Comic Strip Festival cancelled amid Visit.brussels funding cuts
This year’s Comic Strip Festival in Brussels has been cancelled due to budget cuts imposed on Visit.brussels, the agency responsible for promoting the city’s culture and tourism. The event was due to take place in September at Tour & Taxis.
“The region is cutting our funding by 5.7 million euros in 2026, out of a total grant budget of 22 million euros,” Visit.brussels CEO Patrick Bontinck told Le Soir. “This forces us to cancel the BD Comic Strip Festival, scale back the Iris Festival and freeze the promotion of all other events, with the exception of Pride.”
Brussels had been seeking to position itself as the European capital of comics, with the cancellation in January of the comic strip festival in Angoulème in France. In 2024, the region named comic strip culture as part of its intangible heritage.
“There was an opportunity to fill the gap after the cancellation of the Angoulême Festival, and now we’re being made to look like fools, incapable of organising the comic book festival that we ourselves created,” Vincent Tutino, a member of the works council and head of human resources at Visit.brussels, told Le Soir.
The government is planning to further cut the agency's funding to 8 million euros by 2029. More than 2,000 people have signed a petition against the cuts, with staff demonstrating near the regional parliament last week. At least 90 out of 160 jobs are at risk and staff say the move will seriously undermine its ability to carry out its mission.
"We’re being made to look like fools, incapable of organising the comic book festival that we ourselves created""
“We’re told it’s up to us to reinvent ourselves, but that’s not realistic," Tutino said. "We also handle the promotion of conferences, trade shows and fairs, which generate significant economic benefits for the region. This is likely to have consequences for tourism and the hospitality sector.”
The Iris Festival, the official celebration of the Brussels region held each year in May, is expected to be reduced to a single concert rather than a full weekend programme of events, Le Soir reports.
The I Love Science festival, scheduled for October, has also been cancelled, Tutino confirmed on Tuesday. Other events could be affected by the budget cuts, such as Bright Brussels and eat! Brussels, which has already seen its format scaled back.
An extraordinary works council meeting is scheduled for Tuesday evening. “Years of work and relationships of trust with numerous partners” are “going up in smoke in a matter of days”, Tutino said.
Created to revitalise the science sector and raise awareness among young people about careers in science, I Love Science is aimed at primary and lower secondary school pupils.
More than 18,000 people took part in last year's event. Around 60 institutions, associations and universities offered workshops on topics such as technology, space, the environment and art.
© PHOTO VISIT.BRUSSELS JEAN-SIMON GERARD
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