The holding of the Avante! Festival is always, and this year in particular, an important political affirmation of the exercise of democratic rights and intervention in defence of the interests of workers and people.
At a time when, with public health prevention procedures, the range of activities essential for the enjoyment of life is resumed, naturally and legitimately, the campaign against the Avante! Festival continues, intending to stigmatize it, trying to impose exceptional limitations that are not in force in the various expressions of social and cultural life, and questioning the political rights that the Portuguese people achieved with the 25th of April.
The PCP will hold the Avante! Festival with all responsibility and fully guaranteeing the conditions for its enjoyment in tranquillity and security. To this effect, there are several measures already adopted and disseminated (on June 25th), be it the dispensation of sanitisation materials, the adequate functioning of restaurant areas or rules of physical distancing in the various activities (including the creation of audience attendants).
It is in view of the particular circumstances in which the Avante! Festival will take place that the PCP has decided to adopt additional protection and prevention measures, further expanding the security conditions guaranteed to its visitors.
Thus, the number of simultaneous attendance at the Festival will be ⅓ of the licensed capacity, ensuring that the 300 thousand m2 made available to visitors means that each one can enjoy an area greater than the one established for using the beaches and that, as a rule, it will be twice the one determined for similar spaces (in this case, outdoor space).
The Festival schedule will also change regarding the time limit for entry (and re-entry) to the Festival, which will be set at 24:00 on Friday and Saturday and at 22:00 on Sunday (instead, of 01:00 and 10:30 pm, respectively).
There will also be a set of procedures regarding circulation in and around the Festival area. In this case stand out, one-way circulation corridors, separation of entrance and exit channels, greater fluidity of access to public transport.
Features that will not only valorise the Festival area and its use, but will guarantee conditions to enjoy its diversified cultural and artistic programme, namely on the three main stages where the best of Portuguese music will be seen, at Cineavante! and at the Avanteatro this year held outdoors. Features that will coexist with the political debate, with books and records, with gastronomy and handicrafts.
The PCP stresses in particular the significance and political importance of the rally that will take place on Sunday afternoon. A moment that, along with others, should lead each one, Party militant or any other visitor, to mark with their presence at the Festival the democratic affirmation, the response to the campaign that aims to condition the activity of the PCP, the exercise of freedoms and the implementation of social and economic rights, the defence of the interests of workers and people, the struggle for a better life and for a fairer society.
And so, at the Avante! Festival, are gathered the conditions of protection and security equal or higher than those of activities and contexts that mark the rest of social life - from access to the beach to the attendance in the various shows and festivals already held or scheduled, even that of the mere circulation in many streets and squares of the country.
The enjoyment of life is today as always, alongside the adoption of all preventive measures in terms of public health and the pedagogy of that prevention, a factor not only in promoting physical and mental health but also in individual and collective well-being. This is the path that the Avante! Festival points out. This is the path that the country needs.
