‘Bigger than Christmas’: Paléo VP rounds up 2024 edition

Paléo’s artistic coordinator and vice president Dany Hassenstein has spoken to IQ about the continued success of the independent Swiss festival.

The 47th edition of the Nyon-based event wrapped yesterday (27 July) after 200+ concerts across six days.

Having sold out in advance for the past 25 years, this year’s event was no exception with 200,000 tickets selling out in just 21 minutes and a further 50,000 sold during the festival.

“It’s spectacular,” Hassenstein tells IQ. “Our success comes partly from the fact that Paléo is massive in the French-speaking part of Switzerland – bigger than Easter and Christmas. People don’t ask themselves ‘Will I go to Paléo this year?’, they ask themselves ‘Will I be able to get tickets?’. Everybody is ready to buy when we go on sale.”

Another reason for Paléo’s sell-out streak is the broad appeal of the programming, which attracts a wide demographic.

“People don’t ask themselves ‘Will I go to Paléo this year?’, they ask themselves ‘Will I be able to get tickets?’

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 were among the acts at this year’s festival, which had a budget of CHF31 million (€32.3m).

“In a tiny country like Switzerland, to bring 250,000 people together for six days you need a lot of variety,” says Hassenstein, pointing out that there are also downsides to appealing to the masses.

“If you’re booking a rock festival, then you bring rock acts and the rock audience will be happy,” he explains. “We generate much more frustration with our programming than specialised events. But people also understand every day has to be different because we sell day tickets, not full festival tickets.”

This means the festival is under pressure to book six lineups worthy of standalone events rather than one package and, as Hassenstein points out, “We have to be careful that we don’t get into competition with ourselves with each one”.

Perhaps, the bigger challenge for the non-profit festival is competing with “massively rising” artist fees, particularly for stadium-level headliners.

“Festivals are not considered as important in the development of an artist as they used to be”

To mitigate this, the festival has previously added a seventh day for acts such as Robbie Williams (2015) and Celine Dion (2019), though the latter was ultimately cancelled due to Covid-19.

“We couldn’t afford Williams with a regular festival day so we added a day to the beginning of the festival as the whole infrastructure was already there,” says the Paléo VP.

“Ten years ago, that was an interesting proposition for a stadium act because the gap between a festival fee and a stadium fee wasn’t so big. Now in 2024, even with the possibility of an extra day, the gap is too big.

“Plus, festivals are not considered as important in the development of an artist as they used to be. Artists and management are focused on selling tickets to their own shows.”

A lack of affordable A-list stars has prompted Paléo to take risks on newer, more affordable headliners such as Burna Boy and Rosalía, which have ultimately paid off.

“I’m convinced it isn’t the answer [to alleviating costs]”

“The arrival of new big names is very positive,” notes Hassenstein. “Young festival headliners are breaking very quickly so we need to be reactive and ready to take risks. Sometimes, we need to bank on an up-and-coming name and maybe say no to the fees we might have to raise our ticket prices for.”

Raising ticket prices is something Paléo has rarely resorted to – largely because of the values and bureaucracy associated with being a non-profit organisation. “I can guarantee that if I ask the 150 members of our [non-profit] association to increase the ticket prices, I will get a big fat no,” he says. “It’s not in the interest of our community.”

Even in the current climate where costs are ballooning, Paléo is reluctant to increase margins by passing the costs onto the customers. “I’m convinced it isn’t the answer,” says Hassenstein. “We need to brainstorm and be innovative to come up with solutions.”

A capacity increase is also something organisers are unwilling to do – even though demand for tickets far exceeds the supply – as they are keen to prioritise quality over quantity.

“Our aim is to stay top of the game and continuously offer the quality of infrastructure and acts,” adds Hassenstein.

“We’ve never seen so much of this criminal activity – not just at Paléo but in the wider Swiss industry”

Increasing sponsorship is also not the answer to alleviate soaring costs as “companies do not have the same interest anymore,” according to the artistic coordinator.

“Media revenue could be an idea and is something we might want to share with the artists,” he continues. “Maybe we should be more open to dialogue with labels and artists and managers to see if there is common revenue we could generate to help with artist fees but this is not in the interest of other stakeholders. I think the cost-effectiveness is probably the more interesting way to see things.”

A new and pressing issue for this year’s festival was the “strong increase” in ticket scams, though Paléo’s ticketing offering is almost exclusively digital.

“It’s a nightmare,” says Hassenstein. “People are trying to sell tickets that don’t exist. It’s fraud. We’ve never seen so much of this criminal activity – not just at Paléo but in the wider Swiss industry.”

Though Paléo has hailed yet another banner edition, the VP points out that “its success doesn’t make us immune to the reality of these challenges”.

“It’s tough to be independent in this industry,” he says, “but as long as we have this strong local community and we continue to make strong events, we will survive.”

The 48th edition of Paléo will take place between 22 and 27 July 2025.

Get more stories like this in your inbox by signing up for IQ Index, IQ’s free email digest of essential live music industry news.

Read More Like This

News|17 Jul 2024

Euro festival preview: Paléo, Electric Castle, Tomorrowland

Colours of Ostrava, Super Bock Super Rock, Parookaville, Benicassim, Positivus, Ejekt Festival and more are due to kick off within the next week