After holding its event together for nearly a decade, the team behind the friendly La Grosse Lanterne festival, which took place in the forest near Béthanie, in Montérégie, decided to throw in the towel. The seventh and last event will therefore have taken place in August 2022.
“We managed to bring this festival to life without really having public support,” laments co-founder Mathieu Pontbriand, who explains that the decision is the result of a long reflection.
The festival has not received any subsidies since its debut in 2014, except during the two pandemic years, “which is still ironic”, he says. “We had support grants from SODEC during the pandemic, but afterwards, we are no longer eligible. So we try to understand. »
Mathieu Pontbriand invested his heart and his time, but also lost a lot of money in the adventure. “We never paid ourselves a salary, but we always fulfilled our commitments to the artists, the technicians. Out of breath, the man who has also worked in events for a long time decided that enough was enough. “But the debate should also go to the way in which the envelopes are distributed between the big machines and the small festivals. »
At SODEC, it is explained that La Grosse Lanterne was not a “customer” before the pandemic. “Only the biggest are eligible, such as the Festif, the FME, the Francos or the Festival d’été de Québec,” explains communications director Johanne Marcotte. But when the pandemic arrived, several events came knocking on our door. We could not take them in the Festival program, but in that of Cultural Relaunch, so that the music channel continues to live. »
With the return to normal, The Big Lantern was once again going to be ruled out, says Mme Marcotte.
The small regional festivals are really funded by the Ministry of Tourism.
Johanne Marcotte, Communications Director of SODEC
The organization of La Grosse Lanterne has never filed a request on this side, explains Mathieu Pontbriand. “We could not file because the data concerning the origin of our audience was deemed insufficient. But producing a traffic study was really out of our means. This is another flaw in the subsidy mechanism, that only the big guys can afford it. »
Johanne Marcotte specifies that the SODEC grant program for festivals will change form and name within a month: it will instead bear the name “Cultural event” and will be “much more malleable”. “It will allow multidisciplinary events to benefit from it,” she says. The Big Lantern could have met the criteria. But at the same time, a $50,000 grant isn’t what keeps a festival going. It takes big sponsors who bring money. »
Multiplication of requests
One of the problems with La Grosse Lanterne, believes Mathieu Pontbriand, was that it didn’t fit into any box.
We went wide in our activities, with an eco-responsible festival in harmony with nature, an illumination in the forest. But as soon as you want to get out of the mold, it becomes very complicated.
Mathieu Pontbriand, co-founder of La Grosse Lanterne
Because everything is very compartmentalized between granting agencies at different levels of government, filling out applications represents at least “50% of the time” of festival organizers, says Patrick Kearney, president of the Santa Teresa festival and of REFRAIN, a group founded there. two years old which represents nearly a hundred festivals in the province. “It’s not glamorous, well, and it adds to the heaviness,” he says. Especially for small festivals with a reduced team, to which is added the pandemic fatigue, the increase in costs and the shortage of manpower.
But the festivals do not necessarily emerge weakened from this year of resumption of activities, analyzes Patrick Kearney. “A few are in questioning, I would say four or five out of a hundred. But for some, it was already difficult before the pandemic. For the vast majority, it went well, there were people, people were hungry after two years. Most of the results are positive, but we have felt the rise in costs and we are anticipating next year. »
Mathieu Pontbriand, who keeps “incredible” memories of his festival, wants to launch a cry from the heart and a debate. “I am not at war with anyone. But we put forward the French language and Quebec culture, we took emerging music to the regions, we respected the values of diversity and equity, we followed all that… It’s sad, in fact. It’s truly sad. »