The Parisian festival is betting on filling the Saint-Cloud lawn for five days this year, from Wednesday to Sunday. Its director enlightens us on the why, the how and the making of this 20th edition of Rock en Seine.
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How do you balance the finances and programming of a festival that now extends into a fifth day this year? The lineup is beautiful and varied, between Lana Del Rey opening and LCD Soundsystem closing, with Gossip, Fred Again, Jungle, The Offspring, PJ Harvey and Massive Attack in the middle.
Headliners often snatched away from the competition in a tough fight, as Matthieu Ducos, director of Rock en Seine for over three years, told us. For this 20th edition, from Wednesday 21 to Sunday 25 August, which is turning up the volume and, as always, offering a host of emerging groups to discover, he hopes to attract a total of 180,000 people.
Franceinfo Culture: This year, Rock en Seine has added a day and is taking place over five days. Why? Is this a way to amortize costs?
Matthew Ducos : Yes, because the economic aspect does indeed come into play. That is to say, we have installation costs, infrastructure costs to develop the site of the Domaine de Saint-Cloud in order to welcome our festival-goers. However, these costs have increased very significantly in recent years and it is difficult to rationalize the project economically by only doing three days of shows. Hence our desire to go a little further after the Covid break, and therefore to go to four days last year, or even five days when we can. Afterwards, we also compose according to the artistic offer available. Last year, we did not find enough to supply a fifth day of festival. Luckily, we are able to do it this year, so we are not depriving ourselves of the pleasure of extending the festival a little.
Is this also a bet?
Organizing a festival is a constant gamble. But with five days, there is a need to sell more tickets and welcome more festival-goers. This new risk-taking must be done wisely, with a sufficiently enticing and diverse line-up to attract both our regulars and festival-goers who don’t usually come to Rock en Seine, in aesthetics that perhaps stray a little from our core target. This year, we therefore have both a line-up that reassures regulars, with artists familiar with the festival such as PJ Harvey, The Offspring or Massive Attack, who were present from the first edition in 2003 and have returned several times since, but also a day tinged with electro, soul and R&B on Friday with Fred Again, Jungle, Loyle Carner and Sampha. And then Lana Del Rey, who is absolutely in line with the festival’s artistic direction, and has acquired a much broader aura in recent years than in 2014 when we welcomed her for the first time. This allows us to attract a younger audience, who are not necessarily used to coming to festivals. Because we also seek to address several audiences through these five days of festival.
This edition takes place between the Olympic Games (July 26-August 11) and the Paralympic Games (August 28-September 8). Did this complicate your task? Did you have additional costs and tensions on human and material resources?
Yes, but marginally. In terms of costs, we have inflation that is there, but we did not feel any delirium in relation to this concomitance with the Olympic Games. For the rest, we had prepared ourselves, we knew that this deadline would inevitably create tensions on a certain number of clearly identified subjects like those you mentioned. We therefore anticipated and secured a certain number of things. But we were also able to count on the great loyalty of our teams and our service providers, with whom we have worked for many years. Rock en Seine is an important event in their calendar.
Two years ago, you opened the Espace Garden, which is more expensive to enter (an additional 30 to 50 euros) and more comfortable. There was criticism, with some believing that this created discrimination between festival-goers, contrary to the spirit of sharing of this type of event. However, these tickets were quickly sold out for the 2024 edition, which seems to prove you right.
In 2022, indeed, the implementation of this space, then planned to accommodate 2,500 people, received a lot of criticism. As a reminder, it is a proposal for superior comfort, including a privileged view of the stage without having to jostle for position. It’s like the different categories of seats in arenas and stadiums, it responds to a real demand from the public. And as you said, all the Garden tickets went last year, and were the first to go again this year. But we took the criticism into account and modified the system last year by reducing the capacity of the space to 1,500 people. We also slightly shifted this area so that it was not central, or at least so that it did not take up half of the front of the stage, as was the case in 2022. And last year, it went very well. So I think we found the right formula.
Did you secure some hard-fought artists for this 20th edition?
Headliners, like Lana Del Rey, LCD Soundsystem or Fred Again, are always obtained through hard work. Because the competition is very fierce between festivals, on a European scale. Here, we are talking about international artists who crisscross the planet. So when we manage to get an artist, it is often to the detriment of other festivals and other events that also have their qualities, their power of attraction and their notoriety in their own territory. It is a complicated exercise to build a program, to be both coherent and attractive. Because you have to succeed in winning the piece against the other organizers who also want to offer the best poster. It is quite exciting, but it is also stressful for many months.
Which artists are you personally most looking forward to?
I’ll start a bit at the end because we’re expecting them to close on Sunday, but LCD Soundsystem gave two concerts in July at our friends in Beauregard in Normandy and at the Nuits de Fourvière in Lyon, which I’ve heard rave reviews about! They hadn’t been to France since 2017 and it promises to be a great concert that I’m really looking forward to. This mix of electronic groove, a real dance machine, with a post-punk spirit, is as explosive as it is enjoyable. As for discoveries, I’m particularly looking forward to the Australians from Glass Beams. They’re an enigmatic trio who appear on stage with pearl masks that hide their faces. It’s quite symbolic of their instrumental music, which is also quite mysterious and captivating, with Indian sounds here and there. They’re a group that takes you on board, with a universe that I enjoy diving into. This shows that Rock en Seine offers varied, quality and, above all, very unique things.
The 20th edition of Rock en Seine takes place from Wednesday 21 to Sunday 25 August on the Pelouse de Saint-Cloud (92210). The full programme is here.