Since 26 January, the doors of the cultural and creative sector have been open again, but with conditions. There are still strict restrictions on the number of people in a venue and a mandatory closing time at 10pm. Therefore, on top of the previous support of €195.1 million for the period from 12 November, the government is allocating an additional €56.5 million for specific support to the sector for the period 1 February to 8 March. This brings the total amount available for this fifth aid package to €251.6 million.
Culture and Media State Secretary Gunay Uslu: "The corona crisis continues to hit the cultural and creative sector hard. Therefore, besides support for subsidised institutions, there is also extra support for self-employed people. This is badly needed to retain their knowledge and skills for the sector. In the funds, we extend various subsidy schemes for makers. There is also support for freelancers, makers and technicians in the part of the performing arts sector that is not subsidised by the state through the compensation scheme at the Performing Arts Fund."
Support for creators
Much of this support package is aimed at supporting creators, artists and other cultural professionals.
- €15 million runs through the six state culture funds. This allows the funds to continue schemes with direct support for creators. These include schemes for working budgets, grants and support for experimental research.
- €10 million for the Rights Sector Support Fund. The aim of this fund is to financially support creators and performers across the creative and cultural sector. Through previous rounds, this fund managed to reach thousands of creators.
- €3.5 million for the Abraham Tuschinski Fund to support the production of Dutch cinema films. This private fund is filled by Dutch cinemas, film theatres and film distributors who make a contribution per ticket sold.
- €1.5 million to the Royal Library to meet the high demand for ebooks. The amount is earmarked for authors, translators, illustrators and publishers because of the extra loans of their works.
- €122.5 million for compensation schemes at the Performing Arts Fund.
Producers of professional live performances and concerts are compensated for income lost from ticket sales through a scheme with the Performing Arts Fund. Under this, up to 85% of tickets from these activities will be bought up, including in case of cancellations. For the compensation schemes, the fund has a total of €122.5 million available until 8 March 2022. Of this, €111.5 million comes from the new aid packages and there is €11 million still available from an earlier package. For the period 28 November to 31 January, the scheme's application window will open shortly. For the period from 1 February to 8 March, the Performing Arts Fund will draw up a new replenishment scheme and communicate about it in the short term.
Fifth cultural and creative sector support package
The total available €251.6 million in a row:
- €76.5 million for institutions in the basic infrastructure, institutions that receive grants through the Heritage Act and institutions with multi-year grants from the state culture funds.
- €30 million to extend direct support to makers.
- €8.6 million for a scheme through the Mondrian Fund to support museums.
- A total of €111.5 million for supplementary schemes to support restrictive measures in theatres, (pop) venues and concert halls at the Performing Arts Fund.
- €25 million for the continuation of the loan with Culture+Enterprise with a maturity until the end of the second quarter of 2022.
- Maintaining budget extension of National Restoration Fund's open monument loan until the end of the second quarter of 2022.
In total, more than €1.8 billion of specific support for the cultural and creative sector has been made available since the beginning of the corona crisis, in addition to the generic support packages.
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