This is one of the strong axes of the cultural policy of Rima Abdul Malak, Minister of Culture: opening major cultural events, such as the Festival d'Avignon, to all audiences, especially the youngest.
When communicating in Council of Ministers, on June 21, the Minister of Culture presented the proactive measures to make the most prestigious cultural events accessible to young audiences.
« In order to allow young people to live unique experiences, the Culture Pass has intensified for 2023 the establishment of exceptional operations with many festivals (attend film screenings at the Cannes Film Festival, discover several works from the Nuit Blanche, award a prize at the new Nouvelle Vague film festival in Biarritz, participate in a «First time» course at the Festival d'Avignon, etc.) ».
As for Avignon, the regulars know it well: going to the Festival is not improvised. Reserving places, accommodation, transportation… facing the heat, the crowd… as many small obstacles that it is necessary to know how to overcome with skill and good humor, so as not to compromise his stay or spoil the pleasure of attending these exceptional shows.
With the desire to open more and more the Festival to all audiences, Tiago Rodrigues, the new director, and his teams, wished to take special care to welcome the most vulnerable people in this regard: those who come for the first time, and especially young people. How can we help them to create the best conditions for this first experiment?
Virginie de Crozé, Director of Communication and Public Relations, and Hélène Lopes, Public Relations Officer, kindly explained to us the “First Time” project, a very beautiful novelty that had to belong to the Culture pass offer.
What led you to design and implement the “First Time” project?
Virginia of Crozé The study of the audiences confirmed an important fact: the most severe obstacles to the decision to come to the Festival d'Avignon are not directly related to the live performance. The purpose of a play (Am I going to understand?), the fact that it is spoken in a rare and over-titled language (Am I legitimate among these people?) or that the duration of the show is out of the norm (Is this for me?), none of this is really an obstacle, because the public, even the first time, knows that they are looking for something exceptional at the Festival.
However, if there are many obstacles, it is on the practical side. What to do with your car (without turning for hours and then walking for miles)? Is there a train or bus that assures me the return after a show in the evening (without having to run to not miss it)? Do we find somewhere a garden and a fountain to blow and cool down? What is the budget for all the costs: shows, transport, accommodation? Questions that can be oppressive!
Hélène Lopes It is clear that Avignon, in July, finds itself, so to speak, «in overload». Overloading audiences, overloading information, overloading events, and often overloading heat! These conditions can be frightening, rightly so, and can lead many to turn away from the desire to participate in the festival. If those who want to overcome these apprehensions are nevertheless caught by surprise, for lack of having anticipated good solutions to these practical problems, the success of their stay is compromised, their pleasure can be wasted, and we will not see them again!
What are your ideas to remedy these difficulties?
H.L. : The information of festival-goers is the first element, already well known and deepened by the Festival and its various partners (region, department, city). With Tiago Rodrigues, our reflection led us first of all to seek to strengthen all the measures taken for better public information, especially in terms of accessibility (how to reserve seats, where to park, how long it takes between shows, etc.).
V of C But beyond pure and simple information, we think it is necessary to move to a true hospitality: to provide a more comfortable and especially less oppressive welcome. It is really up to us, the Festival staff, to be as friendly and cordial as possible with the festival-goers, going as far as possible to meet their requests and needs.
Hospitality based on encounter, on dialogue. Listen to requests, propose solutions, even a sentence on the phone that provides the right advice, that explains how a day goes at the festival. To welcome groups, as museums do, with mediators «First time», and to promote to them the ease and relaxation of a time of vacation and pleasure.
Concretely, how is this organised?
V of C : With the launch of the «First time» project, at the press conference of Tiago Rodrigues, began to circulate our email address (premierefois@festival-avignon.com), and this proposal made to new festival-goers to manifest themselves at the time of opening of reservations. The announcement was heard: we are currently in contact with approximately 5,000 people, who we call back. For some, a facilitated booking and some information are enough. For others, we are much more «accompanying».
There is the choice of shows (to prevent for example that such or such a proposal can produce a great aesthetic shock, to point out the poetic dimension, or socio-political, such others, etc.). There is also the history of the Festival (we do not always know who does what or what it is exactly that the «In» and the «Off»!), there is the remarkable aspect of Avignon’s heritage, which provides exceptional venues for shows. (Cour d'honneur du Palais des papes, cloister of the Carmelites, etc.) where the marriage of stones and the sacred produces rather extraordinary poetic effects, there are also the performing arts that give us the opportunity to organize behind-the-scenes tours and meetings with technicians and artists for these groups.
H.L. We ask these new festival-goers what paths they are considering, on what subjects they are lost. The mediator may suggest that they go with them to the show, to meet them an hour before for a behind-the-scenes visit, to meet again afterwards or the next day. He will also invite them to take advantage of bonuses that sometimes they do not think of, such as attending the debate on racial issues, which overlaps the show Baldwin and Buckley at Cambridge, which they chose. They thus open them to this traditional dimension of Avignon, which is the encounter, the dialogue around the major themes addressed by the artists. Discuss our partnership with the Utopia cinemas in Avignon, whose programming (Film territories) also recreates that of the Festival. Recall the exhibition of photographs by Christophe Raynaud de Lage…
What effects do you expect from this greater hospitality towards new festival-goers?
V of C We believe that it is above all a question of «reinsurance»: giving people, young and old, their legitimacy, that of the public, quite simply. And then: knowing that all this is not serious! It’s only a show. The essential is the pleasure, to be open to our own capacities of daydreaming, poetry, reception of the proposals of the artists. The key is also to participate in this “collective convergence” around a curtain that rises, in time and in real presence. Here, we are thinking mainly of young people who, with the health crisis, were, by necessity, very isolated and linked to digital platforms. Restore the appetite for the stage, rediscover the experience of shared emotions, quite naturally.
« I didn’t realize what I was missing » The testimony of a first time, on the Instagram account of the Festival d'Avignon.
Making the festival more accessible to young people
«First time» proposes that everyone feels in his place, and that his first time calls other times! The project is aimed in particular at young people (and among them young people from the region who sometimes have never been to the festival), whether they are spontaneously known or as groups from Arts and Cultural Education (which are active all year round)or through associations (such as ceméa).
Tiago Rodrigues will personally welcome these young people around a debate on their first times in the courtyard of the Cloister of Saint Louis, July 13. In the meantime, they will have been able to use all kinds of resources: the «My First Time» guide (to be downloaded above), humorous and informative posts on social networks, and reports by young people on the web tv of the festival, a suitable rate, a ticket service, dedicated mediators.
This hospitality is to be cultivated and perpetuated in «network»: first of all the network of interested persons, who will participate in the debates of the Café des Idées, and who will be animated by the accompaniment, cultural structures such as the MC93 in Bobigny and the Théâtre Gérard Philipe in Saint-Denis.
But the Festival’s ambition goes even further: It would be pretty fantastic, over the years, with enthusiasm Virginie de Crozé, that we also manage to receive groups from abroad. Tiago Rodrigues' project calls it quite naturally: the circulation of languages, the circulation of artists from all countries... When we consider that, already, the French public can be a little lost the first time, I dare not imagine what it is like when you are a foreigner. » A magnificent project in perspective!
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