Figures don't lie: Dutch venues are doing badly

It must have been down to my indestructible mood, and the deep need to finally deliver some good news about the cultural sector, but I was so wrong. Tuesday I reported that the performing arts were recovering after Halbe Zijlstra's draconian cuts, but that is so not the case. As much as the sector itself would like it to do well, the figures contradict it time and again.

Surely the Association of Theatre and Concert Hall Directors has taken us all for a ride again. With a real infographic still do. But, as it goes with infographics: you can put in all the bright colours and shouts, and even shout 'Bravo!' and 'Applause!'at the bottom, the numbers themselves don't lie, even if you present them slightly differently than last year. Of course, that makes comparison difficult, and who is really going to look at the detail figures.

Well. So I did. And what turns out? Pretty much everything is diminishing. But it's just how you look at it. The secret is in the percentages. As always. We walk through the press release step by step.

1 "the number of visits per performance increased by 13%."

True, but that would mean an average increase of 23 seats per show. But 23 more heads in the auditorium does not sound as good as 13 per cent. Worse, the number of performances fell by a fat 6 per cent. 1826 fewer performances, to be precise. Logical too, as the number of theatres and concert halls in the Netherlands affiliated to the VSCD fell from 139 in 2014 to 123 in 2015: 16 concert halls and theatres have collapsed, gone bankrupt, or were unable or unwilling to pay dues.

2: Total visits to professional performing arts were 10.4 million

As many as in 2014, but then there were a lot more venues and performances we were talking about. So the audience has remained the same, but they can go somewhere less and less often. So the remaining halls are slightly fuller. Moreover, the masters at the VSCD also count amateurs among the professional performing arts. In the figures, at least, they do not make the separation.

That the VSCD thus notes that member theatres are doing well despite the subsidy cut is true, but they forget to mention that there are almost 10% of theatres have been toppled due to the subsidy cuts.

3 "In 2015, a VSCD stage attracted an average of 88,501 visitors; in 2014 there were 78,351. The number of programmed performances and concerts increased by almost 7%, from 224 to 239 performances per VSCD stage."

So pay particular attention to the word 'VSCD stage' here. Of which a lot are gone. Especially the smaller theatres were struggling, so. And there aren't any anymore. Hence, there are more people in the auditorium on average, when there are almost no more small theatres.

4: The infographic states that more people have started working flexibly.

It appears not true. There are more than 1,000 permanent jobs lost between 2014 and 2015. There, only 6 flexible workers replaced it. The percentage may have gone up slightly, but in absolute numbers we see a completely collapsed labour market.

We have VSCD's own figures, as depicted in their infographics, in the overview below, so you can check for yourself whether things are going well, or badly. And if, when the House of Representatives debates later, it declares that the cuts were good, at least you will know how things really were. You can then see that theatre and cabaret are doing very badly. And that dance, opera and the amateurs are in the broom wagon. These figures show, in short, not a healthy sector, but one that is quite rotten.