Français
[ STATEMENT ]
Cancellation of Hadra Trance Festival 2020
For several weeks now, the whole team has been hung onto every word from our government in order to find out the fate of the thirteenth edition of Hadra Trance Festival. On last Tuesday, the worst news was released and this is with a heavy heart that we’ve had to resign ourselves to cancelling the 2020 edition of our beloved event.
As the sanitary situation is still unpredictable, we’re facing too many uncertainties to keep planning and organizing this year’s festival with equanimity and we must resolve to cancel this edition. We will be back to you within the next few weeks to let you know more about the conditions of refund that we are getting organised.
Our motto was not to take any irreversible and premature decision, choosing to take the government talks and measures as they were coming, namely in dribs and drabs. Thus, during the lockdown, our team has increased its self-sacrifice and efforts to keep going on move forward with all possible energy, preparing this edition at all costs.
Unfortunately, it is not possible to reduce the capacity of the festival below 5,000 people: the project, as we conceive and imagine it, is based on a fragile financial balance that doesn’t allow a lot of flexibility and that requires a full capacity of 8,000 people to break even.
Reducing the capacity means decreasing all expenses and investments : artistic and musical line-up, workshops, conferences, decorations and set designs,salaries, service providers, but also comfort, hospitality and security of our audience. The festival is a set of coherents choices and investments made by a collegiate team to bring you a strong and unique experience.
Likewise, postponing the date of the festival is not a viable solution: on the one hand, because of the many doubts regarding the evolution of the situation that will remain all along the upcoming months. On the other, because rescheduling the festival requires new agreements with the relevant authorities and partners and for now, nobody has any visibility on what will be situation after the summer. Postponing the festival also means to take the risk of increasing the costs, weakening our non-profit organisation and with no guarantee that we won’t be forced to cancel later on.
In addition, we’re having here a critical sanitary responsibility: the risk remains far too high and it seems inconceivable to us to endanger the health of our volunteers, artists, service providers and workers, partners, festival-goers, but also the locals’ one.
The year 2020 will leave us all a bitter taste and this summer obviously won’t have the same flavour as the previous ones. We’ll miss the european festivals, the gathering of our beloved friends on the dancefloors, those unique and timeless moments we love to share together.
Hadra will always be a welcoming place of gathering, sharing, solidarity and letting go, a place of exchange, of reflection, where we can poetically reinvent new ways to the Future. But this year 2020 will be guided by resilience and we will have to wait a little longer before we meet again.
“Utopia & Nature”. Ironically, Nature itself has pushed us into questioning our model of society in order to reconnect with our environment. Today, our little microcosm is collapsing and the live entertainment sector is faltering. But let’s never lose hope in finding the bright side: this year must be focused on reflection, introspection and, above all, cooperation. Let’s take this time to continue to collectively nourish our utopias, but also to ponder our actions, our individual and our collective responsibility in this crisis. What will tomorrow’s party look like? What kind of future do we want? Which values should we hold high and strong together? This crisis must initiate the change we need for the future: having no festival in 2020 is sad but not being able to enjoy one in 2030 would be dramatic.
This rollercoaster of emotions behind us and the idea of a summer without a festival digested we propose you to think about the year 2020 and that we invent the following ones together!
Hadra never gives up and this sad news shall not darken our horizon. Our team is already picturing the most beautiful gathering ever, one of the most symbolic for us in 2021 when we will celebrate together the 20 years anniversary of Hadra ! Without a doubt, Driss, one of the founders of the project, would have said: the “ResisTrance” continues!
Hadra will never die and will rise from the ashes !
