The Avignon Festival has been canceled due to the coronavirus health crisis, organizers said on Monday. The most famous theatrical event in the world should have taken place from July 3 to 23.
“The conditions are no longer met today for the 74th edition to take place,” he wrote in a press release, after having “taken note of the declarations” of Emmanuel Macron. The French president explained on Monday evening that the festivals could not be held before, at least, mid-July.
The Cité des Papes usually becomes the ‘theater capital’ every July, attracting 700,000 visitors. There is the main Festival (‘in’), but above all the ‘Off’, even bigger (more than 1500 shows, by a thousand companies in 200 theaters in the city).
The economic spinoffs for Avignon are around 100 million euros, according to estimates, including 25 million generated by the ‘in’. A cancellation would be catastrophic for thousands of artists and technicians, including many intermittent workers. Since its creation in 1947, the Festival has only been canceled once, in 2003, in the midst of the show’s intermittent conflict.
/ ATS
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