At night, the silhouette of Laon Cathedral (Hauts-de-France) stands out against the starry sky. To the rhythm of electronic, almost cinematic music, the stone comes to life thanks to the projectors installed a few meters from the façade. The images scroll and cover the entire space offered by the monument classified as historic since 1840. From the towers to the three portals and the rose window, each relief is sublimated by the Monumental Tour teams who review the last details. In twenty-four hours, 3,000 people will gather in front of Notre-Dame de Laon, immersed in a world of sound and light.
Created in 2019 by French DJ Michaël Canitrot and placed under the patronage of the French National Commission for UNESCO, the Monumental Tour aims to “put an end to clichés” about both a dusty heritage image and electronic music confined to clubs. In five years, 18 events have taken place in exceptional locations in France or abroad, each time with the same desire to promote monuments. “Through our work, we want to change the way spectators look at things and make them want to take a new interest in the place through the prism of a more contemporary art,” explains Jérémie Bellot, in charge of creating video mapping, a technique that consists of projecting large-scale images onto raised surfaces. Michaël Canitrot goes further: “By developing the concept, I wanted spectators to become actors and contribute to the transmission of heritage for future generations through their financial participation.”
A new way to finance heritage
These new shows are a boon for the sector. While not all sites justify the introduction of immersive experiences into their programming in the same way, they help finance the restoration and maintenance of some of them by taking over from public funding. This is the case of Laon Cathedral. “The strong media coverage of Michaël Canitrot’s show gives us the legitimacy to attract private funding,” notes Eric Delhaye, the city’s mayor.
As with all Monumental Tour events, a solidarity ticketing service has been set up. Each spectator gives what they want for the restoration of heritage by purchasing a ticket between 10 and 50 euros. This year, 32,000 euros were collected for the restoration of the great organ of Notre-Dame de Laon, or just over 7% of the 450,000 euros needed for its total restoration.
The cost of such installations can quickly add up. Each site then adopts the strategy best suited to its needs. Since 2019, the Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte (Seine-et-Marne) has been offering visitors the chance to discover its history through a three-dimensional sound world. Rustling silk, whispers, slamming doors… Equipped with headphones that give the impression of hearing sounds coming from in front, behind and to the sides, visitors relive the main intrigues that took place in this place. To set up this immersive tour, the Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte had to find 750,000 euros. After investing 112,500 euros of its own funds, the château decided to increase each entrance ticket by 40 cents, thus bringing in an additional 120,000 euros. For the rest, in addition to funding through patronage, the monument has called on regional subsidies of up to 40%, according to a report from the Reinventing Heritage program, a fund launched by several organizations including the Banque des Territoires.
This operation, which combines both public and private funds, is developing in several heritage sites. “Today, private companies approach public monuments with an idea for a show already in mind,” explains Antoine Roland, creator of the Correspondances Digitales agency specializing in cultural innovation. “Institutions contribute to the production through their expertise or by opening their doors to them. But the projects are self-financing.”
This is the case for Aura. The sound and light show installed at the dome of the Invalides pays a fee to the Army Museum for the rental of the site. The show, which welcomed more than 60,000 spectators between September and December 2023, is intended to “perform for several years in this magnificent place”, explains Stéphane Roisin, general manager of the Europe and Middle East subsidiary of the Moment Factory studio, at the origin of the show.
For the general director, the biggest change in the “business models” of cultural venues lies in the temporality of their programming: “The venues are hosting more and more events in their permanent itinerary that are set up there for years.” A strategy adopted in 2018 by the Abbaye aux Dames de Saintes (New Aquitaine) for its 3D Sound Journey. Equipped with a headset, visitors wander through the heart of the site guided by sound mediation. The production costs of this technology amount to 600,000 euros. To amortize them, the objective is to program this experience for four to seven years. In 2019, it brought in 89,000 euros in turnover. In 2022, it attracted 12,000 visitors out of the 50,000 who came to the abbey.
This new mastery of time allows for creating audience loyalty while acting on the pleasure of the visit. Through images, sounds and colours, these events appeal to the emotions of spectators, creating sensory memories linked to specific places. Stéphane Roisin speaks of a “madeleine de Proust” effect encouraging visitors to return. For Romain Sarfati, co-founder of the sound and light show Luminescence, based at the Saint-Eustache church in the 1st arrondissement of Paris, “sensory and emotional experiences deeply connect spectators with our collective history”.
A diversification of the offer
Indeed, for Yann Leroux, a psychologist specializing in digital technology, the success of sound and light shows comes from their ability to “engage all the senses and completely immerse the spectator in a coherent universe, providing them with pleasure”. Based on this observation, cultural venues are moving towards plural models combining touch, hearing, vision and sometimes even smell.
In museums, whose primary purpose is to provide knowledge to visitors, digital mediations, associated with simple entertainment, can sometimes be viewed with a negative eye. Despite the debates raised, the co-founder of Correspondances Digitales notes a “certain maturity on the issue” and “an increasingly strong alliance between the audiovisual and museum worlds” reflecting the desire of institutions to move towards hybrid exhibitions. The exhibition ‘Inventing Impressionism. Paris, 1874’ at the Musée d’Orsay, for example, is coupled with the immersive experience ‘An Evening with the Impressionists, Paris 1874’. Thanks to a virtual reality headset, visitors are sent to April 1874 in the world of the first Impressionist exhibition. There, they rub shoulders with Monet, Cézanne and Renoir. Both aspects of the visit were created by exhibition curators and are in place until August 2024.
When a venue proposes to add events to its programme, it must “always do so in connection with its permanent itinerary”, insists Stéphane Roisin. Even if this implies a more scientific approach, less well received by the public, “the experience injects new thinking into mediation and increases the quality of the permanent itinerary”. It also helps attract a younger audience, often difficult to reach with a simple classic itinerary. “35% of visitors to Aura aux Invalides are under 30”, notes Stéphane Roisin.
Leading role for social networks
A figure corroborated by Emeline Tritz, who has more than 100,000 subscribers on TikTok and Instagram. The cultural influencer shares with her community, made up of 40% of people aged 18 to 25, many unusual events and experiences in cultural venues. “Content offering shows that appeal to emotions are those that work best,” notes the young woman. “Especially when the scenography transports the viewer into a unique universe.” Her video published following her visit to Aura Invalides has been viewed more than 2 million times.
For Camille Rondo, lecturer at Celsa and specialist in issues related to cultural mediation and digital communication devices, social networks play a central role in communication around these events. “They are the new guestbooks. We share photos and videos on our profiles to say that we were there and that we recommend this show,” she explains.
The mayor of Laon noted: “During the last two editions of the Monumental Tour, videos were widely shared on social networks. Today, we see the impact on the attractiveness of the city”. The video of the concert given last year, viewed more than 1.5 million times on Instagram, created a craze beyond the borders of France. Spectators came from Europe, the United States, Australia and even Latin America to enjoy the show but also to visit Laon, its medieval streets and its historic center. “This project is a meeting of different interests. That of promoting heritage, developing incredible artistic creation and giving a certain attractiveness to a city” remarks, admiringly, Michaël Canitrot.
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