"We still really want to come": why the Nice edition of Ocean Fest was canceled

It was a crushing blow for fans of music and socially engaged events. The Nice edition of Ocean Fest, "the festival that puts the ocean at the top of the bill," initially scheduled for November 16, 2024 before being postponed to October 4, 2025, at the Palais Nikaïa , had finally been canceled.

The announcement of this cancellation was made via a press release on the event's social networks in mid-June.

A setback for this event combining eclectic concerts, awareness raising for ocean protection and where all profits are donated to associations, all supported by the journalist Hugo Clément and the singer-songwriter and electronic music performer Worakls via their association Blue Force.

After the success of three events in Biarritz and Nantes (in 2023 and 2024), it was a hard blow for the Nice festival-goers who were eagerly awaiting this edition with Indochine as headliners, but also Vernis Rouge or even Umbree and the duo Magmay, DJs from the Côte d'Azur.

A series of setbacks

Nearly two months after the announcement of this cancellation, what do we finally know about the reasons which led the organizers to abandon the Nice date?

A few days before its edition scheduled for November 2024, the organizing team announced a postponement to October 2025 linked to "unforeseen logistical issues" but also because of the " judicial schedule of Paul Watson ", founder of Sea Shepherd, one of the festival's partner associations, who was then imprisoned in Greenland.

Before announcing the pure and simple cancellation in June, "due to factors beyond [their] control."

Contacted by telephone, Kevin Rodrigues, alias Worakls, explains: " After the first postponement, we had a whole internal team change. We felt able to keep the event planned for Biarritz [in April 2024, editor's note] because we had already done it, but we didn't feel strong enough to keep the one in Nice ."

An explanation that responds to criticism from a number of festival-goers, who have denounced, notably via comments on social networks, a lack of communication and insufficient promotion on the part of the organizers to highlight this Nice date.

Promises of refunds... and returns

While the cancellation is a disappointment for festival-goers on the Côte d'Azur, Worakls insists: " We are not giving up on the idea of organizing an edition in Nice (...) We still really want to come ."

Meanwhile, ticket holders, some of whom had held their seats since 2024, will be automatically refunded by September 15.