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Bonfire of the government arts funding

Cloo

Cloo

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From the government that brought you 'Wokeness is a threat to Are Kultcha', massive defuding of theatres, performing arts etc, including orchestras, Donmar Warehouse theatre and English National Opera. Under the guise of 'Oooh it's levelling up', which would be fine if it were sincere, but it's mostly sounding like an empty excuse not to fund the arts.

I know many of you will not be getting out your little violins (no pun intended) but groups like ENO really were doing a lot to widen access and there is a current option on the table to move to Manchester, but that does already have Opera North, a top-class national institution in itself there.

www.bbc.co.uk

English National Opera to leave London as arts funding gets levelled up

The Arts Council England financial announcement is the biggest shake-up of culture funding in years.
www.bbc.co.uk
 
As usual where arts funding is discussed I am in two minds. Funding high art is elitist, and directing taxpayers money towards things like opera, is a bit of a slap in the face for ordinary taxpayers who don't appreciate such things and couldn't afford a seat at a performance anyhow.

Why should high art be subsidised by the taxpayer while culture for-the-many has to self-fund, I am thinking of things like football. Can you imagine the taxpayer funding football? Would that be any stranger than it funding opera?
 
weltweit said:
As usual where arts funding is discussed I am in two minds. Funding high art is elitist, and directing taxpayers money towards things like opera, is a bit of a slap in the face for ordinary taxpayers who don't appreciate such things and couldn't afford a seat at a performance anyhow.

Why should high art be subsidised by the taxpayer while culture for-the-many has to self-fund, I am thinking of things like football. Can you imagine the taxpayer funding football? Would that be any stranger than it funding opera?
Click to expand...

Ordinary taxpayers don’t like opera? And tickets at the royal opera house are from £10.
 
weltweit said:
As usual where arts funding is discussed I am in two minds. Funding high art is elitist, and directing taxpayers money towards things like opera, is a bit of a slap in the face for ordinary taxpayers who don't appreciate such things and couldn't afford a seat at a performance anyhow.

Why should high art be subsidised by the taxpayer while culture for-the-many has to self-fund, I am thinking of things like football. Can you imagine the taxpayer funding football? Would that be any stranger than it funding opera?
Click to expand...
"Ordinary taxpayer".
I come from a very working class background, I am a very averagely paid public sector employee who is at the bottom of the food chain in my department.
I was at a museum last Saturday and the opera last night and really appreciated both.
 
B.I.G said:
Isn’t the funding so that people that aren’t rich can afford it. Or should it not be funded so that only the rich can afford it.

And football is supported by the tax payer.
Click to expand...
How is football supported by the taxpayer?
 
weltweit said:
If they like it so much why don't they fund it?

In fact, why don't opera lovers fund opera and leave football lovers to fund football.
Click to expand...
Football is massively fund by questionable overseas investors, often it's an attempt at greenwashing.
 
Looking for funding | Football Foundation - part funded by the government.

www.gov.uk

Government confirms £10 million emergency support for steps 3-6 of the National League system

Sports Minister Nigel Huddleston has announced that Steps 3-6 of the National League system will receive up to £10 million to protect the immediate future of approximately 850 clubs over the winter period.
www.gov.uk www.gov.uk

fullfact.org

Does the Football Association get £30 million a year in public money? - Full Fact

We’ve looked into claims about how much public money goes to the FA.
fullfact.org fullfact.org

In case anyone cares.
 
I have to confess that I'm in the tiny violin category when it comes to public funding of things like the opera and the ballet. No matter how you try and dress it up as culture it's entertainment fundamentally no different from the local panto. Why should public funds pay for entertainment? The West End is thriving on a business model that involves them charging £100+ per ticket so why shouldn't the opera and the ballet not be expected to do the same.
Museums and art galleries (definitely the first possibly the second) I can see some point to public funding.
 
Opera can seem elitist, but often tickets to musicals are the same price as standard opera seats, but they're not accused of being elitist just because of the price. As I said, I don't necessarily expect people to be up in arms about it, I know it's a minority pursuit one way or the other, but attending the ENO I can say audiences have got younger and more diverse in the last 10 years; they've done a great job of opening the artform to more people.

And again, I do support arts funding for the regions but this all smacks of an excuse to cut funding. And it fucking pisses me off because they have the gall to accuse people wanting social justice as 'harming our national culture' and then cut the fucking funding to the culture this country is renowned for.
 
The problem is not that the big cultural institutions get funding - its that there is fuck all left for anyone else. In Leeds opera north have been doing outreach stuff with the community centre where I work. They've given us free tickets allowed us to record the songs form our community show using their facilities and let us borrow props for our upcoming community production. Which is great and they have been totally genuine in their desire to support us.
But it also gave me an idea of the sort of resources them and the Leeds playhouse have at their disposal. Opera North has its own enormous, staffed storage warehouse full of props, scenery, costume and stage flats. It has its own orchestra, its own choir and offices and recording and rehearsal studios. It has its own performance space - (howard assembly rooms) as well as using the grand theatre for it productions. It has its own staff of technicians, admin, production crew, management and so on.
The Leeds playhouse has a similar level of resources. The budget for both in the one city will be millions every year.
THe issue I have is that most of those resources are not being used for most of the time - surely it would be better if they were collectivised for everyone to use? How amazing would it be to be able to use musicians from opera Norths orchestra or one of the playhouse's lighting engineer? Or just to able to borrow 6 theatre flats to create a set? I have been in community arts for several years and its is incredibly difficult to anything other than intermittent one off projects precisely because of the struggle to access those sort of resources - human and physical. Freeing up their access would make a huge difference in the quality, quantity and access to cultural creation especailly at grass roots level - and would not cost an extra penny.
 
weltweit said:
As usual where arts funding is discussed I am in two minds. Funding high art is elitist, and directing taxpayers money towards things like opera, is a bit of a slap in the face for ordinary taxpayers who don't appreciate such things and couldn't afford a seat at a performance anyhow.

Why should high art be subsidised by the taxpayer while culture for-the-many has to self-fund, I am thinking of things like football. Can you imagine the taxpayer funding football? Would that be any stranger than it funding opera?
Click to expand...
I don't need to imagine taxpayers funding football Prime Minister announces £50 million investment in grassroots football pitches tell you what, come back when you've a notion what you're talking about
 
At the end of the day, I accept that arts funding takes a back seat at a time like this, but you can guarantee this government will deal with it in the most annoying way possible.
 
I think its a great idea to move arts funding northwards out of London. Whether that happens however rather than just being cut is another story.
 
I have an aversion to opera, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be affordable for those who do like it.

I went to the opera-and the ballet-for the first and only time in Moscow in 1990. I understood fuck all (possibly through lacking the education), but was interested in the audience, which was much more socially mixed than you'd find in the west. I bought tickets from black marketeers outside the venue (the Kremlin Palace of Congresses, or some such), but prior to the then ongoing social and economic breakdown, it was policy to keep the prices at next to nothing. Opera and ballet were far from an elitist pursuit. It suited the Soviet elite to have an educated population, including the workers, for economic and social development reasons. Here, they just teach you how to be thick (to quote somebody.)
 
RD2003 said:
I have an aversion to opera, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be affordable for those who do like it.

I went to the opera-and the ballet-for the first and only time in Moscow in 1990. I understood fuck all (possibly through lacking the education), but was interested in the audience, which was much more socially mixed than you'd find in the west. I bought tickets from black marketeers outside the venue (the Kremlin Palace of Congresses, or some such), but prior to the then ongoing social and economic breakdown, it was policy to keep the prices at next to nothing. Opera and ballet were far from an elitist pursuit. It suited the Soviet elite to have an educated population, including the workers, for economic and social development reasons. Here, they just teach you how to be thick (to quote somebody.)
Click to expand...
I do too. Apart from a handful of low key examples, mainly to do with their modern subject matter, I can't stand opera. I would never choose to keep the radio on if an opera started. I love ballet however - sometimes I'll treat myself by going to a matinee on my own. Theatre I prefer in the evening - and I don't generally pay anything like £100 a ticket either. I would if I desperately wanted to see something special and those seats were the only ones left, but generally the tickets are not priced at that point.

Your experiences in Moscow sound very interesting.
 
Sadly a lot of art institutions that get public funding thoroughly take the piss with it, in some cases to the point of what most of us would class as corruption. Speak to your local artists and ask them about it
 
weltweit said:
As usual where arts funding is discussed I am in two minds. Funding high art is elitist, and directing taxpayers money towards things like opera, is a bit of a slap in the face for ordinary taxpayers who don't appreciate such things and couldn't afford a seat at a performance anyhow.

Why should high art be subsidised by the taxpayer while culture for-the-many has to self-fund, I am thinking of things like football. Can you imagine the taxpayer funding football? Would that be any stranger than it funding opera?
Click to expand...
Oh for fucks sake.
 
weltweit said:
As usual where arts funding is discussed I am in two minds. Funding high art is elitist, and directing taxpayers money towards things like opera, is a bit of a slap in the face for ordinary taxpayers who don't appreciate such things and couldn't afford a seat at a performance anyhow.

Why should high art be subsidised by the taxpayer while culture for-the-many has to self-fund, I am thinking of things like football. Can you imagine the taxpayer funding football? Would that be any stranger than it funding opera?
Click to expand...
In reality, an attack on one section of the arts you may not like, leads to an attack on it all.
 
It does all sound like a pretext for gutting arts in London, but I doubt it will ultimately stop artists of all kinds flocking to London as they always have, because the huge international audiences there aren't being sent away along with the funding.

The local news in the South West is full of gladness tbh (eg South West arts organisations welcome funding deal) but that doesn't do anything to allay suspicions that this is less about levelling the field than about kicking a sector that's home to a lot of progressive ideas and people promoting them.
 
Cloo said:
At the end of the day, I accept that arts funding takes a back seat at a time like this, but you can guarantee this government will deal with it in the most annoying way possible.
Click to expand...
Arts funding is needed more than ever at a time like this, when people have less money but need both entertainment and inspiration, spiritual nourishment if you will. Indeed, arts funding should be increased to introduce new art to the public realm, with my favorite notion being inspired by your thread title where a massive wooden sculpture might be built in Hyde Park or maybe in a Manchester park, in the form of a giant fat man. Inside it would have little rooms, into which members of the parliamentary Conservative party might be lodged. Then once they were all 356 secured the great sculpture might be set alight. If a clever engineer were employed, the emanation from the tories might be transformed through pipework into some glorious chords. Anyway, I think such a work would hearten large sections of the population in this harsh time, and very many people would be glad to see the arts involving themselves in political matters
 
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