After five editions in Bagnols-sur-Cèze, the future of the event at Parc Arthur Rimbaud looks seriously compromised. When presenting the broad outlines of the 2015 municipal budget, the town’s mayor, Jean-Christian Rey (PS), declared: “The reggae organisers are asking for the same commitment from us, namely €50,000 for cleaning the site and €80,000 for roads and maintenance staff. I told them ‘no’”, the daily Midi Libre reported. A reversal that caught the Garance Reggae Festival off guard, and rules out holding the event in Bagnols-sur-Cèze in 2015. We spoke to Antoine and Arnaud, the directors of the Garance Reggae Festival.
If the Bagnols years now seem to be behind the Garance Reggae Festival, the organisers have not yet lost all hope for the 2015 edition. They still need to find a site quickly: “End of February, early March is the absolute limit for us.”
If the Bagnols years now seem to be behind the Garance Reggae Festival, the organisers have not yet lost all hope for the 2015 edition. They still need to find a site quickly: “End of February, early March is the absolute limit for us.”
Is there still any hope of seeing the Garance Reggae Festival in Bagnols-sur-Cèze in 2015?
Quite honestly, it looks compromised at the moment.
Does it all start with the subsidy refused by the town hall?
Not exactly. Bagnols town hall does not give the festival a subsidy. There has never been any financial help: we are one of the few big festivals that is self-funded. We had to prove ourselves for four years to get a first subsidy from the intercommunal authority, which represents 42 municipalities in the Gard Rhodanien area. In 2013, we therefore received a subsidy of 80,000 euros. The festival needed help to operate, and this subsidy was renewed for the 2014 edition. Above all, it helped us develop an off festival in the town, since the subsidy is paid to the association and not to the company. In 2013, it made it possible to fund part of the free camping area for festival-goers, and to put on a real off festival with the Young Lions talent contest…
The first problem we met was when the mayor, who is also president of the intercommunal authority, broke his promise and cancelled this subsidy a month and a half before the 2014 festival. It was very delicate for us, because the previous year we had set up a company again (Groove Reggae Festival, following the liquidation of Garance Productions, editor’s note) and had fallen well behind. He suggested we cancel, but it was too late to go back. At the end of the festival, we were led to believe we might get a remainder of that subsidy, which would be decided in September at the intercommunal meetings. We received a call from the mayor, who announced that we would get neither a remainder in 2014, nor a subsidy in 2015 and the following years. But he also told us that the town and the intercommunal authority wanted us to stay and to help us at the same level as for previous editions (hosting on the territory, provision of Parc Arthur Rimbaud, barriers, help with roads, municipal services…). Reassured by these commitments, we launched into preparing the 2015 edition.
In the hope of getting this subsidy?
Not necessarily. Without a subsidy, we would have done it anyway. The idea was to do 2015 in Bagnols and see how it went without the aid, perhaps with a reduced budget, making a few savings on production. But we wanted things to be perfectly clear before putting tickets on sale. In mid-December, we therefore contacted the town hall, which replied that there would be no festival in 2015 and that we would see about 2016. That was our last direct exchange with the mayor. We were ready to do without the intercommunal subsidy, since we had only received it once, in 2013. What we cannot do without, however, is the bare minimum: the closure of the park and the services we mentioned earlier. Without that, it is impossible to put on the festival. We have costed it, and it comes to between 50,000 and 100,000 euros. We cannot add that to our budget.
What is the Garance Reggae Festival’s budget?
A lot gets written about the Garance Reggae Festival’s figures. The reality is that the event’s budget is 1.5 million euros, and that revenue is roughly equivalent when things go well. The mayor says we make an enormous amount of money, but he forgets to say that we have a lot of expenses! The Garance Reggae Festival is not a goldmine: over five editions, we made a profit twice. When people talk about 40,000 festival-goers, that is not 40,000 passes at 100 euros! On average, we sell between 7,000 and 8,000 four-day passes, and the rest are day tickets. We cannot add to our budget nearly 100,000 euros (of services provided by the town and the intercommunal authority) that we consider the very least a municipality and a territory hosting the festival should provide. Given the economic spin-offs and the image benefits for the town and the Gard Rhodanien, it is a minimum for an event of this scale (the Tourist Office estimates the economic benefits at 1 million euros for the whole territory, editor’s note).
In an interview with Midi Libre, the mayor says: “If the festival drew 15,000 people, it would certainly be easier””
But the festival draws between 10 and 15,000 people a day! 40,000 people at the festival in 2014 means 10,000 people a day. When the mayor says the festival is “a victim of its own success”, he considers that the town of Bagnols is not sufficiently equipped to host a festival of this scale. That is a false excuse. What we observe is that we have always had the same numbers from year to year, except in 2013, which was an exceptional year. In 2014, we returned to figures comparable to 2010, 2011 and 2012. And yet that was not a problem.
At this stage, we have to mention the Zion Garden (an event held in Bagnols-sur-Cèze since 2011, the same week as the Garance Reggae Festival, editor’s note). Most of the people we deal with think the Zion Garden is an official off festival organised by our teams. There is confusion between the two events, whereas the Zion Garden is a festival in its own right that takes place at the same time as the Garance Reggae Festival. Perhaps the mayor could have taken matters in hand to avoid this confusion. When we arrived in Bagnols, the town hall had been very clear about security and the reception of festival-goers. We were required to make the camping area free, and to open it from Monday, even though the festival only starts on Wednesday evening. The camping area is a budget of 130,000 euros for barriers, security, installing showers and toilets, running costs… It is pure expenditure.
In 2013, there was a big festival. But the Zion Garden has grown a lot. In 2014, they announced between 28,000 and 30,000 participants, with fewer and fewer festival-goers coming from the Garance Reggae Festival. What was originally conceived as an event to keep Garance festival-goers busy during the day has become something quite different and has attracted other people, for whom we offer no reception or accommodation solutions. That encouraged wild camping, notably on the Bercon path, along the banks of the Cèze, and on the other side of the camping area. It caused a lot of damage and extra costs for the intercommunal authority. The cleaning has taken on enormous proportions. In 2013, the intercommunal authority paid an additional cleaning bill of 53,000 euros. But that was charged to the festival’s budget… The same goes for when the mayor talks about extra hires for security on the Bercon path, to deal with the camping and the wild sound systems… Some of these people come from the Garance, another part from the Zion Garden, and perhaps yet another part from who knows where! The Garance Reggae Festival is not solely responsible for all of that!
Can the two events coexist?
The Garance Reggae Festival and the Zion Garden are not rival festivals: the line-ups have nothing in common. The problem is that the two events take place at the same time. It weighs on the budget of the intercommunal authority and the town, which are obliged to put containers on these sites, organise daily rubbish collection, put up barriers and employ security guards 24 hours a day. That is why he talks about an additional 40,000 euros of investment for security guards. But why are these guards there? Because too many people are arriving from all sides and not coming to the festival! If the Garance Reggae Festival has not grown in influence in 2014 compared to 2010, we can see that these overflows really come from elsewhere, that is, from everything that has developed around the Garance Reggae Festival and that has not been controlled, anticipated or thought through by the town hall and the mayor, who has not taken his responsibilities.
In an interview with Objectif Gard, the mayor says: “You constantly have to question yourself; if they want to stop, so be it.”
But we did not decide to stop, and the situation must not be turned around: he is the one who does not want to continue. We wanted to continue on the same terms, and that is what had been promised to us. He does not wish to continue, and that is why he is changing the conditions. We never decided to stop: we are being prevented from continuing on the basis on which we had operated for years.
The mayor talks about 130,000 € of costs to host the festival. But we have never seen invoices for these sums. It is all a bit opaque. There is a mix-up between costs for the town and for the intercommunal authority. We take care of cleaning the festival site and the camping area. The town hall and the intercommunal authority look after the outside, but we contribute to that too. We even pay for the police! Twelve thousand euros to the national police... This year, we organised rounds handing out sorting bags along the banks of the Cèze to raise people’s awareness. There is no ill will on our part.
Are you looking for a new site today?
We are looking for a new municipality, ready to host us and keen to work in cooperation, and a site with all the assets to seduce festival-goers. We targeted the south because we wanted to stay in that setting, at the same time of year. That is our priority, and we are still working on it. We are in great demand in the south, and many municipalities have contacted us. That is rather a good sign! We remain open to all proposals, including elsewhere in France.
Could the Garance Reggae Festival, which was born in Paris, return to the Île-de-France?
It has been considered, but it is not the priority. At any rate not for 2015. The idea is to manage to hold the festival within the deadlines this year. And even if we don’t manage it, the festival will take place in 2016. We want to take the time to do things properly, and we don’t want to spoil the event. We want to find a site where we can stay for a long time; we don’t want to be itinerant.
We can consider plenty of options because we do not depend on financial aid for the festival to exist, unlike other festivals that cannot go ahead without a subsidy. The advantage of the Garance Reggae Festival, since its beginnings, is that it is self-funded. It is very rare in France for an event of this scale to be almost 100% privately funded. It relies on no subsidy and no help from a sponsor. We are able to put on the festival without all that, but we need the bare minimum of resources to host the festival.
Quite honestly, it looks compromised at the moment.
Does it all start with the subsidy refused by the town hall?
Not exactly. Bagnols town hall does not give the festival a subsidy. There has never been any financial help: we are one of the few big festivals that is self-funded. We had to prove ourselves for four years to get a first subsidy from the intercommunal authority, which represents 42 municipalities in the Gard Rhodanien area. In 2013, we therefore received a subsidy of 80,000 euros. The festival needed help to operate, and this subsidy was renewed for the 2014 edition. Above all, it helped us develop an off festival in the town, since the subsidy is paid to the association and not to the company. In 2013, it made it possible to fund part of the free camping area for festival-goers, and to put on a real off festival with the Young Lions talent contest…
The first problem we met was when the mayor, who is also president of the intercommunal authority, broke his promise and cancelled this subsidy a month and a half before the 2014 festival. It was very delicate for us, because the previous year we had set up a company again (Groove Reggae Festival, following the liquidation of Garance Productions, editor’s note) and had fallen well behind. He suggested we cancel, but it was too late to go back. At the end of the festival, we were led to believe we might get a remainder of that subsidy, which would be decided in September at the intercommunal meetings. We received a call from the mayor, who announced that we would get neither a remainder in 2014, nor a subsidy in 2015 and the following years. But he also told us that the town and the intercommunal authority wanted us to stay and to help us at the same level as for previous editions (hosting on the territory, provision of Parc Arthur Rimbaud, barriers, help with roads, municipal services…). Reassured by these commitments, we launched into preparing the 2015 edition.
In the hope of getting this subsidy?
Not necessarily. Without a subsidy, we would have done it anyway. The idea was to do 2015 in Bagnols and see how it went without the aid, perhaps with a reduced budget, making a few savings on production. But we wanted things to be perfectly clear before putting tickets on sale. In mid-December, we therefore contacted the town hall, which replied that there would be no festival in 2015 and that we would see about 2016. That was our last direct exchange with the mayor. We were ready to do without the intercommunal subsidy, since we had only received it once, in 2013. What we cannot do without, however, is the bare minimum: the closure of the park and the services we mentioned earlier. Without that, it is impossible to put on the festival. We have costed it, and it comes to between 50,000 and 100,000 euros. We cannot add that to our budget.
What is the Garance Reggae Festival’s budget?
A lot gets written about the Garance Reggae Festival’s figures. The reality is that the event’s budget is 1.5 million euros, and that revenue is roughly equivalent when things go well. The mayor says we make an enormous amount of money, but he forgets to say that we have a lot of expenses! The Garance Reggae Festival is not a goldmine: over five editions, we made a profit twice. When people talk about 40,000 festival-goers, that is not 40,000 passes at 100 euros! On average, we sell between 7,000 and 8,000 four-day passes, and the rest are day tickets. We cannot add to our budget nearly 100,000 euros (of services provided by the town and the intercommunal authority) that we consider the very least a municipality and a territory hosting the festival should provide. Given the economic spin-offs and the image benefits for the town and the Gard Rhodanien, it is a minimum for an event of this scale (the Tourist Office estimates the economic benefits at 1 million euros for the whole territory, editor’s note).
In an interview with Midi Libre, the mayor says: “If the festival drew 15,000 people, it would certainly be easier””
But the festival draws between 10 and 15,000 people a day! 40,000 people at the festival in 2014 means 10,000 people a day. When the mayor says the festival is “a victim of its own success”, he considers that the town of Bagnols is not sufficiently equipped to host a festival of this scale. That is a false excuse. What we observe is that we have always had the same numbers from year to year, except in 2013, which was an exceptional year. In 2014, we returned to figures comparable to 2010, 2011 and 2012. And yet that was not a problem.
At this stage, we have to mention the Zion Garden (an event held in Bagnols-sur-Cèze since 2011, the same week as the Garance Reggae Festival, editor’s note). Most of the people we deal with think the Zion Garden is an official off festival organised by our teams. There is confusion between the two events, whereas the Zion Garden is a festival in its own right that takes place at the same time as the Garance Reggae Festival. Perhaps the mayor could have taken matters in hand to avoid this confusion. When we arrived in Bagnols, the town hall had been very clear about security and the reception of festival-goers. We were required to make the camping area free, and to open it from Monday, even though the festival only starts on Wednesday evening. The camping area is a budget of 130,000 euros for barriers, security, installing showers and toilets, running costs… It is pure expenditure.
In 2013, there was a big festival. But the Zion Garden has grown a lot. In 2014, they announced between 28,000 and 30,000 participants, with fewer and fewer festival-goers coming from the Garance Reggae Festival. What was originally conceived as an event to keep Garance festival-goers busy during the day has become something quite different and has attracted other people, for whom we offer no reception or accommodation solutions. That encouraged wild camping, notably on the Bercon path, along the banks of the Cèze, and on the other side of the camping area. It caused a lot of damage and extra costs for the intercommunal authority. The cleaning has taken on enormous proportions. In 2013, the intercommunal authority paid an additional cleaning bill of 53,000 euros. But that was charged to the festival’s budget… The same goes for when the mayor talks about extra hires for security on the Bercon path, to deal with the camping and the wild sound systems… Some of these people come from the Garance, another part from the Zion Garden, and perhaps yet another part from who knows where! The Garance Reggae Festival is not solely responsible for all of that!
Can the two events coexist?
The Garance Reggae Festival and the Zion Garden are not rival festivals: the line-ups have nothing in common. The problem is that the two events take place at the same time. It weighs on the budget of the intercommunal authority and the town, which are obliged to put containers on these sites, organise daily rubbish collection, put up barriers and employ security guards 24 hours a day. That is why he talks about an additional 40,000 euros of investment for security guards. But why are these guards there? Because too many people are arriving from all sides and not coming to the festival! If the Garance Reggae Festival has not grown in influence in 2014 compared to 2010, we can see that these overflows really come from elsewhere, that is, from everything that has developed around the Garance Reggae Festival and that has not been controlled, anticipated or thought through by the town hall and the mayor, who has not taken his responsibilities.
In an interview with Objectif Gard, the mayor says: “You constantly have to question yourself; if they want to stop, so be it.”
But we did not decide to stop, and the situation must not be turned around: he is the one who does not want to continue. We wanted to continue on the same terms, and that is what had been promised to us. He does not wish to continue, and that is why he is changing the conditions. We never decided to stop: we are being prevented from continuing on the basis on which we had operated for years.
The mayor talks about 130,000 € of costs to host the festival. But we have never seen invoices for these sums. It is all a bit opaque. There is a mix-up between costs for the town and for the intercommunal authority. We take care of cleaning the festival site and the camping area. The town hall and the intercommunal authority look after the outside, but we contribute to that too. We even pay for the police! Twelve thousand euros to the national police... This year, we organised rounds handing out sorting bags along the banks of the Cèze to raise people’s awareness. There is no ill will on our part.
Are you looking for a new site today?
We are looking for a new municipality, ready to host us and keen to work in cooperation, and a site with all the assets to seduce festival-goers. We targeted the south because we wanted to stay in that setting, at the same time of year. That is our priority, and we are still working on it. We are in great demand in the south, and many municipalities have contacted us. That is rather a good sign! We remain open to all proposals, including elsewhere in France.
Could the Garance Reggae Festival, which was born in Paris, return to the Île-de-France?
It has been considered, but it is not the priority. At any rate not for 2015. The idea is to manage to hold the festival within the deadlines this year. And even if we don’t manage it, the festival will take place in 2016. We want to take the time to do things properly, and we don’t want to spoil the event. We want to find a site where we can stay for a long time; we don’t want to be itinerant.
We can consider plenty of options because we do not depend on financial aid for the festival to exist, unlike other festivals that cannot go ahead without a subsidy. The advantage of the Garance Reggae Festival, since its beginnings, is that it is self-funded. It is very rare in France for an event of this scale to be almost 100% privately funded. It relies on no subsidy and no help from a sponsor. We are able to put on the festival without all that, but we need the bare minimum of resources to host the festival.
Report written by Jérôme Bast
Comments (24)
zupa ·
je soutiendrais GARANCE comme je le fait depuis 5 ans c'est nécessaire, que dis-je, vitale ! Que faut il faire ? Comment faire ?
donnez nous une marche à suivre et nous la suivrons pour que ce rendez-vous voit grandir nos enfants et qu'ils le transmettent à leur tour car le reggae n'a pas connu d'époque révolue parce qu'il n'y en aura jamais...LOVE
DIARRA · · rating: 4 out of 5
paul · · rating: 5 out of 5
Paul ·
sista lilie · · rating: 5 out of 5
le Lion est mort ce soir ·
Plhinte · · rating: 5 out of 5
SHEVA ·
ADAL GARI ·
KENNHY ·
Niaks · · rating: 4 out of 5
ADAL GARI · · rating: 4 out of 5
Grrrrrr... Super mauvaise nouvelles!! Je n'irais donc pas au Garance cette année !!!
:(
milas30200 · · rating: 1 out of 5
Cat ·
haze ·
ChattyChatty ·
ackee · · rating: 1 out of 5
val ·
nigro · · rating: 3 out of 5
Le site est exceptionnel, jamais les organisateurs ne retrouveront l'équivalent (aussi bien arboré et en bordure de rivière), surement pas à Nîmes-Courbessac comme cité par K$.
J'espère toujours que les organisateurs du Garance et du Zion puisse avoir la volonté commune de trouver un accord juste pour toutes les parties à présenter à la mairie afin de pérenniser cette fabuleuse semaine qui a transformé la ville en Kingston-sur-Cèze ces dernières années...en tout cas c'est triste de lire cet article qui ne présage rien de bon pour le reggae à Bagnols.
pietro · · rating: 1 out of 5
K$ ·
lio · · rating: 5 out of 5
Zion garden ·
onevybz · · rating: 4 out of 5