The Eurockéennes de Belfort festival will resume its rights on the Malsaucy peninsula on Thursday June 30 until Sunday July 3 for four days of festivities and a largely renewed program with 54 artists, including 45 who have never performed there.
The concert of the British group Muse, who will release their new album Will of the people in August, and the show of the Belgian singer Stromae will hold the top billing. “Music is life, music comes back, life comes back!”, had launched in February the president of the festival, Matthieu Pigasse, summarizing the state of mind of the organizers.
But their enthusiasm does not prevent them from being realistic in the face of a complicated economic situation. “The capacity for the recovery of festivals is hampered by purchasing power” and “the offer is a bit excessive” this year in France, because “some producers, in a somewhat naive optimism, thought that the return to school was going to be done in a dazzling way”notes the director of the Eurockéennes, Jean-Paul Roland.
Unlike the pre-Covid years, when the festival was regularly sold out – up to 135,000 spectators in 2018, a record year – the rate of ticket sales for the 2022 edition is less intense. “But we will reach our financial balance”ensures Jean Paul Roland, who believes that the “Eurocks”, crowned in March 2020 “best festival” in the world at the Arthur Awards, are not among the most affected events.
For the 2022 edition, whose budget reaches 9.7 million euros, the Belfortain festival can indeed count on its public, on subsidies from local authorities, “the appointment“, but also on its 140 patrons, always more numerous to support the event.
This year, the organizers will pay particular attention to young people. “We don’t know yet if the young audience is coming back to the festivals”after two years of health crisis, analyzes the director. “In general, we discover the festival between 17 and 18 years old, but this age group is already a student without having ever set foot in the “Eurocks“, he continues.
The programmers thus designed the 32nd edition as “a big party for the youth” with, among others, the Radar scene devoted to the new hip-hop scene (Thaanos, DYK, Juste Shani, Davinhor, Jok’Air, KR Malsain, Captain Roshi, Lyna Mahyem and Kodes) and the Eurotronik electro night (Paul Kalkbrenner, Meute, APM001, Lilly Palmer, Paloma Colombe, Paula Temple, Sherelle and URTrax) organized on Saturday evening after midnight, simultaneously on the four stages of the site.
To find out how to adapt in the years to come, the festival has recruited a student to observe how the young public reacts during the 2022 edition. But Jean-Paul Roland has no doubts, “the pleasure of gathering will remain” and “nothing will replace the Eurocks experience” or similar major events.
Among the essential formations will occur the cult Australian crooner Nick Cave, Diplo, SCH, Simple Minds, Foals, Clara Luciani or the rappers Kaaris and Kalash Criminel. French electro stars Bob Sinclar and Pedro Winter will offer “a best of all that the French Touch has done best” and metal will be represented by Suicidal Tendencies or Fever 333. Promising young artists such as Girl in red, Ziak, Wet Leg, La Fève or Ziné complete the picture.
In addition, festival-goers will be able to eat with chefs in a new space dedicated to culinary experimentation. The Eurockéennes are also pursuing their “Zero Single-use Plastic” objective, set for 2024: in partnership with the company Contigo, reusable plastic water bottles in the colors of the event will be distributed free of charge to festival professionals and put on sale. for the public on the internet or in the site’s water bars.