The project was in the cards. The dates are now known. The event The Trip to Nantes (VAN) will be back on November 25 for its first winter edition, the organizers announced on Tuesday. This will continue until January 1, ie a duration of five weeks. The idea is to animate the city in an artistic and offbeat way during the end-of-year celebrations. And thus attract more tourists.
“If Nantes in summer is no longer an emerging destination, it still is during the winter period, explains Jean Blaise, director of VAN. Also, it is a new challenge that we must take up this year. We must succeed in ensuring that this end-of-year holiday period makes Nantes exist on the chessboard of cities that already have a reputation at this time of year, while creating amazing new rituals for our local audiences. . »
“Are we doomed to produce the spectacular? »
The 2022 summer edition, eight weeks long, ended on Sunday with a stable attendance record compared to last year: some 607,000 visitors were counted, including the noticeable return of foreign tourists. Enthusiasm for new works offered in the public space, however, seems to have been less than in previous years.
“The works of the guest artists will be inscribed in a more subtle way and in places that had not yet been invested… There was not with the local public what we can call a “wow effect” like that could have been the case with Ugo Schiavi or Stéphane Thidet in previous editions. But are we doomed to produce the spectacular? asks Jean Blaise.