interview with Tommy Vaudecranne, president of Technopol

The Techno Parade celebrates its 25th anniversary with a festive musical journey on Saturday September 23 from noon in Paris, between the Place de la Bastille and the Place de la Nation, accompanied by around fifteen floats and dozens of DJs. Does electronic music still need to be defended in France in 2023? Twenty-five years of activism have borne fruit, but battles remain to be fought, tells us Tommy Vaudecranne, the president of Technopol, historical organizer of the event which is expecting several tens of thousands of participants again this year.

The Techno Parade is celebrating its 25th anniversary, what does this mean to you?
Tommy Vaudecranne : It gives me a lot of emotions. In 1998 I was already a DJ but I attended the first Techno Parade in the audience, from start to finish. To see these hundreds of thousands of people dancing on the Place de la Nation was incredible! I joined Technopol in 2002 and have been president since 2010.

So, to see that after 25 years the Techno Parade still exists, it gives me joy. Because it shows that the fight we waged bore fruit, that the event is now established, identified, and that it gives visibility to the actors and actresses of electronic music.

Tommy Vaudecranne, president of Technopol

at Franceinfo Culture

It also allows us to speak in the media to discuss different subjects and raise our demands, which have necessarily evolved since 1998 but some of which remain current. I feel joy but that doesn’t prevent the difficulties, because budgets are more and more difficult to close. Every year, for us, it’s the same fight. We have to start from scratch, find sponsors, convince institutions to help us. So seeing the event held every year is extraordinary. And celebrating its 25th anniversary is even crazier, including in my personal life and that of many others, who were at the first edition and are coming today with their children.

How have the objectives of the Techno Parade evolved over the past 25 years?
When we started, we had to exist, to be recognized, for electronic music gatherings to stop being demonized and systematically banned. We had to show that DJs are musicians, that being a producer or DJ is a profession, and obtain institutional support. Today, we have passed this stage but we remain vigilant on questions of acceptance. We cannot say that there is a strong ban on electronic music events in France but there are often tensions, larger police forces, we are always looking for the little beast.

The current objective is to better understand electronic music and take its specificities into account.

Tommy Vaudecranne, president of Technopol

at Franceinfo Culture

For example, the State has created a “sound decree” whose aim is to preserve the eardrums of the public. However, we realize that if we apply this decree, we can no longer broadcast electronic music in good conditions, because it has not taken into account the specificities of this music.

That’s to say ?
There are differences between our music and that which is called “current music”. The events don’t happen at the same time – our parties start when the concerts end – and they don’t use the same sound systems, at least not for as long. Our next fight is that electronic music is not systematically integrated into the great family of current music but is simply the family of electronic music. Since between the genres of music and professions, the specificities of the places of diffusion, the time ranges, the methods of distribution, there are many things which are specific to our music and require particular attention. This lack of knowledge means that we have difficulty accessing the aid schemes and subsidies provided for current music.

When we make a request to set up a festival, for example, we would like equal treatment with rock festivals, so that there are not constant reservations about nuisances or others.

Tommy Vaudecranne, president of Technopol

at Franceinfo Culture

What other battles are you currently fighting?
We work on ecology, and in particular on the way in which we produce a festival in a more virtuous way, from recovery to recycling, but which also concerns the way in which artists will travel and organize their careers.

We work in particular on what we call “the short artistic circuit”. We collaborate with other organizations to create low carbon tours.

Tommy Vaudecranne, president of Technopol

at Franceinfo Culture

It is also about favoring the emergence of our scene, local scenes, and not systematically looking for artists on the other side of the world, who will travel by plane or private jet. We are trying to create an inter-regional collaboration to tour these artists on the national territory. This is what Germany and the Netherlands in particular have developed.

The defense of free parties and Teknivals does not fall within your scope of intervention?
For us, free parties are essential, they have to exist. And it often happens in very good conditions. Music must be accessible to all, but for the working classes, the price of a festival ticket or club entry is increasingly high. With Teknivals, we are no longer in the industrial economy, we are in sharing, in free, open, inclusive and free celebration. And France is the country in the world where we have the most sound systems and the biggest teknivals. But we do not carry their word because they are structured, they have a national coordination which discusses with the institutions and therefore we do not represent them. We defend events that evolve in an economic environment. But we are ready to support them, as when we stepped up to the plate after the completely disproportionate police intervention at the Redon rave in June 2021.

Techno is 40 years old. Do young people continue to be interested and involved in electronic music?
Enormously ! We have never had so many vocations for DJs, electronic music composers and labels. Today, when you develop a passion for electronic music you can hope to make it your career. When we started in the 90s, that wasn’t the case: DJ status didn’t exist and events were often banned. Of course, there will always be people who consider techno to be “has-been”. But there is a constant renewal, we see that the events attract more and more people and certain DJs currently bring together many young people. What’s interesting is to observe the trends that will emerge rather than trying to bring to life something that is actually a bit outdated, like classic techno which was successful in the 2000s.

What emerging trends are you currently observing?
There are a lot of hybridizations and a lot of sounds close to Eurodance that are working very well at the moment. We also notice a very strong emergence of African music, which influences the way of composing, but also music from Central America and in particular Brazilian baile funk which influences the rhythms. And then we hear more and more rappers working with electronic music musicians. Furthermore, so-called hard music, hardcore, gabber, hardstyle, is gaining importance and we hear it on so-called techno scenes, which would have been impossible before.

In fact, there are fewer and fewer sealed chapels and hybridization is general. Artists communicate much more today through tools (which are the same everywhere) and ways of creating than through musical chapels.

Tommy Vaudecranne, president of Technopol

at Franceinfo Culture

This gives rise to previously unimaginable combinations. Some of these trends last and others do not. But in any case, every six months something new appears because the younger generations take hold of it.