France, land of festivals

It was in the midst of the pandemic that the French Ministry of Culture organised the first Etats généraux des festivals (general assembly of festivals), in October 2020. This major inaugural meeting for professionals of the entertainment sector resulted in a report that provides an overview of the diversity of festivals, which Vie Publique, the official website for “public debate”, describes in a long article on the topic.

“Festivals all have one thing in common: they bring together citizens in a festive, joyful and unifying moment, focused on a given cultural interest.” This definition is provided by the French Ministry of Culture in a report also devoted to festivals, and it seems to match the reality of French festivals fairly well. Thanks to the diversity of their artistic fields, their age and the number of participants they attract, festivals in France are indeed very diverse and difficult to put in a single box.

The Ministry points out that every year, festivals are created while others cease to exist: 70% of the festivals in existence today were only created after the 2000’s. And this “constant renewal” undoubtedly pokes the interest of the French in festivals, since 20% of the French population declares that they go to at least one festival each year.

However, several criteria, defined by the Ministry of Culture, determine what a festival is (or should be) and how it contributes to culture. It should:

• be a recurrent event, defined in time and space;
• offer an artistic and cultural project within an editorial logic of programming forming a sense of unity, based on the presentation of artistic works and creations proposed mainly by professionals;
• have a sense of local territory identity;
• be open to the general public (free or paying).

These rather unrestrictive criteria mean that the festival scene is constantly “renewed and abundant”, even if some festivals have been around for decades, such as the Chorégies d’Orange in the Vaucluse region. This festival of classical music and opera in particular, founded in 1869 by the composer Hector Berlioz himself, celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2019! More recent but much more popular is the Festival interceltique de Lorient where 60% of the concerts are free. This is why this festival welcomes up to 800,000 visitors in total each year, around “all forms of music from Celtic countries, from thousand-year-old songs to folk, rock, jazz, and symphonic works”.

Similarly, the Hellfest, a.k.a. Hellfest Open Air, a music festival specialised in “extreme music” organised in June in Clisson in the Loire-Atlantique region, attracts nearly 420,000 spectators, or an average of 60,000 spectators per day. According to the Vie Publique website, these figures turn it into the leading French festival in terms of paid attendance. Best-known festivals in France include the Festival d’Avignon, a theatre festival that issues more than 100,000 tickets for paying plays each year, but also, in another genre, the Festival international de la bande dessinée d’Angoulême, the Festival de Cannes, a world-famous film festival that is not open to the general public...

Although current music festivals represent half of the events registered, according to Vie Publique, other types of festivals exist that can be classified into four main areas: cinema and audiovisual arts; all forms of classical music; circus and street arts; multidisciplinary events.

Five regions account for 60% of these events, according to the report on the situation of festivals. These are mainly:

• the Île-de-France region;
• the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region;
• the Sud region (Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, PACA);
• the Occitanie region;
• the Nouvelle Aquitaine region.

However, Vie Publique points out that “if we relate the density of festivals to the surface area and population”, the Bretagne region is also a land of festivals, as is the Centre-Val de Loire region, which hosts the most classical music festivals, and the Grand Est region, specialised in book fairs.

It should be noted that 75% of cultural events take place from May to October, but film festivals and book festivals are also very popular between seasons. That’s more than enough to find a festival that suits your taste!

• on the Vie Publique website
• on the Ministry of Culture website
• on the France Festivals website, most important network for music and live arts festivals in France