, the city of Rennes has really helped us grow," says Yvan le Bras, coordinator of the association. We also have constructive relations with other local authorities: metropolis, regional council, regional direction of culture ... Despite the decline in financial support, the desire to support cultural wealth, which promotes the quality of life in Rennes, is still there. In Rennes, festivals, such as Trans, Now or Nightfall, give pride of place to emerging artists, where it is more complicated in other cities. "

Community aid is not necessarily financial, but also consists of logistical support: loan of rooms (the chapel of Vieux Saint-Etienne for the festival Now) and provision of technical teams. In return for public aid, the festival offers numerous concerts and free exhibitions and develops its interventions with school children.

"The right size of city"

But, the salvation also comes from the cooperation between the actors of the cultural life. "So we lent equipment to Trans for the Ubu and vice versa, says Yvan Le Bras. It is a logic of sustainable development, but also an economy. Cooperation also saves financial risk. "We have, for example, associated with the National Theater of Brittany (TNB) to co-produce the concert show of the German composer Pantah du Prince, explains Yvan le Bras. For Electroni [k], it would have been too risky financially to produce it alone. For the TNB, it's an opportunity to open its theater to a different audience. "

"Rennes has the right size of city to put people in contact, says Gaëlle Andro. Since the arrival of the LGV, there is a significant number of talents: designers, draftsmen, writers, etc. who turn to Rennes, whom they have often known as students. "

Kindness for trump

The main reason for their coming? "The shambles of Parisian life! They are attracted by the quality of life in Rennes, especially for their children. Since they often work alone, sometimes intermittently, being able to easily meet the other players in the sector is very important for them, in order to associate themselves with projects. To foster these partnerships, Rennes Métropole has just put in place the call for projects "cross-creativity", where several actors can join forces on a project, with financial and technical support at their disposal.

According to the return of the actors of the culture, like the Google workshop which chose to settle in Rennes, the main asset of Rennes has a name: growth? Qualified staff ? No ... Benevolence!

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