"The dream buyer is collective and local": how Woodstower hopes to survive the end of the year

It was in the small room of Semple, a bar located on Quai Claude Bernard, that Maxime Noly, director of Woodstower, and Quentin Thomé, president of the association, met with the press to take stock of this 2025 edition of the festival organized for the first time at the Parc de Gerland after many years in the Parc de Miribel Jonage.

Also read : In Lyon, Woodstower placed in receivership

And the news for the festival, which celebrated its 26th edition this year, was not good. Having been placed in safeguard proceedings with the Lyon commercial court since last year, Woodstower was placed in receivership this week . This new step further highlights the financial difficulties encountered by the association in recent years.

" The rescue plan allowed us to freeze our debts, but we were on borrowed time, " recalls Maxime Noly, also the festival's programmer. Last year, the association's debt amounted to €600,000, to which should be added the €200,000 deficit for the 2025 edition alone.

A 2025 edition that was nevertheless intended to be innovative. Gone was the Miribel Jonage park; Woodstower had settled in Gerland, and wanted to become a 100% Lyon festival. The organizers also abandoned their late August date to hold the event in late July. The lineup, heavily rap-oriented in recent years, was also slightly modified this summer, with artists from the electro scene invited, even if the headliners (SCH, Rilès, Vladimir Cauchemar) remained artists from the hip-hop and rap worlds. Gambles that didn't pay off.

Despite all these changes, Woodstower welcomed just under 23,500 festivalgoers, with the first Thursday evening falling far short of attendance expectations. The latter, up 35% compared to 2024, a catastrophic year in terms of attendance for Woodstower, was once again insufficient for the festival, which welcomed 43,000 festivalgoers in 2022, to cover its costs this year. " Adding debt to debt is not sustainable, " acknowledges Maxime Noly. " The recovery procedure will give us some time to find a buyer ," he continues.

Officially placed in receivership until December 9, the festival will not be able to continue much longer in the current state of affairs. " This date corresponds to the few months of cash flow we have left ," says Quentin Thomé, president of the association, while remaining positive: " We are convinced that all is not lost ."

To achieve this, organizers must quickly find one or more buyers to continue the activity. Interested companies or individuals have until October 3 to file their applications with the court. A few additional weeks may be granted for some applications not yet fully finalized by the beginning of October.

Before their court hearing on September 9, the association's leaders had approached local authorities. " Unfortunately, we received negative feedback," conceded a disappointed Maxime Noly. " It's a solution we've already extinguished, and today we're turning to another type of actor, " he added. These authorities did not want to put their hands in their pockets. At the beginning of 2024, the Lyon Metropolis had allocated exceptional aid to the festival, in the order of €100,000. The City of Lyon, for its part, maintained its €10,000 subsidy this year while providing the festival with a package of in-kind aid and the provision of spaces worth an additional €80,000.

" The solution we would like to see emerge is to set up something collective at the local level, with political, media, and cultural actors who would be interested in joining forces around this wonderful project, " explains Maxime Noly. Taking the example of businessman Matthieu Pigasse's acquisition of We Love Green in Paris or the La Dépêche du Midi group's investments in the Rose Festival in Toulouse, the director knows that setting up such a takeover project " takes a little time ." " The ideal buyer for us is collective and local ," concludes Quentin Thomé. The curtain has not yet completely closed, but now the countdown has begun for this festival, which was born a quarter of a century ago.