A test report from the Linz Control Office criticizes the Brucknerhaus. For example, there are no regulations for the allocation of free tickets, a proliferation of subscription offers with sharply declining numbers of subscribers and increased representation expenses. There are also complaints that the artistic director’s secondary activities are not subject to any restrictions and that the commercial director is only employed 15 hours a week.
The chairman of the control committee, in which the report was discussed on Monday, NEOS parliamentary group leader Georg Redlhammer, sees a need for action. Too many staff are being hired, the strategy has not been adapted to changes in audience behavior, and there is no medium-term budget planning. A strategic concept is also missing for the TipsArena. According to Redlhammer, he expects that the 35 recommendations for action listed in the report, which “almost exclusively affect the Brucknerhaus and the LIVA management”, will be processed “in a year”.
The audit report from the control office covers the period from 2017 to 2022 and the event venues of the LIVA (Linzer Veranstaltungsgesellschaft) – Brucknerhaus, Posthof, Kinder Kulturzentrum Kuddelmuddel, TipsArena, Linzer Stadion (until 2019) – as well as the Lissfeld, Auwiesen and Pichling sports parks. The operating result of the LIVA deteriorated by 15 percent to minus 14.7 million euros in the observation period, which, in addition to the Corona-related audience decline, mainly the costs for the orchestra contract (2022: 712,000 euros) and “insufficient countermeasures to the revenue and expense development “is owed, so Redlhammer.
City Councilor for Culture Doris Lang-Mayerhofer (ÖVP) is now insisting on the full-time position of the commercial director. You have to take the criticism seriously. “The number of subscriptions is declining, which is unfortunately a development owed to the times. That’s why you have to come up with something to attract viewers to the Brucknerhaus,” she called for “publicity-effective formats”. For Ursula Roschger, control spokeswoman for the Linz Greens, the report “is of course to be taken seriously. At the same time, the city must also consider a long-term strategy for maintaining the institutionalized culture and leisure program of the LIVA,” she demands.
In the SPÖ, on the other hand, one cannot understand the criticism: parliamentary group leader Stefan Giegler has the impression “that the control office lacks cultural-political access to this report”. Cultural and sports facilities are “by nature subsidy operations”, otherwise moderate pricing of the tickets would not be possible. The control office also completely ignores “the fact that the exit from the music theater contract has led to savings of around seven million euros for the city of Linz, but on the other hand the Brucknerhaus has to cope with losses of around 500,000 euros”. Of course it makes sense to question the range of offers and to analyze the decline in subscriptions, “but cost neutrality will not become a goal of social democratic cultural policy,” Giegler emphasized.
LIVA makes a similar argument: A “balanced revenue-expenditure ratio” could only be achieved with a sharp increase in ticket prices. As a non-profit organization, you have a cultural mission to fulfill. Since the expenses are “generally higher than a socially acceptable ticket price structure can bring in. Every opera, theater or concert ticket is therefore subsidized, as well as every visit to the museum, even every bath,” says the artistic director Dietmar Kerschbaum and the commercial Rainer Stadler. They also point out that the millions saved by the termination of the theater contract with the state, which became effective in 2020, were not taken into account, nor was the loss of the stadium, which is now operated by LASK. The declining number of subscriptions was partly compensated by increased free sales.
2023-07-03 17:30:15
#Linz #control #office #criticism #Brucknerhaus
