Music festivals dot the country. In Brittany alone, there are nearly 350. Competition is fierce and the headliners demand increasingly expensive fees. From Vieilles Charrues to the Route du Rock, the programmers are worried.
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Artists’ fees? “It has become nonsense and it inevitably endangers the economy of our festivalsexplains François Floret, programmer of the Route du Rock festival in Saint-Malo. Same music from Emilie Audren, co-director of the Rennes Mythos festival: “it’sis a kind of privatization“, she said and that is not the wish of those responsible.
She fears that all these French festivals will be forced to catch up with the Anglo-Saxon model with tickets sold to the public which could become inaccessible. Because negotiations with artists are sometimes very difficult. Some fees go from single to quadruple from one tour to another, as explained by Jérôme Tréhorel, director of the Festival des Vieilles Charrues. The artistic budget of the Carhaisian summer event has increased from 1.7 million euros to 5 million in 10 or 15 years.
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Given the number of festival-goers, Les Vieilles Charrues can always approach the big names, this is not the case for smaller festivals. 1,800 people per evening, at the Cabaret Botanique de Mythos, between 10 and 12,000 people, at the Route du rock, for example. These festivals will no longer be able to afford certain names. François Floret remembers a group who came to Saint-Malo before the changeover to the euro, paid 1,200 francs. Today he fills stadiums and demands more than a million and a half euros. He will never be able to bring him to Saint-Malo again.
Today, the programmer of the Route du Rock says he cannot pay fees beyond 150/200,000 euros.
Last May, the management of the Art Rock festival explained that the average fee for a headliner had increased from 90,000 to 150,000 euros. For the Saint-Brieuc festival, the “artistic” envelope which includes fees, accommodation, transport, etc. increased by 29% between 2022 and 2023. Overall, the artistic budget represents 31%. 36% for the Mythos festival.
And Emilie Audren is delighted that her festival opens the season, because she benefits from “preferential rates“. “I ask the artists and their tour operators not to apply the “Festival” rate because we cannot match it. Prices are multiplied by three or four in summershe regrets, it is an economic issue that is beyond me and sometimes beyond comprehension in a world where we must stick together and make a societal and environmental transition.“.
The Festival of Bars in Trans has another economic logic. “It's an emerging scene, explains Philippe Le Breton, artistic director of the Rennes festival. The artists are paid with intermittent fees. Producers do not take a margin. And when artists ask for higher fees, we respond that they are little or not known to the public and that the festival is taking risks by bringing them in.”.
He remembers Angèle coming for her concert at the night bar La Place, in Rennes in 2017. Today it would be difficult to ask her to return to Bars en Trans. At the Festival des Bars en Trans, tickets sell for between 6 and 15 euros and the stages, in bars or small theaters have very small gauges.
In Rennes, Bars en Trans has made a place for itself alongside Trans Musicales
Philippe Le Breton still recognizes a change in attitude among certain artists, since Covid: “We had to put a stop to it last year, some came with too many guests and we had to pay for the hotel plus the fee, we couldn't do it anymorehe said. I remember one evening, there were 10 groups and 70 guests at the club on 88, it was no longer possible. From now on, we also explain that these are small places, that it is not worth moving so many techniques and technicians and we manage to moderate all that, we tighten the screws and things are going well“.
Stages that are too small or not suitable and especially the very substantial equipment that follows the artists on tour, are sometimes a very big obstacle for programmers. This is regularly the case at the botanical cabaret of the Mythos Festival. Almost no artist travels alone anymore.
There are some explanations for the increase in fees. Before the record crisis, tours were used to promote records. From now on, they are used to pay artists and their teams. Hence sometimes these above-ground requests, explains Jérôme Tréhorel.
Competition also exists between the festivals themselves. Many artists tour between all these summer events and raise the stakes. Likewise, the competition is international, explains François Floret of the Route du Rock. For him, the biggest international festivals should stop responding to demand: “as long as it works, I want to say, artists would be wrong to deprive themselves of it.”
Another explanation, the artists who arrive with great productions. These are increasingly gigantic productions with sets, lights, etc. If artists eased up a little on this, festival directors and programmers agree, perhaps the fees would be a little less important.
In recent weeks, another subject has worried these festival directors: the drop in public subsidies. The Pays de la Loire region has just announced a sharp drop in subsidies for culture. However, most of these festivals benefit from public funds, this is the case of the Route du rock, which depends on public subsidies from the city and the agglomeration of Saint-Malo, the department and the Brittany region, the DRAC, but also the national music center.
The management is currently looking for private partners. “We already have a few patrons and a few private partners, but we need to find more to perpetuate the festival, because there is a real debate if subsidies drop and fees increase, how do we defend the music?” he asks himself. And it's the same question that all festival directors or programmers ask themselves.
Some festivals like Hellfest, which spent around twenty million euros on its latest programming, increased the price of its four-day pass from 289 to 329 euros in 2023, and this increase had no impact on its sales .
Others, like the festival Panoramas in Morlaix which, during its edition in September 2023, reduced the sail. It went from a capacity of 13,000 to 5,000 people. Those responsible did not want to participate in this race for stamps.
