Bureau Promotie Podiumkunsten kaputt (2): how 3 per cent turned into 3 x 33 per cent

The Performing Arts Promotion Office which will be disbanded from 1 October, has not fallen victim to cultural cuts or the economic crisis. The Stichting Promotie Theater- en Concertbezoek (SPTC), the BPP's backer, has turned off the money tap for other, unclear reasons. Staff must leave, but the Office's duties will be taken over by the Foundation. According to the website Theatre newspaper.co.uk the staff the Foundation needs for this purpose is recruited through open applications. The method followed is used more often to resolve discord in an organisation. Indeed, in 2009 same method used to get rid of the then chief executive.

It is again a blot on the record of Dutch Theatre Directors. The Vereniging van Schouwburg- en Concertgebouw Directies VSCD set up the SPTC, which in turn placed the management and issuing of the Theatre and Concertbon, now known as the 'Podiumcadeaukaart', with the Bureau Promotie Podiumkunsten. Such a gift card and such an agency bums itself out because some of the tickets sold are always not cashed in. That 'freefall' was on 20% for years, as is the case with the book voucher, according to the theatre newspaper article. In recent years, after the introduction of the electronic card, that release apparently dropped to 17%.

And now it gets exciting.

That 3% drop prompted the SPTC to reduce the contribution to the BPP by about 30% every year. Indeed, in 2012, the contribution dropped from 1.2 million to 8 tonnes, this year it went down by another such amount, and in 2014 there would be no payment at all.

So this cannot come from that falling 'freefall'. When in our own archives looking at it, it seems more to do with a free fall of something else: the invested assets of the SPTC. Indeed, that SPTC was the first to evaporate its invested assets during the penultimate economic crisis. 2 million they lost to investments, and even though they managed to scrape back just under a million from it, they apparently did not come out completely on top.

As in 2009, some of the BPP staff will have seen that mess. They just could not turn to anyone, as the president of the association happens to be same person as the director of the foundation that should control that chairman.

That doesn't complain nicely.

Or: it may complain nicely, but the result is that you are then thrown out on the street. And when the smoke clears, we will know who has been accepted back into the service of the SPTC in grace, and who has been killed, for lack of loyalty.