The festival takes its name from a Rimbaud poem — the poet was born in Charleville-Mézières and spent much of his short life trying to leave it — and combines music with comics, street art and a food programme, on a site beside the Meuse. It has a strong environmental record, with long-running work on waste, transport and local sourcing that is audited rather than asserted.
The organiser estimated around 100,000 spectators across the 2025 edition.
The Ardennes are not on the usual festival circuit, and that is part of the appeal: the event functions as the cultural year for a region with few others, and the town turns out for it.
It falls in the second half of August, near the end of the season. Charleville-Mézières is two hours from Paris by train; the campsite is the default, and Reims is ninety minutes away for anyone wanting a hotel.
PlanningSeasonal window in late August, one of the last of the French season.