The 14th Brussels Summer Festival (BSF) has equaled last year’s attendance, with more than 125,000 festival-goers. The organisers confirmed it on Sunday, the last day of the festival. The 14,000 ten day passes were sold on the opening day, the 14th of August. More one day passes were sold than in 2014, with more than 20,000 sold by Saturday.
The first night on the Place des Palais on Wednesday, the Urban Night, compensated for the lack of an evening event at Mont des Arts on Sunday, as there were around 6,500 to 7,000 people. The 800 person capacity in the new La Madeleine hall, which can hold 300 more people than the Magic Mirrors room used in previous years, also helped increase attendance.
Due to the expected attendance (15,000 people in total), the organisers are planning to review the management of the information stand for next year. There was a very limited number of tickets for Benjamin Clementine and Soviet Suprem. Amadou and Miriam filled Mont des Art (800 person capacity on Friday evening. The last concerts on Place des Palais were fully booked, with 13,000 people. More than 800 children and parents visited the Musical Instrument Museum’s (MIM) new room, for the young people’s program.
“This year, there were fewer big names, but we attracted a different sort of audience”, said BSF director Denis Gerady. “We appealed to the Flemish public for the first time with Triggerfinger on Saturday evening, as they had a mainly Flemish audience. More than 10% of festival-goers were foreign, with a lot of sales in France. We also made the most of the large amount of tourists in Brussels that weekend”. The organisers are planning to increase the amount of events on the place des Musées for the 15th BSF.
(Source: Belga)
