End clap, assessment and perspectives of this 49th edition

The calm, after four days of festivities. Sunday March 20 at the end of the afternoon, the streets of Angoulême are emptied of their visitors. No more strolling through the decorated streets of the city. Finished, the autograph sessions. The International Comics Festival is closed.

Now is the time to take stock. A mixed record for the organizers: on the one hand“happiness” to see their event held, after a cancellation in 2020 and a postponement the following year. On the other, the figures, and what they say about the impact of the health crisis on the Charente festival.

– 25% attendance

This year, the queues for signings were shorter. Visitors, less cramped between stands. And for good reason. This 49th edition of the Festival recorded a 25% drop in attendance compared to previous years.

According to Franck Bondoux, General Delegate of the Festival, several reasons for this. “Schools were not part of it, for example. Difficult for teachers to build educational projects in the current circumstances“, he concedes. The organizer also points the change of date of the eventagain due to the health crisis. “48 years that the festival takes place in January. Inevitably, we lose regular visitors”.

+ 1 million euros

Usually, the event costs 4.5 million euros. This year, it’s one more. “We had to do, undo, redo, redo… Thousands of bracelets, programs, thrown away, canceled, replaced… It costs money, all that”regrets Franck Bondoux.

To help it with its expenses, the direction of the Festival therefore appealed to the Ministry of Cultureand the communities that support it. “The state has responded present at this stage, we will do the accounts at the exit. I want to believe that we will find a solution”, reassures Franck Bondoux.

The Delegate General wants to see the bright side of things. “An exhibition like the one we dedicated to René Goscinny comes from very far away: it’s more than two years of work. Delivering it to the public, finally, is a real relief, and a joy”.

And tomorrow ?

The bubbles of this 49th edition are hardly dismantled than the General Delegate thinks of the continuation : the 50th edition.

“The idea is not to look back to a glorious past, but to project oneself. What will comics be like in the next 50 years, in a time when new generations consume cultural goods in the form of films, video games , anime… At a time, too, when many artists go directly to a digital production, without originals to display. For the Charente to keep this event, the Festival must evolve with these behaviors”.