Credits: Ecostylia Media, image generated with the help of AI.
Jul was expected at 9 p.m. on Monday, August 24, in Château-Gontier-sur-Mayenne. He did not appear on the V and B Fest’ stage until around 11:15 p.m. Thunderstorms had disrupted the evening and his travel. The first songs were then interrupted by sound outages. The show eventually found its rhythm, but the wait and the €90 ticket are fueling criticism.
An Extra Evening Sold As Exceptional
The event was not an ordinary night in the lineup. The festival had added this Monday after its four main days. It presented the appearance of the Marseille rapper as an outdoor “XXL showcase” on the Château stage at the Maroutière estate. This date was not included in any pass: everyone had to buy a separate ticket.
The official page dedicated to the concert set a single price of 90 euros, with no discounts or free admission. It announced a start “precisely” at 9 p.m. The site opened at noon and was due to close at 1 a.m. The organizer even recommended arriving early because of the expected crowd. It warned that no one would be allowed in after 10 p.m.
This very specific framework explains the extent of the disappointment expressed by part of the audience. Fans had settled in several hours before the show to get closer to the stage. The delay therefore did not concern only the timing of a concert in the middle of a festival. It affected an independent date, sold and organized around a single artist.
From Thunderstorms To Jul’s Arrival Around 11:15 P.M.
The weather first upended the day’s schedule. In the late afternoon, rain and thunderstorms led the festival to let spectators leave. They were thus able to take shelter. People present were notably asked to return to their vehicles or move away from trees and structures. The measure was first and foremost a safety requirement.
DJ Bens then handled the opening set, with a start that was itself delayed by the weather conditions. On site, the festival announced that thunderstorms were affecting the headliner’s arrival. But no minute-by-minute schedule was made public. It remains therefore impossible to distinguish between securing the area, Jul’s transport, and the technical reset.
Ouest-France, on site, placed Jul’s arrival around 11:15 p.m. The outlet said his flight had been disrupted by thunderstorms. Other reports place it around 11:20 p.m. In both cases, the delay exceeded two hours compared with the advertised time.
From his first song, Jul acknowledged the wait imposed on the audience. He said: “Sorry for making you wait in the rain, but you didn’t come for nothing.” His apology confirms the delay, not its exact cause. The festival, production team, and artist’s team did not provide a shared explanation. Assigning the whole delay to any one of them would therefore be premature.
Sound Outages During The First Tracks
Taking the stage did not put an end to the problems. The first tracks were interrupted or degraded by sound dropouts and microphone issues. Jul called out to the sound booth to ask for an adjustment and had to continue some passages a cappella. The incidents were therefore audible to the audience and visible in several clips filmed at the foot of the stage.
A Courrier de l’Ouest report published Tuesday afternoon adds an important limit to the story of a completely failed concert. It describes near-systematic interruptions during the first five songs, then a problem fixed around 11:45 p.m. The performance was then able to continue well past midnight, before the fireworks that closed the 2026 edition.
This timeline does not erase either the delay or the rough start. It does show, however, that the evening cannot be reduced to its first minutes. Some spectators left the site quickly, including families constrained by the late hour. Others stayed and praised the atmosphere once the setup had stabilized. Testimonies collected the day after the concert thus describe opposite experiences, rather than a uniform reaction from the crowd.
The claim that the entire performance was lip-synced, repeated in several publications, remains insufficiently supported. The presence of backing tracks, autotune, and a cappella passages is not enough to technically describe the performance as a whole. No report from the sound provider or the production team has yet established the source of the failures.
Strong Attendance, But Still No Official Figure
The audience numbered in the tens of thousands, but the available estimates do not match. A first Courrier de l’Ouest report put the figure at at least 30,000 people. A later publication from the same group settled on 35,000 spectators. Oxygène Radio, for its part, mentioned nearly 40,000 attendees.
These figures give an order of magnitude, not a final capacity count. The organizer had not released its own tally for this fifth evening by the afternoon of August 25. A few boos, departures, or online comments therefore do not suffice to measure dissatisfaction. Much less to extend it to everyone present.
The exact length of the show also varies depending on the account. On-the-ground sources agree on a performance lasting more than an hour and a half. Some, however, put it at more than two hours. Since the ending time was not made official, caution is needed here as well.
Ticket Price Raises The Stakes For Communication
At 90 euros a ticket, this evening carried a promise that went beyond Jul’s presence alone. The price, the announced time, and the “XXL” label built expectations of an exceptional show. The ticket was separate from the usual passes. Information given to the public during the two-hour delay therefore became all the more sensitive.
Festivalgoers questioned locally say they received little detail about the actual start time. One message, however, attributed the delay to thunderstorms. That criticism still needs to be checked against the full list of messages sent out by the organizer. It would include audio announcements, notifications, social posts, or communications sent to buyers.
By the afternoon of August 25, no specific commercial measure or refund policy had been publicly announced. The delay, even a significant one, does not by itself imply compensation. That would depend in particular on the terms of sale and the category assigned to the disruption.
Three Causes Not To Confuse
The available facts outline three separate sequences. The first concerns public safety in the face of the thunderstorm. The second concerns Jul’s travel and the time he actually reached the site. The third concerns the sound problems that appeared after he went on stage.
Their sequence does not prove they had a single cause. An official timeline, a technical incident report, and transport times would make it possible to assign responsibility. These were still missing on Tuesday afternoon, as were a definitive attendance count and a detailed position from Jul’s entourage.
The provisional assessment is therefore more nuanced than the harshest descriptions circulating online. The more-than-two-hour delay and the technical problems at the Jul concert are established. So is the return of sound and the continuation of the show. Yet a date billed as exceptional still piled up these incidents. What remains is to see what explanations the organizers and production will give the audience.