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How much of your country's budget goes to the arts?

5K views 15 replies 13 participants last post by  TudorMihai 
#1 ·
Just out of curiosity, how much money or what percentage of the budget does your country out towards the arts? What is the funding like for classical music in particular? The Australian government is pretty stingy when it comes to the arts and in the past, supporting classical music has even been looked down upon. When the famous Sydney Opera House was being built one politician (I think it was a politician, it probably was) said something along the lines of "Why do we need an opera house? Opera is only for poofters and Jews!"

I don't know about how much money goes to the arts exactly in Australia, but I'll check and post it soon.....
 
#2 ·
COAG, which state in OZ has the least funding would be interesting- Tasmania, Northern Territory, Queensland or even Victoria! Could be similar in the US which state has the lowest per capita funding for the arts Iowa, Texas, New Mexico?

I note that Germany's public arts funding, allows for 23 times more full-time symphony orchestras per capita than the United States.. now there is a stat.
 
#3 ·
I note that Germany's public arts funding, allows for 23 times more full-time symphony orchestras per capita than the United States.. now there is a stat.
In Germany, funding for culture is around 0,8%. This includes libraries and museums. Theatre and music is around 0,3%. That's still around 3 billion Euros. I understand that without subsidies, tickets for concerts would have cost three to four times as much.
 
#5 · (Edited)
Have a look at

Australia Council for the Arts

Not a lot of Music - are they still funding the Melba label?

The UK Arts Council has a similarly impenetrable site.

Interestingly, I wonder how much of this gets "misused" by intelligent organisations. I remember in the 1980s hearing of a folk band which ran regular local concerts. They would approach local organisations with a proposal and get a guarantee from the Arts Council so that if the show failed to make a profit, the organisers would not suffer a loss. They inflated their charges and made a useful living out of this which funded their appearance at genuine folk events which could not afford big money or get guarantees. You can see that people have caught up on this when you look at this quote :

The Australia Council considers the remuneration of artists to be integral to effective budgeting and planning, and requires information on artists' remuneration in appropriate funding applications.
There's a nice blog here comparing US and European arts funding models.
 
#8 ·
See An Chomhairle Ealaíon for details.

Music Commisioning

Opera Funding 2014 over 1 million euros - but half of that is going on "Nixon in China"

In 2013 An Chomhairle Ealaíonil awarded a total of €8,296,810.00 to 34 organisations.

Festivals and Events this includes some non-classical music and ceol traidisiúnta na hÉireann.

Why oh why do they make it so difficult to find out the simplest thing?

Putting it another way, what are they trying to hide?

Still this is one of the easier websites to drive.
 
#9 · (Edited)
There's a report by the Canada Council for the Arts that lists per capita public arts spending. The table below comes from that report. The spending numbers are in pounds. (Sorry for the table formatting - I can't get it to look reasonable)

Country/ spending / % of GDP
Finland 59.2 .47
Germany 56.5 .36
France 37.8 .26
Sweden 37.5 .29
Netherlands 30.3 .21
Canada 29.9 .21
UK 16.6 .14
Australia 16.4 .14
Ireland 5.6 .07
US 3.8 .02

I'm not surprised that Scandinavian countries spend more than most. The one strange fact that jumps out at me is that countries that speak English do not fund the arts as well as others.
 
#10 · (Edited)
CountryPer Capita spending £% of GDP
Finland59.20.47
Germany56.50.36
France37.80.26
Sweden37.50.29
Netherlands30.30.21
Canada29.90.21
UK16.60.14
Australia16.40.14
Ireland5.60.07
US3.80.02

Thanks for the table. I've reformatted it.

(The trick for anybody else is to switch to the wysiwyg editor and paste it in from word or similar. I replaced the spaces with tabs and made it into a word table and could then paste over directly.)
 
#12 ·
#16 · (Edited)
In Romania, the Ministry of Culture (which includes the arts) received a budget of approximately 128.5 million euros for 2013, 4.73% less than in 2012. The government supplied a budget of approx. 8.7 million euros for organizing the 2013 edition of the George Enescu Festival (ever since the first edition the Government of Romania has been the principal partner and sponsor of the Festival).

Moreover, the current prime-minister of Romania says (or should I say promised) that there will be enough funds to hold the Festival in 2014 (the Festival is currently held once every two years). That remains to be seen.
 
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