After two years of absence due to a health crisis, the Solidays festival, which ends on Sunday June 26, has exploded its attendance record with more than 247,000 festival-goers. For this edition of the reunion, which has seen the Black Eyed Peas, rapper Orelsan or Feu! Chatterton, a total of 247,022 people were welcomed to the Longchamp racecourse, west of Paris.
This 24th edition thus beats the record dating from 2019, when 228,000 people made the trip for the last pre-Covid-19 edition. Several personalities including actor Kad Merad, comedian Charline Vanhoenacker or host Denis Brogniart were present this weekend as volunteers at the Solidays store. Culture Minister Rima Abdul Malak was expected Sunday evening. Solidays is not a current music festival like the others, since it helps finance the action plans of the Solidarité Sida association.
Luc Barruet has been the boss of Solidarité Sida for 30 years, the association which created the Solidays festival to mobilize against the disease. The 24th edition will fund nearly 120 prevention and assistance programs for vulnerable people in more than 20 countries. The festival had been canceled in its usual format two years in a row due to the health crisis. Last summer, a free event for caregivers and their carers, however, brought together 12,000 spectators.
