The Teknival festival takes place in a small village in Indre until Sunday, May 21 and despite the ban imposed by the prefecture. Several people were injured, but the authorities gave up on the evacuation of festival-goers.
30,000 people have already gathered in Villegongis, a small village in Indre where the Teknival is organized, this Friday, May 19. The unmissable event for electro music enthusiasts has however been banned by the prefecture. But, determined to defy the ban, the organizers of the event like the festival-goers flocked on Thursday to a private land of 70 hectares illegally occupied by the Teknival. Another 10,000 people are expected by the prefecture by the end of the weekend.
The authorities watched helplessly as thousands of festival-goers arrived at night and gave up on evacuating, ordering the police to provide the best possible supervision and ensure security on the sidelines of the gathering until the end of the festival, scheduled for the night of Sunday May 21. 200 gendarmes are thus deployed around the Teknival for the entire duration of the weekend, announced on May 18 Stéphane Bredin, prefect of the department, during a press conference.
But why let the electro festival take place after having banned it by two prefectural decrees? The prefect did not expressly mention the reasons, but the security of the village and its 120 inhabitants seems to be at the heart of the matter: forcibly dislodging the 30,000 festival-goers expected at Teknival seems difficult and the hypothesis raises fears of excesses between festival-goers and law enforcement. “I am in contact with the prefect so that all the security is implemented and is sufficient to ensure a show without damage”, added Jean-Marc Seuvault, the mayor of Villegongis after the start of the festival.
A serious injury and other risks on the sidelines of the festival?
A man was injured and is in absolute emergency after being run over by a car on the sidelines of Teknival, we learned this Friday, May 19, the second day of the festival. The man was taken to hospital in critical condition reports France info. 16 other people are in relative emergency according to additional information from BFM TV. The ban on the festival was to prevent this kind of accident in the small town not equipped to receive the event.
Given the influx of people in Villegongis and the means deployed for security, other accidents are to be feared. The authorities and organizers of the event have mobilized hundreds of people to ensure the security of the premises, but faced with more than 30,000 festival-goers this may not be enough.
Why was the Teknival banned?
The reason that prompted the prefecture to ban the Teknival demonstration in Indre from Wednesday May 17 is the same one that now invites the authorities to supervise rather than evacuate the event: security. The great mass of electro is an event too big to be hosted by the small town of Villgongis. The Indre prefecture has thus issued two decrees in order to prohibit “the illegal installation of any festive gathering of an undeclared musical nature” until 6 a.m. on Monday May 22, and to prohibit “traffic for vehicles transporting sound equipment or electricity production”.
If the Teknival is prohibited it is also because it is an undeclared event, a particularity specific to events related to electro music. Finally, no public land being able to receive the tens of thousands of festival-goers, it was to avoid the illegal occupation of private land that the gathering was prohibited, in vain. The 2023 edition of Teknival took place on agricultural land with an area of 70 hectares and apartment for a resident of Châteauroux who was not informed of the event, nor of the occupation of his land, according to the mayor of Villegongis.