They couldn't have picked it better, over there in Groningen. Because who do you call, when an overambitious theatre director has just opened the coffers of the once illustrious Grand Theatre bluffed empty, a Supervisory board napped and then laid off 22 people because they ran out of money? Then you look for someone who has experience of that. Preferably someone who lost a million or so as a director and supervisor, who unfortunately had to let 12 people go as a result, and who then started for himself.
In short: enter superman, the perfect man for the job: Leo Pot.
We hold Leo in high regard because he is a master when it comes to numbers and investments. He also knows all about the Cultural governance code. That as a director you don't examine your own performance, and that independent is really independent. For example. So anyone who thought that average ING banker could dick you all silly: he was apprenticed to Leo Pot.
In short, we are confident that the performing arts sector in Groningen will be like reborn after eight weeks. Someone will be blamed for everything, and there will be another attempt to remove the data from Google.
Why we are so positive? Read Pots bio here:
In the year Culture Press was founded, there was an affair surrounding the Theatre Coupon. The paper precursor of today's PoKaDoKa was in need of renewal. The Bureau Promotie Podiumkunsten was supposed to work on that. The Bureau Promotie Podiumkunsten had been set up by the VSCD, the association of theatre and concert hall directors. Only not directly, because an association with an agency, that was difficult. So the association had set up the Stichting ter Promotie van Theater- en Concertbezoek (Foundation for the Promotion of Theatre and Concert Tours), with largely the same people on the board and in the organisation.
The main source of income for that foundation was the so-called 'release' of theatre vouchers. That release is determined by the number of theatre vouchers that are sold but not redeemed. With the book voucher, this release is quite high: between 20 and 25 per cent. With the theatre voucher, it was assumed that the release would be equally high. Thus, a substantial savings account had already been created from the theatre vouchers sold, and a Performing Arts Promotion Office could be set up, employing 13 people.
19 October 2009, it became clear that something was not quite right with the Bureau Promotie Podiumkunsten. There was a row between the director of the VSCD ánd director of the SPTC, the Groningen Hans Onno van den Berg (direct colleague and friend of SPTC director Leo Pot) and Yolande Melsert, then director of BPP, now director of the Dutch Association of Performing Arts. The issue was that money was missing, and Melsert wanted to expose that, but we did not know that on that day. The story is described here: https://cultureelpersbureau.nl//2009/10/machiavelli-blijkt-springlevend-in-theaterland/
The personal feud between Van den Berg and Melsert degenerates. Emails pop up, talks are held. Trouble remains that the boards of the VSCD (the theatre directors) and the SPTC (the theatre voucher) are in the same room with Leo Pot: https://cultureelpersbureau.nl//2009/10/update-vscd-eist-verwijdering-geluidsopname-martijn-sanders-over-theatermarketing-rel-je-gaat-geen-mensen-ontslaan-waar-je-achter-staat/
And so the director of the BPP fell: https://cultureelpersbureau.nl//2009/10/de-kogel-is-door-de-kerk-en-vooralsnog-figuurlijk-door-het-hoofd-van-bureau-promotie-podiumkunsten/
But so that was all because Pot's club had been a little too cheerful with money. Something to do with Iceland and banks and dried-up balances. And we are not talking about the few tonnes the Grand lost, but many millions: https://cultureelpersbureau.nl//2009/10/henk-kraima-cpnb-over-affaire-theaterbon-we-zijn-de-prullenbak-in-gesodehannest/
After which a cesspool is opened. So it would be about money. A lot of money. And a code not used. Something our Groningen Saviour so thought his way: https://cultureelpersbureau.nl//2009/11/theaterbonnensoap-gaat-nieuwe-fase-in-met-dossiers-op-straat-en-vermoedens-van-openlijke-belangenverstrengeling/
Then there was radio silence. Over three-and-a-half years. Until August 2013. Then, while tout Amsterdam was at De Parade or in Thailand, a small press release announced that the Bureau Promotie Podiumkunsten was bankrupt. That woke up this sleeping dog. https://cultureelpersbureau.nl//2013/08/bureau-promotie-podiumkunsten-kaputt/
At the time, Leo Pot was still director of the two foundations that had to control each other: the SPTC and the VSCD. It led to a game of arithmetic with the Saviour of Groningen. Leo Pot is obviously much better at maths than we are: https://cultureelpersbureau.nl//2013/08/personeel-bureau-promotie-podiumkunsten-geofferd-om-beleggingsfout-te-maskeren/
One of the things you can perform with is to stop funding a theatre ticket club because you have run out of money, and then blame someone else for that. Perfectly justified, of course. 'The Hope of the North' is a master at that too: https://cultureelpersbureau.nl//2013/08/bureau-promotie-podiumkunsten-kaputt-3-een-lijk-van-anderhalf-miljoen-in-de-kast/
Enfin. Then you find yourself as a journalist with a head full of arithmetic. Or as a Supervisory Board. According to the Hero of the Wadden Sea, Culture Press' handling of the case was tendentious and full of innuendo. We leave it to the Groningers to think theirs: https://cultureelpersbureau.nl//2013/08/bpp-kaputt-5-wat-is-nou-precies-een-lijk-in-de-kast-of-is-4-miljoen-genoeg/
But kóp that pokadoka.
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