The RN town hall has still not communicated on the 2026 edition of Off, the counterpart of In, which allows you to attend nearly eighty shows free of charge each summer, with prestigious artists. But the market dedicated to show cancellation insurance, just opened by the municipality, already proves that the dedicated envelope will be very seriously revised downwards.
At the beginning of August 2023, just out of the tunnel of dates for the Carcassonne Festival, the director of the city’s cultural center, Pascal Dupont, spoke of a“Année Historique”and scores “pulvérisés”. An enthusiasm explained by the 58,000 spectators at In with 11 “sold out” evenings, and an audience of 150,000 people at Off. A year later, Pascal Dupont was no less delighted to talk about “quatorze dates complètes” you In 2024, “unheard of”. We do not know what assessment the director of the cultural center of the 2026 year will draw, but the crowds will undoubtedly not be historic. Or in the wrong direction, on the Off side.
While the In 2026, revealed for many months, is sold out for seven of the evenings of the 1is as of July 31, the National Rally municipality in power since March 22 has let nothing filter out of the Off. A side of the Festival that the previous team used to unveil with great fanfare at the Dôme, like last year, on May 14, 2025. Nothing of that kind, for now. In terms of culture, it is to talk about the Pig Festival and a “apolitical festival” of cinema that Mayor Christophe Barthès spoke during the municipal council, on April 30, 2026. A culture with subscribers absent on the networks of the “Demain Carcassonne” list, during the campaign: on the menu of images showing the program, security, finances, education, youth, sports and military affairs and patriotism. Culture, period.
Not a word about the Festival in the program of candidate Barthès
The subject certainly found a small place in the campaign diary of the RN candidate. But already to evoke the famous Pig Festival of Lady Carcas. As well as an Arts Month “with many exhibitions in the city”an annual Book Fair, or even a living Nativity scene. Alive to the point of promising a parade of the wise men. But no trace of the word “Festival” in these 16 pages. Probably not a coincidence. Because the summer of 2026 could well be that of the twilight of an Off which had celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2024.
A hypothesis confirmed by a public service market just opened by the cultural center, dedicated to“show cancellation insurance”From July 1 to August 30, 2026. A market open each year, to find the insurer who will guarantee the City “the reimbursement of the pecuniary loss borne directly by the latter […] in the event that the event is cancelled, postponed or shortened, following the occurrence of a guaranteed event”. Enough to deal with potential threats, from bad weather to strikes, attacks, natural disasters or national mourning.
Each year, the City specifies the sums to be guaranteed, corresponding to the artists’ contracts, to multiple costs – accommodation, intermittent, security, catering, technical – and to the profits of “certain shows of the City”. For this 2026 market, 3,386,721.48 are to be guaranteed for the In, between the Jean-Deschamps theater and the Château Comtal; other festivities to be ensured, the Feria, with €168,434, an amount identical to that to be guaranteed for the 2025 market, when the In was estimated at €3.05 million.
A glance in retrospect reveals that this sum was €2.94 million in 2017, €2.99 million in 2019. A stability which is also found on the Off side, with €355,000 in 2017, 447 648 € in 2019 and 443 853.55 € last year.
36% of the 2025 envelope to be guaranteed for Off 2026
But 2026 marks a turning point in ensuring this Festival in Bastide, with an average of 80 shows, free remember, offered from Place Carnot to Chénier, via the Hôtel de Rolland or Quai Bellevue. In the chapter of the Carcassonne Festival at the Bastide there is the sum of €161,400 to be guaranteed. 36% of the 2026 envelope.
Enough to anticipate an Off very far from the richness of past years, and undoubtedly deprived of many headliners who frequented past editions, from Stromae to Jacques Higelin via Feu Chatterton!, Johnny Clegg, Ibrahim Maalouf, Martin Solveig, Louis Chédid, Suzanne Vega, Tricky, Stephan Eicher, Abd Al Malik, Amadou and Mariam, Les Têtes Raides… An impossible casting to imagine at 161,400… Leading therefore to the hypothesis of an Off concentrated over a few days, or putting an end to national and international headliners. And therefore also on the public attracted by the big names. To be continued.
