For its 20th edition, the Esperanzah! festival gathered 36,000 attendees from Thursday to Sunday at the Abbey of Floreffe, according to the event's organisers.
The festival was making a comeback after their 2020 edition was postponed due to the pandemic, and a scaled-down version was held in 2021.
For the first time in its existence, this year's 20th anniversary event was held over four days – but with a reduced capacity of 10,000 people.
This was done in order to provide more comfort for festival-goers, who valued the ability to roam freely during last year's event.
Due to this new formula, they were able to attain the same number of people as they did in 2019, the last festival they held before the outbreak of Covid-19.
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“The festivities started smoothly on Thursday with 8,000 attendees,” Jean-Yves Laffineur, the event's director, told Belga News Agency.
“Then, the attendance increased to reach nearly 10,000 admissions on Saturday. We see that people have to find the reflex and the desire to go to the festival because their habits have changed. However, we can speak of a real success for this anniversary edition,” he added.
Laffineur also stated that “ nearly 2,000 children under the age of 12 have registered to benefit from free entrances. Esperanzah! has therefore been more intergenerational than ever and that is important to us, all like claiming our alternative and engaged side.”
