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The Les Fous Rires Gascons Festival kicks off this Saturday, April 12. To mark the occasion, we interviewed Thomas, president of Les Fous Rires Gascons, to reveal (almost 😁) all the festival's secrets.
Can you tell us a little about the Les Fous Rires Gascons Festival?
The festival was born from a bit of a gamble. The idea was to really offer a comedy program in the department because before, there wasn't one. We're a beautiful region, and I think we can have a taste for humor.
We created a Facebook page to "take the pulse", as they say, to see if it spoke to people and we had a lot of feedback (likes, people sending us messages to tell us they wanted to volunteer, etc.).
And that's how we built the festival team! We have everyone on the team, from 17 to 70 years old, and it's great to be able to create a program with everyone's tastes and desires, and that's how the Festival Les Fous Rires Gascons was born last year.
Where does this name come from anyway? Was it obvious?
It wasn't necessarily obvious, I was the one who found it, I'm quite proud. (Laughter) The idea was to have a name for a comedy festival that corresponded to the territory but was not associated with a city.
We really want to expand across the entire Gers department and try to go to all the towns over the years and not necessarily have a connection that is only in one town, we are all from Gers!
You were recently recognized for your commitments. What does that mean in concrete terms?
We tried to create a festival that reflected our desires and our beliefs; a festival that was connected to its local area. All our suppliers are located within 30 km of the festival, particularly for food. We partner with breweries and small local producers.
We wanted to be the first festival in France to be certified for its environmental initiatives. [Explosive events] and we got it this year!
You also emphasize your desire to promote young people...
For this, we offer masterclasses [workshops] 100% free. Well-known artists will give classes to young people for 1 to 2 hours. The idea is to support the professionalization of the local scene and to spark ideas and desires among young people from Gers. This is something we care about.
When we work on bringing artists to the area, rather than negotiating the price, we will ask them to arrive in advance to organize these masterclasses.
It was important for us to support young people, to give them a taste for theatre and for public speaking.
We also launched a solidarity ticketing system. The goal was to offer around 5% of the festival's capacity to people who don't necessarily have the means; (he tells us that they can hardly do more within the financial constraints they have)From the first edition, more than 1 places were offered to beneficiaries of solidarity associations.
Do you have an anecdote to tell us?
Last year, we welcomed Donovan, the social media magician. And it was a real highlight: rarely has the Municipal Theater been sold out with a performance designed for 18-25 year-olds. The atmosphere was incredible, the audience was there, and above all... we immediately connected with the artist.
Donovan, a super generous man, wanted to extend the magic offstage: he walked the streets and shops of Auch to improvise tricks for passersby, shopkeepers, waiters, in short, everyone! And clearly, he really liked the Gers welcome, because after the show, he went out into the evening with a few spectators... and we had to wake him up the next day - he had finished the night in a small village in the urban area at 4 a.m. That's exactly the spirit of the festival: accessible artists, overflowing encounters, shared memories and lots of laughter. That's also why we're setting up a refreshment bar at the exit of all the dates this year - so that these moments can continue, drink in hand, smile on your face.
The first edition of the festival was a resounding success. What was the secret?
What was the secret? In fact, the first edition was a success because it met with its audience; we had 3800 spectators. We are clearly in the top 5 cultural events in the city of Auch, and we are very happy about that; it was a first.
This success is still a bit ambivalent because we were very loss-making in the first edition, so it was a complicated equation.
But otherwise the secret is that we still had headliners who responded, who took the gamble with us. Anne Roumanoff for example. It was quite incredible, she thought the community project was great and was asked to be a sponsor, which she accepted. That also obviously gave the project credibility.
So what are the plans for the future? Will there be a third edition?
We hope to have a third edition (Laughter). Afterwards, we really have the difficulty of having a 100% volunteer team and I say it, the first partner of the festival is not the communities or the private partners, even if we are delighted with their support, it is really the public. 95% of the funding of the festival is the ticket sales. We are very happy that the public responds to the call and allows us to finance the artistic expenses of the festival.
We're going to launch a third edition, we're preparing for it, but we'll also need renewed support from our partners. I'm proud to say it now: for the festival to continue, we'll need increased support.
Out of curiosity, call it professional deformation, but... where does your audience come from?
It was quite funny when we all took stock together because 96% of the audience comes from Gers. That's quite huge! I think that many festivals promote the department in a tourist aspect (they bring in a lot of people from outside the department).
We really have this particularity of being a festival by Gersois for Gersois.
And we're very happy about that. It's very complementary to the other proposals already being made in the department.
A more complicated question now: which celebrity would you like to welcome to the festival?
I sincerely believe that we can have any comedian in the coming years with the image we're trying to build. With one exception, it's obviously Florence Foresti who is a bit of a patron saint of French humor. After that, there are plenty of comedians I'd love to have. I'd love to be able to welcome Artus, Gad Elmaleh, Jérémy Ferrari, Nawell Madani... but for that we'd need access to larger venues.
And finally, we wanted to know: what is the festival that you never miss?
There is one festival that I haven't missed since I was 15, and that's obviously Jazz in Marciac ! It's the festival that makes Gers shine. What they offer is really cool, and there are incredible artists who come every year. I think what they do is fantastic, and I would be delighted to be offered a date at the Astrada in the future. (Laughter).
And something new for this year?
"We're going to set up a refreshment bar outside the Dôme de Gascogne after the opening and closing gala shows. There will be free offerings, such as small concerts, a batucada at closing time, and light refreshments. It's open to the neighborhood, so people who didn't buy tickets can still enjoy it, have a drink, and meet the artists."
