Published
Thu, Feb 17, 2022, 10:00
- "Ultimately, you can't organise a festival without income and money to work with," the team wrote in a statement.
French Alps festival Monticule has filed for bankruptcy and cancelled its 2022 edition.
"With a very heavy heart, we regret to inform you that our hopes for a light at the end of the tunnel have extinguished," the team wrote in a statement posted yesterday, February 16th. "Ultimately, you can't organise a festival without income and money to work with."
Monticule, which launched in 2015, was postponed three times due to the pandemic, each of which came with large financial costs. Despite successful early editions, the festival only stopped losing money in 2019.
"As for 2020," the statement continued, "the prospects were positive for the first time: the festival was almost sold out by February, and we had nearly cut the debt from the [€90,000] loan in half by then. Unfortunately, for obvious reasons, the 2020 festival never took place. Since then, the loan could not be paid off any further, and remains to this day."
The team also said that because they're a German company working in France they weren't eligible for funding from either country. The only option available to them was to take out "another large loan," but they couldn't take the risk.
The first four editions invited artists such as Blawan, Jennifer Cardini, Zenker Brothers, Paramida, Rabih Beaini and Sascha Funke to Domaine De Gayfié, a small hill in the middle of the French Alps.
Further information about ticket refunds for 2022 is available in the full statement below.