radiant weather, rain of colors at the Color party, exceptional shows and solidarity vocations… On Sunday, Solidays closed the door to its 25th edition. And this year, the not-to-be-missed Parisian festival, founded by the Solidarité sida association, broke a new attendance record.
From Friday to Sunday, 259,735 festival-goers attended the militant event at the Longchamp racecourse in Paris. “Today, we are happy because after a 2022 edition which was very difficult to prepare, even if it was a great popular success. One of the challenges we had was to regain control of the project to regain some serenity in the organization, which was the case this year”, rejoiced in a press conference Luc Barruet, founder of the association Solidarité Sida and Solidays.
“Every year, we try to go further to break the record because it’s a little pleasure that we have and then above all, in a period when the costs increase, the fact of generating a little more money is even more important. Both to deal with this reality and above all to maintain funding for all the programs we support in France and internationally, because that is the main objective of this festival, ”he adds.
A surprise canceled by the wind
“It’s a complete success,” says Antoine de Caunes, honorary president of Solidarité sida. He salutes the “smiling and benevolent mood” of Solidays this year and the associative village. In addition, this year, the organizers of the solidarity event had set themselves the objective of generating 25,000 solidarity vocations. It’s done, announced Luc Barruet on stage during the closing ceremony, marked by the last concert of the group Shaka Ponk at the festival.
In addition, to celebrate its 25th anniversary, Solidays had planned a surprise for all its festival-goers and volunteers: a drone show. Unfortunately, the gift could not be delivered on Sunday evening due to wind currents. Regardless, nothing can spoil the beautiful energy of the teams and the spectators.