“With the integration of Credit Suisse, UBS has significantly expanded its commitments to supporting all types of events. All these sponsorships are confirmed until the end of 2025, in any case,” says UBS Valais regional director Iwan Willisch.
In 2024, the Prix Sommet focused on part of the Valais DNA: events. Important on a social level, they are also becoming more and more important on an economic level. The Openair de Gampel, the Omega European Masters in Crans-Montana and the Maxi-Rires Festival in Champéry, true emblems of the Valais events sector, attract thousands of spectators each year. What are the recipes for their success and what challenges do they face? This is what the public gathered at the Espace Provins next to the Stade de Tourbillon in Sion discovered. At the end of the ceremony, they awarded the 2024 Summit Prize live at the Maxi-Rires Festival in Champéry.
In the current economic context, and even more so in the tourist region of Valais, events play an extremely important role. Indeed, local residents and tourists now increasingly want to link their leisure activities to a life experience, to a moment outside of time, to an exceptional experience.
The challengers of the 2024 Summit Prize are particularly aware of this since, for many years, they have attracted a large and varied audience to attend their event. A success that they manage to perpetuate by constantly improving the offer proposed and by renewing themselves with each edition. They took the opportunity of this 39th edition of the Prix Sommet to brilliantly demonstrate how they maintain their success and what challenges they still intend to take on in the future.
The public, present at the Espace Provins next to the Stade de Tourbillon in Sion, was given the responsibility of voting live for their favorite. In the end, Maxi-Rires de Champéry won this 2024 edition.
Maxi-Rires Festival, Champéry
The 2024 Summit Prize was therefore won by the Maxi-Rires Festival in Champéry. For more than fifteen years, this event created by two friends who have just reached the age of majority has achieved the feat of bringing to Champéry at an altitude of more than 1000 m between 10 and 15,000 spectators per edition to discover the best pages of the French humor.
Today, the festival must manage a form of adolescent crisis. Indeed, with an organization based on 100% volunteers, it must, over the years, find solutions to perpetuate the enthusiasm of this staff who works for the love of art. It also has to deal with an infrastructure – a multi-purpose hall – which must be fitted out and adapted every year to make it a real performance hall that meets the expectations of artists.
The Maxi-Rires Festival must still find solutions in the face of artists’ fees which are experiencing marked inflation. But, in the end, more than a million francs were generated in the valley and more than 2.5 million viewers watched the shows on offer.©
Always renew yourself
“For a tourist-oriented canton like Valais, events are of ever more crucial importance. They embody people’s need for a special experience, enhanced by the idyllic setting of our valley. At the same time, as the three challengers of this edition underlined, nothing is taken for granted and each year requires renewed creativity to sustain success,” indicated Iwan Willisch, regional director of UBS Valais.
“These events play an essential role for Valais tourism in particular and for the canton’s economy in general. Because their impact (nights, purchases and consumption on site, jobs, brand image, visibility, etc.) are truly very significant. With the integration of Credit Suisse, UBS has significantly expanded its commitments to supporting all types of events and I am proud to announce that all these sponsorships are confirmed until the end of 2025, in any case,” added Iwan Willisch. .
All winners
Without going into detail about the challenges faced by the three challengers, we can note that the experience makes each company a winner. Even if each of these events already benefits from a notoriety which goes far beyond cantonal or even national borders, this 2024 edition of the Sommet Prize has certainly enabled the Valais population to become better aware of the importance and impact of these demonstrations.
The Prize, worth 20,000 francs, rewarded the victorious event live in front of the public.
