The organization of Family Piknik Montpellier electro festival is more complicated this year. The 11th edition was to be held, as usual, in August in Montpellier. Corn the town hall withdraws from the project. It will no longer provide the Grammont site free of charge, the water supply, electricity, chairs, tables, barriers. She will also not help pick up the trash or install the toilets.
Except that if it is not the City that bears all these costs, it necessarily falls on the organizers. This represents 70.000 euros. Festival director Christophe Gimenez (also known by his DJ name, Tom Pooks) protests: “It’s very surprising because aid was voted unanimously last year under the Delafosse area. It’s incomprehensible.”
The town hall replies that it wanted to help them and to have “requested the company Montpellier Events to accompany it on the management of the site, in order to streamline and facilitate the technical reception of the Family Piknik 2022 event which would thus have benefited from a single interlocutor on this aspect.”
“We receive 35 different nationalities on our event, 62% of the people who come are not from the department.” – Christophe Gimenez, director of the Family Piknik festival
For Christophe Gimenez, it is incomprehensible to see the town hall of Montpellier let them down. All the more so since, for him, the event also presents great interest in the local economy “Family Piknik brings real media coverage, a real economic and tourist attraction. We welcome 35 different nationalities to our event, 62% of the people who come are not from the department. So these people sleep, eat, drink, wear fuel, buy cigarettes, bread. So it really contributes to an economic life in the city. In return, it has to give us a hand.”
Knowing that Family Piknik attracts around 25,000 festival-goers per edition. For the municipality, the organizers do not need a helping hand. Neither financial nor logistical since it is “of a festival with its own economic model.” In particular thanks to the ticket office and the refreshment bar.
A reduced edition
Christophe Gimenez has seen things big this year. Instead of three days the festival is to be held over four days, August 6-7 and 13-14. But, in an email, the town hall of Montpellier specified that there could be nothing on the 13th. Misunderstanding on the side of the one who is at the initiative: “The equipment will already be in place, it won’t cost the city anything more, it won’t cause any more nuisance since it’s a day between the start and the end of the festival. Especially since in the end we should manage everything ourselves. And to be accountably stable, we need the four days.” Especially since the artists have already been scheduled for a while.
The town hall ensures dialogue “for several months with the organizers of the Family Piknik festival with a view to organizing the 2022 edition. We proposed to the festival to host it on the Grammont site for 3 days in August, on the same format than the 2021 edition.”
A festival in another city?
The annual musical meeting will be maintained but probably not in Montpellier. Other solutions are considered: “We had several mayors from other cities. We are in discussion with the city of Sète and Lunel. As well as with two others whose names I prefer to keep quiet for the moment. which is not the case at the moment.”
Several proposals therefore, but they must meet the same criteria as the capital of the Hérault. Namely, having nearby hotels and being accessible by public transport. “What we are looking for is the comfort of the festival-goer. If he can avoid taking the car during the days set for the event, that would be good.”
Christophe Gimenez is certain, festival-goers will be there no matter what: “People tell us on social networks: they come from Metz, Paris, England. They will come if we do it elsewhere than in Montpellier.” The town hall of Montpellier is sorry: “We did not manage to reach an agreement on the renewal of this format. We regret that Family Piknik and its organizers have today chosen to break off the dialogue.”
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