While the biggest festivals in France are worried about their 2024 editions, which could be threatened by the organization of the Paris Olympics, in Touraine, festival organizers are mainly concerned about the summer of 2023. In Indre-et- Loire, there is no huge festival like the Eurockéennes or the Vieilles Charrues, but many independent festivals, carried by volunteers and associations. However, in 2022, these demonstrations were all taken in a scissors effect, with on the one hand, less public, and on the other, exploding organizational costs.
“To redo the festival canceled because of the Covid in 2020, it cost us 250,000 euros more in 2022” – one of the organizers of Yzeures n’Rock
Yzeures n’Rock is loss-making for the first time in 17 years of existence
After 17 years of existence, including 11 paying editions, Yzeure n’Rock is loss-making for the first time. In three days, at the beginning of August, less than 23,000 spectators came to Yzeure-sur-Creuse to listen to M, IAM, Damso and many others. The sale of three-day passes, for example, did not live up to expectations. “_I spoke with the organizers of many other festivals which usually attract around 20,000 spectators or a little less. organizers, Sébastien Manuel. “We will have to find a way to bring them back.“.
Another hard blow for festival organizers: the explosion of organizational costs. Offering the same edition planned and canceled because of the Covid in 2020 cost 250,000 euros more in 2022. Sébastien Manuel expects to have to reduce the sails next summer: “we will have to make concessions, maybe on the programming or maybe by removing a scene“.
500,000 euros in additional budget for Terre du Son between 2019 and 2022
The budget of Terre du Son, the biggest festival in Indre-et-Loire, has also exploded: +500,000 euros between 2019 and 2022, for a total budget of 2.3 million euros. Despite Vianney, Juliette Armanet and Eddie de Pretto, he missed 2,000 spectators to break even financial. “we have artistic cachets that explode. Suddenly, a general budget of the festival which also grows” explains Pauline Ruby Rinquin, the coordinator of Terre du Son. “Public aid is not increasing. We still suffered two years of Covid so we have to win back the public. There is also a whole age group of the public who does not know the festivals, so we have to seduce them, convince them to come and discover this world. There are also the changing habits of festival-goers, the shortage of technicians. All these elements make the economy of a budget like ours very fragile“.
Terre du Son is therefore looking for new private partners to have more means for its 2023 edition at the Candé estate, in Monts, because most likely, fuel and electricity will cost even more next summer.