Professional platform

The Festival d’Avignon is recognised for its capacity to produce and co-produce shows, thus helping companies finalise their production budgets and setting up tours. It supports the creation of new projects and helps companies in their dealings with co-producers, but also with local, national, and international authorities. With many international shows programmed at the Festival (65% in 2020), the production department of the Festival d’Avignon works in close collaboration with international teams to present those productions in their original language with French surtitles, focusing on the quality of the translation and surtitling, often commissioned specifically for the Festival.

Every year, the Festival co-produces over half the shows of its programme (60% in 2020). It can also lend material support thanks to LaFabricA and its workshops. Several residencies take place there over the winter and spring, some of which also include set building or engineering help to find technical solutions to artistic wishes. La FabricA welcomes artists for a total of over one hundred days of residencies every year.

La FabricA : A place for residencies, creation and artistic actions

In addition to its work as a co-producer, the Festival d’Avignon produces its own shows, working as an executive producer for some of them. In that regard, the Festival is responsible for the financial and technical aspects of the production, serving as the employer of all artists, collaborators, and technicians working on the show. It also makes its Avignon workshops available for set building. Moreover, it also serves as a tour manager in France and abroad.

One of our shows is on tour un your theatre ? Access to our production area (restricted access, please contact us to get the password)

Shows currently on tour: By Heart,Catarina and the beauty of killing fascists, L'Addition

If the Festival d’Avignon welcomes tens of thousands of lovers of the performing arts every year, it counts among its spectators many French and international professionals attracted by the many productions and creations on offer, the international reputation of the event, but also by the chance it provides to meet other professionals, to talk about issues pertaining to the performing arts, and to acquire knowledge and skills. About 12% of our audience are professionals eager to discover our creations for their own programming needs. This is amplified by the large media coverage of the Festival (600 journalists every year, for a total of 3,000 reports and articles).

Being programmed at the Festival d’Avignon (which covers the exploitation and housing costs for invited companies) leads to a tenfold increase in the number of tour dates for a show. The shows seen at the Festival then travel the world, playing a part in the circulation of ideas and aesthetics, and in the economy of a sector. On average, two years after their appearance at the Festival d’Avignon (with its 100,000 spectators), the shows of any given edition put together have been seen by 500,000 spectators in over 300 cities. In other words, 1 festivalgoer means 2 spectators one year later and 5 two years later!

The Institut supérieur des techniques du spectacle (ISTS) and the Festival d'Avignon welcome at the Cloître Saint-Louis the Maison des professionnels in the framework of the Café des idées.

The Festival d'Avignon and the ISTS, with their partners, wish to gather all the structures of the performing arts sector around meetings, workshops and professional exchanges. In this sense, they offer, by pooling their skills, a public service of culture open to all professionals and to all professions of the sector.

More broadly, the Maison des professionnels is part of the Café des idées. In a spirit of encounter, proximity, hospitality and high standards, a Republic of Ideas in motion is being invented, and a centre of hospitality is being established where we can meet each day of the Festival, celebrating freedom of thought and the joy of being together.