It was “a hammer blow” that fell a few days ago on the heads of the organizers of Elektric Park, the electro music festival in Chatou (Yvelines).
During a meeting organized at the initiative of the prefecture, they were informed that the event will not be held on the planned dates, namely Saturday August 30 and Sunday August 31, but on Saturday June 15, over one day.
In question, security reasons and more precisely the priority given in the deployment of police forces to the events of the Paralympic Games which will take place from Wednesday August 28 to Sunday September 8.
This decision is the result of the law of May 19, 2023 relating to the Olympic and Paralympic Games (JOP) of 2024. One of the provisions will in fact be the extension of the powers of the Paris police prefect during the period of these JOPs, which becomes the sole person responsible for public order in Île-de-France.
The only one able to authorize the holding of demonstrations.
Some other big events could slip through the drops.
The Rock-en-Seine festival, organized right between the two competitions, is currently being held from August 20 to 25.
Tickets had already gone on sale
“We were clearly told that for us, there will be no exemptions possible because there are events organized on the dates we had set,” confides Julien Stackler, production administrator at Elektric Park.
The police officers are either requisitioned or on leave.
It's something you can hear.
But we would simply have found out in September rather than in January, when we had already put the tickets on sale.
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Those who had already jumped in are – or will soon be – reimbursed.
Another ticket office has been launched for the new date, set in agreement with the city and the prefecture.
“It’s undoubtedly the least bad date,” judge Julien Stackler.
We wanted to avoid it being too late in September.
We also didn't want to do Elektric Park on June 22, the day after the Fête de la Musique.
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As with the weather, which is mild at this time, there are no worries about the arrival of the public.
“The college exams are over,” says the organizer.
There are the baccalaureate exams but our audience is more 20-25 year olds than 15-20.
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A “headache” to organize the event in June
Elektric Park will therefore have to last a single day instead of two with a capacity of around 15,000 festival-goers, the compromise found to avoid outright cancellation.
An equation that is a “puzzle” for the organizers.
Starting with those responsible for programming “with a shortened deadline of two months and an event which will be held in a tense period, during which many artists are already booked”, explains Julien Stackler.
“Fortunately”, the “big guys” who had been announced for September have already said yes for the month of June.
This is the case of Vladimir Nightmare and Mandragora.
Bringing the festival forward by two and a half months also has technical and financial repercussions.
“Deadlines are extremely shortened,” emphasizes the production administrator of Elektric Park.
It will be more difficult to find the equipment, there will be additional transport costs and deposits to pay.
Some partners are lowering their entry fee.
We are looking at each line of the budget, but we already know that it will be difficult to have a balanced edition.
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