The new government announcements to deal with the explosion in the number of Covid-19 contaminations in France are a new blow for concert hall managers in North Franche-Comté. From Monday January 3 and for a period of three weeks, standing concerts will be prohibited and a maximum limit of 2,000 people will be imposed indoors, Prime Minister Jean Castex announced this Monday, December 27.
Fear of postponements and cancellations
In Montbéliard, the director of Axone is annoyed by these announcements: “It’s a lot of defeatism. We will have to put a lot of energy back to motivate the teams”, he sighs. In the hour which followed the press conference, Florent Masson received two requests to postpone concerts, he explains, while worrying about potential cancellations from the public.
The concerns are the same in Audincourt, in the current music space Le Moloco: “it is not at all in the DNA of this music to live it seated”, explains the director, David Demanges. If his 600-seat concert hall is not affected by the installation of a gauge, he recalls that this new ban on standing concerts comes “after only six months of authorization” and expects a massacre of cancellations.