A few days before the release of season 5 of the series Stranger Thingsseveral elected officials from the left and the center criticized “sponsorship disguised as patronage” of the Festival of Lights by the American entertainment giant.
“What if the Upside Down landed in the heart of the city?” A few days before the highly anticipated start of season 5 of Stranger Thingsthe Festival of Lights will host Place Sathonay (Lyon 1is), l’installation Stranger Lights dedicated to the universe of the series from December 5 to 8. A general public installation which is controversial between Rhône and Saône. Two political groups denounced “a partnership disguised as patronage” and one “hidden commercial collaboration” which would constitute a first for the annual Lyon event.
Nathalie Perrin-Gilbert, former culture assistant dismissed by Grégory Doucet, criticized “a direct promotion of a commercial brand” which falls under the “direct counterpart and not sponsorship”. In fact, the video platform spent a little more than 150,000 euros to become “light partner”, one of the highest ranks among patrons. The municipal candidate believes that it is indeed Netflix which imposed the creators of the work and not “an artistic signature” chosen by the Festival of Lights teams. Legally, Nathalie Perrin-Gilbert believes that the municipality is running a “financial risk” by passing off sponsorship as a partnership and indicates that it will report the deliberation to the prefecture for a compliance check.
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“I didn’t think this first would come from you”
Béatrice Gailliout, a centrist elected official close to former mayor Georges Képénékian, also criticized “a commercial collaboration”. “To be honest, I didn’t think that this first would come from you and even less so with an American company known for its daring commercial optimization”denounced the municipal councilor. From the start of the mandate, the environmentalist majority had adopted a patronage and sponsorship charter which provides, among other things, that the city can “refuse support from any legal entity which is not able to provide reasonable assurance of the regularity of its tax or social situation”. The municipality had therefore rejected TotalEnergies’ partnerships with the Lyon Museum of Fine Arts and the Opera.
For its part, the city, through its first deputy Audrey Hénocque, maintained that it was indeed a question of “of patronage and not of sponsorship”. “Netflix is one of the partners of the festival as Bandai was in 2017 for the work Pacman. Recently, no one was offended that Netflix was a partner of the Lumière Festival, which nevertheless highlighted Frankenstein or the series Asterix by Alain Chabat »concluded the elected environmentalist.
The work Stranger Lights is presented as “a portal that opens between worlds. The scenography transforms Place Sathonay into a place where reality and fiction merge, the opportunity to relive the iconic moments of the series between nostalgia and total immersion. This 2025 edition of the Festival of Lights will take place in a context of a sharp drop in the city’s allocation to the event’s budget. Its participation will decrease by 800,000 euros to reach 2.1 million. It will be partially offset by an increase of 400,000 euros in partnerships, for a total of 1.3 million euros. A total of 23 works will be visible compared to 32 last year.