Olympic Games 2024: festival and concert producers warn of the shortfall for the sector

Despite the strong mobilization of law enforcement for the Olympic Games, the most important current music festivals will be held next summer in France but uncertainties remain for smaller events, particularly in the provinces.

As early as October 2022, the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, had aroused the incomprehension of the sector by evoking the need for cultural events to be “cancelled or postponed” in the summer of 2024, to ensure the safety of Olympic Games (July 26 to August 11), but also that of the passing of the Olympic flame (from May 8) and the Paralympic Games (from August 28 to September 8).

Also read Gérald Darmanin at Le Figaro: “After the Olympic Games, a cycle at the Ministry of the Interior will be reached…”

Since the end of 2022, a framework has been defined and major festivals, such as Vieilles Charrues or Rock en Seine, have been protected. Except Lollapalooza Paris, colliding with the opening ceremony. “We are trying to find solutions, for a different edition,” summarizes for AFP Angelo Gopee, boss of Live Nation France, the structure behind this event.

The large concert venues - Stade de France, Paris La Défense Arena and Accor Arena (Bercy) - are requisitioned for the Olympics. “Dates cannot be moved, international tours will not pass through France in 2024. Some artists who had planned dates in France ultimately postponed their arrival because the balance of the tour is linked to the passage through Paris”, develops for AFP Malika Ségineau from Prodiss (National Union of Musical and Variety Entertainment). This union estimates the loss of ticket revenue for show producers at 150 million euros.

Malika Séguineau also anticipates “tension on equipment, on labor, the cost of which will soar with competition from the Olympics. Without forgetting the brands, which usually support certain festivals, which will favor the Olympics. The opening ceremony of the Games, with the Seine as a backdrop, also raises questions. Petit Bain, a Parisian concert hall on a barge, is “within the perimeter of the opening ceremony”, its manager, Laurent Decès, describes to AFP. “Eight to ten days before the ceremony, there will be a phase of clearance of the floating establishments and, once cleared, they will be sealed. We will no longer be able to access it. (...) We also have a temporary terrace on the quays, where we can do a little programming and we don't know if we can count on it or be compensated,” he adds. In the worst case, Laurent Decès estimates the loss of turnover at “nearly 300,000-400,000 euros”.

Also leader of the SMA (Syndicate of Current Music), he has other reasons for concern: “Will transport be saturated during the Olympics? Will the Olympics scare Parisians? Will they desert the capital? “We didn’t need that in the current context, with inflation,” he says.

Beyond the capital, there are also “all the events, village festivals, seaside resorts, which take place in the summer, which are a financial engine, a social link, a provider of cultural jobs and which are in the hot seat,” warns AFP Samuel Raymond, of Freeform, a member association of a collective defending popular and cultural festivities in France, which has stepped up to the plate. This collective denounces “an increase in bans, by certain prefects, of festive and cultural events scheduled between June and September 2024”, which cover, in addition to music, street arts or fairground arts, for example in Ain, the Gard or the Moselle. “These small events will go under the media radar,” warns AFP Arnaud Thenoz, deputy president of the National Federation of Committees and Organizers of Festivities, i.e. 3,200 member committees. “Governments have not taken into account the economic and social impact of these cancellations, it is comparable to the summer of 2020 due to Covid. Artists, professional structures and associations will collapse,” predicts this manager.