From Toilets to Stages

What could be more common in the eyes of many than a music festival? Entrenched in the mainstream since Woodstock, would music festivals be nothing more than entertainment and mass culture? Has any protest disappeared from the DNA of these? Is this microcosm, a city of 50,000 people erupted for 5 days and entirely dedicated to youth, music and consumption, not also the reflection of a society and its evolution, its stakes, its excesses? Dour Music Festival, as the largest Walloon festival, and one of the largest in Europe, seems to us the perfect example to observe and document. For nearly two years we followed the festival officials, the programmers in their quest for unique and original bands, as well as the police, the Red Cross, the fire brigade and various security services during the long preparation of this huge festival. Going through with them in this post-attack period, the traumas and issues that come with it. During the 5 days of the festival we refocused on the youth. What are they doing with the event ? How do they live it from the inside: is it one of the rites of passage to adulthood?