Angoulême, Charente - Comic Strip Festival to go ahead in January 2010 despite cash row

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The 2010 edition of the Festival international de la bande dessinée (comic strip festival) in Angoulême will go ahead as planned between 28 and 31 January, despite the recent wrangling over finance.

Organiser Franck Bondoux went on French radio last Thursday to declare the event would not take place, claiming that the mayor of Angoulême Philippe Lavaud had made cuts in funding.  Specifically, the funds aimed at the provision of technical services, and at the centre of the row provision of commercial stands.

The row erupted as Philippe Lavaud was away on holiday, with colleague Gerard Desaphy asking festival organisers to look for private funding for some of the technical services.  At stake is 140,000 euros, equivalent to the cost of hiring forty temporary workers to support the event.

On his return last week, Philippe Lavaud stepped into the row and in a press release promised that a compromise would be reached.  He said that because of reductions in state funding overall for the town (1.3 million euros in 2009), all six festivals currently supported by the town could be affected by reduced funding, and cooperation was needed to find solutions that would allow the event to remain an annual fixture.

Angoulême subsidises the festival to the tune of one million euros already, with the costs ultimately borne by the 43,000 residents of the town.   The annual festival has become a key event for the town, department and region, attracting around 200,000 to 250,000 visitors.  It has an overall budget of 3.5 million euros.

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