Stage grant award: €26.8 million for programming and audience connection

Fonds Podiumkunsten awards a total of €26.8 million in grants to 136 venues for the period 2025-2029. With the podium scheme, the Fund supports the presentation of professional performing arts offerings across the country. The production grant enables 51 venues to (co)produce and invest in talent development.  

Stages in the Netherlands and the Caribbean part of the Kingdom

From 1 July 2025, the venues receiving a Fund contribution will reach audiences throughout the country and in the Caribbean part of the Kingdom with their programming. From Kampen to Goes and from Ede to Oranjestad (Aruba), venues will be able to get started with their programming and activities for their surroundings with the Fund's contribution.  

"Stages play an indispensable role in connecting professional performing arts with an audience. A well-spread network of venues is essential in this respect. In addition, venues contribute to the artistic development of performing artists by providing a stage for artists and companies. What the awarded stages have in common is a clear artistic identity and a good understanding of their audience," said Viktorien van Hulst, director Fonds Podiumkunsten. 

Diversity of venues

To apply, venues had to have professional programming of a reasonable size. The venues honoured differ widely: some are niche venues that focus on one genre, such as jazz or pop music. Other venues have a broader offer and programme both dance and theatre in different venues. Together, the venues offer a wide range of offerings for different audiences. 

€26.8 million for 136 venues

The fund grant supports the awarded venues for four seasons to realise their plans. To maintain the number of awards and geographical spread and diversity, we added an additional €3.9 million to the budget for the performing arts scheme by the end of 2024. This will allow us to support 134 venues with their programming, similar to two years ago when the scheme was first implemented.

In addition, 51 venues (also) receive a production contribution for (co)producing, collaborating with local makers or supporting regional talent. This strengthens the local/regional production and development climate for makers. In 2023-2024, the Fund made this contribution available for the first time. To continue this in 2025, we shifted 1.5 million euros per year from the budget for multiannual production grants.

Awards

• Number of venues only programming contribution: 85
• Number of venues programming contribution and production contribution: 49
• Number of venues only production contribution: 2
• Total number of awards: 136

Healthy chain and fair pay

The Fund wants to contribute to a healthy sector with good working conditions for all. A precondition for a healthy chain is the possibility for bands, artists, companies and ensembles to realise tours. With the programming grant, venues can make this possible and make good financial arrangements with companies, artists and creators. The Fund expects stages to take increasing responsibility for fair remuneration. Even if this has consequences for the scope of programming. To stimulate this movement, the Fund adds fair pay resources to the performing arts scheme. With these additional funds from the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (OCW), we are increasing programming grants in over 1.5 million a year. 

About the scheme and the assessment process

The budget for the programming contribution was divided among six country parts: North, East, Central, South, West and the Caribbean part of the Kingdom. The assessment also took place at the national level, with a committee of three advisers with specific expertise of the local/regional context and two advisers who brought in the national perspective. All applications were assessed on artistic position, public function and embedding.  

For the awarding of production grants, each national district committee could nominate stages, based on the extent to which a stage's plans are significant for the development of a local creative culture and building an audience in its own area with appropriate offerings.