An atmosphere of music, celebration and awareness. The associative and militant festival Solidays returned on Friday to the Hippodrome de Longchamp in Paris. The event will celebrate until Sunday its 25th edition, with always its desire to mix entertainment and defense of causes such as the fight against AIDS. [sa cause originelle]global warming, poverty and all other forms of inequality.
“Twenty-five years later, we are still complete,” rejoices Luc Barruet, founder of the association Solidarité Sida and Solidays. “People have a smile on their face and we feel that we can still take them further and that’s one of our missions,” he says.
25,000 new vocations
Moreover, this year, “we have modestly set ourselves the ambition for our 25th anniversary of trying to create 25,000 new solidarity vocations”, he announced during a press conference on the first day of the festival. .
Luc Barruet hopes that “thanks to Solidays 2023, in September, there will be young people who will have accompanied isolated elderly people at home, young people who will go to solidarity laundries for the homeless, that there are young people who will go to clean the beaches on weekends.
Since 1999, Solidays has welcomed 4 million festival-goers, collected more than 100 million euros for Solidarité Sida, trained more than 10,000 volunteers, financed 2,550 aid programs for the sick and promoted 1,050 associations to raise awareness and commit to causes.
A surprise on Sunday
In addition, 1,300 concerts against AIDS have been organised. For the 2023 edition, we find headlining the unmissable Parisian festival the artists SCH, Tiakola, Juliette Armanet, Angèle, Bigflo & Oli or the Colombian reggaeton superstar J. Balvin. Singers of all musical genres.
If the Patrouille de France will not fly over the festival this Saturday, “we still reserved a surprise for the public on Sunday evening after Shaka Ponk”, breathes Luc Barruet. In 2022, more than 247,000 festival-goers came to Solidays. “In all likelihood if it continues like this, we will break last year’s record. We will formalize on Sunday, ”said the organizer.
On the financial side, the recipe for 2023 should “be satisfactory”, but “the problem is that the charges are increasing a lot, so where we should have freed up more money than last year, we will free up a little less. And 2024 is likely to worry us a little more on this subject, ”he explains.