Jakob Saulière, Technopol board member and United We Stream France co-programmer, explains us the aim of this innovative project.
Hello, thank you for your time. Can you introduce yourself?
My name is Jakob, co-programmer of the project United We Stream France, board member of Technopol, founder of the agency Raise Booking and co-founder of the label Maison Close records.
When did you hear about United We Stream action?
I heard about United We Stream action at the very beginning of the lockdown. It seemed surreal these empty clubs…
Was it complicated to convince the clubs to participate? If yes, why?
No, the answers we got were very positive and enthusiastic.
Correct me if I’m wrong but the next dates are exclusively in Paris, any plans to do the same with other cities?
Indeed, but we want to export the project in July, in London, Nantes, Rennes,…
The whole nightlife scene is currently impacted by Covid-19. Have you thought about including more
“commercial” venues and artists to the upcoming schedule?
The heart of the project is to include the electronic scene as a unified entity. Because we had to respect its history and include all audiences. We tried to program artists from totally different horizons, but we also ran into problems with the schedules… But there might still be a few surprises.
Do you think that in a near future, clubs will focus on local artists more than headliners?
Surely but it has to be done for the right reasons and it has to be sustainable. If it’s done only for financial reasons, it would be a pity. With this project, we want to show that there is a lot of possibilities to do line ups with local artists, emerging and headliners artists. Opposing local artists and headliners is a bit degrading for our scene. We have a pool of emerging talents but also a lot of confirmed headliners.
A lot of festivals and clubs all around the world are asking artists to reduce their fees. What are your thoughts on this?
Yes, I agree. But i believe this request was made even before Covid-19. However, I think that we must qualify this request and question ourselves and not put the responsability only on the artists. The big promoters/festivals have themselves raised the bidding on some big artists, which has led to this overall inflation. For example, if no festival/big promoters paid above a certain fee, maybe it would reduce fees in general.
How can people help the scene right now?
We can help the clubs by giving to the United We Stream fund. We can help the artists by buying their music.
How can people help the scene in the long run?
We can just ask them to come back and party when the clubs are open again.
