2023-06-25 05:00:00
On the occasion of the Solidays festival, Le Figaro Étudiant highlights shadow trades, essential to the smooth running of the event.
He is the one who has an eye on everything. Raymond Lopez is 64 years old. He has been in events for 50 years and is preparing his 22nd edition of Solidays as production director and operational director of the festival. He tells us what his job is.
Like Raymond Lopez, hundreds of other professionals are working behind the scenes to ensure the good performance of the Solidays. Technician, ticket office, communication… Essential trades for the organization of such an event, when tens of thousands of festival-goers will tread the lawn of the Longchamps racecourse, in Paris, from June 23 to 25, 2023.
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“It’s general coordination, explains Raymond Lopez. There are many trades to mount an event of this magnitude. Between production agents (money), technical agents (infrastructure, energy), logistics (catering, toilets) and security personnel, there are no less than 400 people to coordinate.
“The festival is a rainbow of skills”
Upstream of the festival, its first mission is to study the feasibility of what the organizers want to do with a whole study and budget part. The second part is to establish the specifications for the service providers. These are distributed in different places: barriers, marquees, tents, stages, light, sound, video screens… Then begins the production phase of the pitch. Raymond Lopez coordinates all these steps. “The festival is a rainbow of skills,” he explains. His work stops there, “except for a huge problem like a burning stage”. “Part of my job is to imagine the worst,” he says.
What qualities? “Be calm, benevolent, friendly and have experience”, explains Raymond Lopez. You also have to be vigilant for the slightest incident that could happen. “The hardest thing would be if an accident happened and we couldn’t resolve it,” he adds.
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