Paléo Festival booker toasts 21-minute sellout

Paléo booker Dany Hassenstein has hailed the Swiss festival’s longstanding bond with its audience after all 200,000 tickets for the 2024 event sold out in just 21 minutes.

The festival will run in Nyon from 23-28 July, featuring acts such as Sam Smith, Burna Boy, Booba, Mika, Sean Paul, Major Lazer Soundsystem, Gazo & Tiakola, PLK, Nile Rodgers & Chic, Patti Smith, The Blaze, Paul Kalkbrenner, Aurora and Royal Blood.

Launched in 1976, the event accommodates more than 35,000 fans daily. Tickets for the Sunday finale, which started at CHF80 (€82), sold out in a record seven minutes.

“We knew from our December pre-sale that demand was very strong,” Hassenstein tells IQ. “All our digital data were showing this same evolution too. I really believe that, together with the very rich lineup, it is our standards and values that makes this success. We have this tremendous level of confidence and loyalty from our guests, and we are doing everything to never put that trust at risk.”

Last year’s event took almost double the time – 41 minutes – to sell out for a bill starring the likes of Black Eyed Peas, Martin Garrix and Placebo.

For 2024, Paléo is expanding its musical horizons with a mix of pop, rock, rap, dancehall, Afrobeats, reggae, electro, opera and funk, welcoming 130 artists in all, as the countdown begins to its landmark 50th festival in three years’ time.

“We have several new features on track, mainly guest comfort improvements but we will also open our stages to other type of performances, such as humour with an in-house show, a performance by French troupe Murmuration and even opera, hosting tenor singer Roberto Alagna,” says Hassenstein.

“It is a fact that hard tickets are on the rise and acts are focusing on headline tours, not festivals”

Organisers introduced of a raft of well-received changes two years ago, including new stages, blockchain ticketing and a cashless payment system, in what was billed as the festival’s biggest makeover in more than 30 years.

“We had huge changes of the general festival set up in 2022 and we will prepare the next big step for our 50th edition in 2027,” notes Hassenstein.

The festival’s traditional ticket exchange, which is designed to combat the black market, will go live on 27 March, while 1,500 daily tickets will be made available from 9am on each morning of this year’s event.

While the debate continues to rage about the availability (or lack thereof) of headliners across the sector, Hassenstein considers the names of those at the top of the bill to still be “undeniably very important”.

“It’s the essence of a music festival,” he says. “Our challenge was mainly our dates being outside of most of the international touring periods. But it is a fact that hard tickets are on the rise and acts are focusing on headline tours, not festivals.”

Looking to the future, Hassenstein indicates that Paléo will always prioritise quality over potential capacity increases.

“Growth in quality will always be our goal, with sustainability and social awareness being part of this growth,” he concludes. “Growth in capacity is not necessarily a healthy ambition and not really a target for us.”

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