“Two incredible years”. It may seem weird for festival organizers, but Cyril Tomas Cimmino, founder and co-director of the Bi-Pole label and organizer of the Le Bon Air festival in Marseille, loved going through the Covid-19 pandemic.
Not in terms of concerts, parties, and other artistic performances, but on the possibility of reflections that it offered. “When the Covid-19 arrived, we had a few options, like putting everyone on short-time working and waiting, or just closing the shop, as we all thought. We preferred to make the decision, which was extremely hard, to maintain the activity at 100%, and even to hire during the crisis. We set up working groups on problems that we encountered in our touring activity, in festival production. On all the major themes related to responsibility, whether in terms of ecology or inclusion. We have set up projects against sexual violence, for gender equality, the inclusion of remote audiences. We compared ideas and imagined a three-year schedule,” explains Cyril Tomas Cimmino.
rider.e program
Concretely, the festival will take place this year over two days and three nights, on June 3, 4 and 5, compared to two nights and one day before Covid-19, around five stages spread over a space of 100,000 m2, including 40,000 m2 of tray. “This edition is not a duplicate of the one that should have taken place in 2020. We have reinvented everything, with new formats, others that may be reminiscent of previous editions. We have reinvented the circulation of the public: the days will be on the roof terrace, then the public will go down to the bottom of the wasteland for the nights. We needed to offer new uses, more inclusive, more intergenerational, on the reception of people with social or physical difficulties who are difficult to reach at night, hence a day format, ”says Cyril.
With the birth, for example, of the rider.e program, which aims to better welcome artists around inclusion. It is worn by Bi-Pole. “The objective is to develop a rider, or a kit of good inclusive practices, just like a technical rider, which is the first document that the venues will read. We want to reverse the reception conditions, which will no longer be set by the hall or the festival, but by the artist himself. It’s not just a question of food, or of little things to be made available, but of technical conditions that go hand in hand with other issues. For example, how the contract is signed by a non-binary person. But it also concerns the transport of artists, the choice of service providers, the awareness of staff, the representation of women and gender minorities, of ethnic and social origins, of sexual orientation, to contribute to the fight against gender-based violence. and sexual abuse towards professionals and the public. I was at Transmusicales, and before the search, we were asked to divide ourselves into men and women. And during the search, I hadn’t been patted down like that for a long time. We are going to present this program to the actors of the sector so that they think about it, seize it and abound and that they gradually integrate all or part into their practices”, explains Aurélie Berducat, director of communication and development.
“Most people on Facebook say they don’t know a single artist”
But the heart of the festival remains music, and all the diversity of electronic music, with no less than 50 artists announced for this edition. Big names, like Ben Klock, Floating Points, Folamour or Dixon, new performances like b2b between Marcell Dettmann and Dj Stringray 313 or Mr. Scruff and Danilo Plessow. Without forgetting a string of local artists highlighted by this festival, which has always seen itself as a “spotter of talent”.
“Most people on Facebook say they don’t know a single artist. It is precisely this musical range that speaks to us, to introduce the general public. And we are more convinced than ever that the artists of the territory have an essential place with this emerging alternative scene. It responds to the genesis of this festival: to show that there are many things to do in Marseille and to defend this territorial wealth. Marseille is Marseille, and we want to highlight this cultural attractiveness and make the link between culture and society through another prism than economic attractiveness,” continues Cyril. Other surprises are yet to be announced by early June.