Weimar (dpa/th) – The course has been set for a larger annual budget for the Weimar Art Festival. According to a resolution by the Weimar City Council, the festival for contemporary art could receive a total of 200,000 euros more from the state and the city of Weimar as the main sponsor from 2025, said festival director Rolf C. Hemke.
Hemke had recently repeatedly emphasized that the festival had to make do with an annual budget of 900,000 euros for years and that an increase was urgently needed in view of cost developments. A lot of things were recently only possible with third-party funding.
Crucial point: budget
The Weimar city council agreed on Wednesday evening to increase the subsidy by 55,600 to 305,600 euros – provided that the budget planning allows it.
The increase in city funding is in turn the condition for more money from the state: Thuringia is promising to increase its contribution to the festival by around 145,000 euros to around 749,000 euros. However, the state chancellery said that the country was subject to budget restrictions. The 2024 budget, in which the funding increase is provided in the form of a commitment authorization, has not yet been passed and is currently a major controversial issue in the state parliament.
More than 40,000 guests this year
The Weimar Art Festival is considered the most important festival for contemporary art in Thuringia. The cross-disciplinary program attracted around 41,000 people this year.
According to Hemke’s earlier statements, actions in public spaces such as the “Steinmal” by the artist Günther Uecker in particular proved to be a crowd puller. The “Stone Monument” on Theaterplatz in memory of the victims of the National Socialist Buchenwald concentration camp attracted around 20,500 people. Around 8,100 tickets were sold for the paid events of the 160 or so events, which corresponds to the best results before the corona pandemic.
© dpa-infocom, dpa:231208-99-224799/2
2023-12-08 19:05:07
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