I have filed the name RandOpéra with the INPI, the French national industrial property office. Here is where the concept came from, why I took that step, and what it changes, or does not change, for the people who come walking with me.
The idea was not born in the Jura. It was born in 2025, in the calanques of Marseille, on a hike with friends. Cécile Houillon, my childhood friend, a soprano, had asked me to guide her through the wild part of the massif, the Côte Bleue side. We reached the grotte Émeraude, and standing in that acoustic I suggested something simple to her. Let your voice ring out.
She began an Ave Maria. The singing filled the cave and then spread out across the whole massif. Beyond the feeling of the moment, what I had not anticipated was what happened around us. Walkers converged from every direction, wondering whether they were hearing a recording played through an implausibly powerful loudspeaker, or an angel that had just spoken. Nobody was looking for a singer in walking boots at the back of a cave.
We did not spend the rest of the hike talking about anything else. How to do that again, where, with whom, between the calanques and the Jura where I live and where I guide. The name arrived straight afterwards, in one piece. Randonnée, opéra, RandOpéra.
It then took a whole year to turn it into an outing that actually held together. Finding the Jura valleys where a voice carries without amplification, the way the cave had carried it. Working out where in the walk to place the singing, not too early when the legs are still cold, not too late when the head has already come back down. Persuading artists to climb up with their scores and sing in front of people in walking boots. Today the word is filed, and I want to explain why.
What exactly I have filed
RandOpéra is filed as a marque verbale, a word mark. It is the word itself that is protected, whatever way it is written or drawn. The filing covers two classes. Class 41, which brings together cultural, sporting and entertainment activities, in other words the outing and the musical moment. And class 39, which covers the organisation of excursions, in other words the business of taking you somewhere. The two go together, because a RandOpéra is neither a concert nor a hike. It is both, in the same movement.
One point of honesty while I am here. A dépôt, a filing, is not yet an enregistrement, a registration. The INPI publishes the application, allows a period during which a third party can oppose it, then registers the mark if nobody comes forward. That is the stage I am at. I would rather write marque déposée, meaning the name has been filed, than display a symbol I have not yet earned.
Why protect the format of an outing
The first reason is simple, almost silly. I built this format on my own, with my own means, and I did not fancy finding it one day three valleys away, under the same name, with nothing I could say about it. A filed name changes everything in that situation. Without one, all you have to put up against it is your good faith, and good faith does not weigh much.
The second reason comes from companies. When a management team is looking for an outing for its staff, it compares proposals that all look alike. A format carrying a filed name stops being one service among others. It becomes something identifiable, that exists in one place only, with someone behind it. It sounds like nothing and it changes the conversation.
The third reason is the most down to earth. A filed name is an asset. It has a value, it can be passed on, it could be licensed if another Mountain Leader wants to organise RandOpéra outings elsewhere, within a framework I would define. Without a filing, on that day, there is nothing to pass on.
What the filing does not protect
I may as well be clear about the scope. Filing RandOpéra stops nobody from organising a hike followed by a musical moment. The idea of pairing walking and singing does not belong to me, and thank goodness for that. What is protected is the name, in the field where I use it. Someone could have a tenor singing on the summit of the Reculet tomorrow morning. They simply could not call it a RandOpéra.
That distinction suits me perfectly. I have no wish to stop other people doing beautiful things outdoors. I want the word to stay attached to what I do with it.
What it changes for you
Nothing, and that is exactly right. The outing stays the same. We climb steadily, we talk as we walk, the artist’s identity stays secret until the moment the voice starts, and nobody knows in advance what is going to happen in that valley. The first RandOpéra, a year after the cave, brought together twenty or so walkers over fourteen kilometres and five hundred metres of ascent, and I did not see a single indifferent face when the first note landed.
The only difference is that the name you say when you talk about it to people around you now refers to something precise, with an origin, an address and someone answerable for it.
You will find the formats, the prices and the spirit of the outing on the RandOpéra page. And if you are still wondering whether opera is for you, start with that question, it sorts itself out in five minutes.
On the same theme
- Do you have to love opera for a RandOpéra?
- The RandOpéra, a concert in the open air
- Classic hike or RandOpéra?
- Give a RandOpéra as a gift
Fancy living a RandOpéra?
Join the RandOpéra WhatsApp group to hear about the next dates, or write to me if you would like to organise one for your group or your company.