Solidays at the Hippodrome de Longchamp is not just a music festival. It was created in 1999 to raise funds for the fight against AIDS and has expanded into one of the larger summer music events in Paris while maintaining its humanitarian identity. The Association Village at the center of the festival grounds hosts hundreds of non-profit organizations and is as much a part of the Solidays experience as the music stages.

I spent significant time in the Association Village during my two days at the festival. The range of organizations represented was striking: organizations working on AIDS prevention alongside groups focused on climate, social justice, refugee support, and mental health. The model of embedding social causes within a music festival creates a context for conversations that would be difficult to have in other environments.

The Color Party at Solidays is a separate experience that deserves its own description. At a specific time during the festival, a section of the crowd gathers for a mass color-powder event. The buildup, the countdown, and the simultaneous release of color in every direction creates the most purely joyful atmosphere I documented during my time there. The video of that moment is two minutes long and captures something that longer documentation could not.

The musical coverage I attended included an exclusive live performance by Anita, who delivered a set that confirmed her place as one of the more distinctive voices in French pop. The intimacy of a festival stage for an artist at her level of recognition created a performance environment that larger venues cannot offer.

Solidays exists in a specific category: a festival where you can have a conversation with a non-profit about their work, watch live music from artists you might not have sought out independently, and participate in a collective color explosion. That combination does not exist in quite the same form anywhere else in Paris.