The seventh Nuits Sonores electronic music festival will take place right at the heart of Lyon from May 20 through 24, 2009. 

Considered a major European event of its kind, Nuits Sonores is a strictly urban festival dedicated to electronic and independent culture, current and future trends in electronic sound, independent and innovative styles and digital culture. Nearly 1,500 artists have appeared in this event's first six years, with heavy involvement from local and regional DJs, performing alongside international artists and professionals, attracting nearly 55,000 festival-goers in 2008.

Like every year, the festival will take over some forty iconic venues in the city, including the Marché Gare, the Palais de la Bourse, the Fine Arts Museum, a reinvented and redesigned Rhône Pool and, of course, the squares, streets, clubs and concert halls of Lyon. A major new venue will be inaugurated this year: the Marché Gare at the tip of the Confluent. At this former wholesale marketplace, closed since December 31st last year, Nuits Sonores will set up four stages, including one outdoors. 

For this seventh event, Nuits Sonores will run on English time. After Berlin last year, the city honored in 2009 is London, which has always been the world capital of rock, pop and independent music and an indisputable stronghold for electronic culture. By giving the English capital its annual carte blanche, Nuits Sonores will offer festival-goers from Lyon and elsewhere in France and Europe a festival of London culture in all its glorious diversity. A festival within the festival, which, once more, will tell the great musical tale of a city through a multitude of little stories and encounters.

GRAND OPENING NIGHT / Wednesday 20 May 2009 /
Piscine du Rhône - 8, Quai Claude Bernard, Lyon 7th district 

LES NUITS / Wednesday 20, Friday 22 and Saturday 23 May 2009
Marché Gare - Rue Vuillerme, Lyon 2e

The three fee-charging Nuits Sonores events will paint a "panorama of electronic and independent music", which is what the festival is all about. Goal: presenting the most innovative local, national and international artists, representative of culture that is festive, aesthetic and groundbreaking. Every night, four stages are open to the public from 9:30pm to 6am.

Detailed Nuits Sonores Program +

Photo credits: http://www.b-rob.com/