“The Salzburg Festival, one of the world’s top classical music events, needs ‘millions’ more in state aid to survive,” according to an unsigned Thursday (4/24) Agence France Presse report. “ ‘We need substantially more funding,’ [president] Helga Rabl-Stadler told the Salzburger Nachrichten daily, saying the classical music, opera and drama extravaganza needs ‘millions’ of euros…. The festival in Mozart’s native city made a loss of 1.6 million euros ($2.2 million) in 2013, despite selling a record 286,000 tickets and attracting more sponsorship money than ever before, the newspaper said. It is expected to break even this year, but this is based on expectations for sponsorship income and money from patrons that are likely unrealistic, the paper said. In 2015, it is forecast to lose 3.0 million euros. Since 1998, the amount Austria provides the festival has remained static at 13.5 million euros…. Rabl-Stadler said that the festival budget was being cut from 65 million euros in 2013 to ‘well below’ 60 million euros.… The festival was founded in 1920. In 2014 it will run from July 18 to August 31.”
Posted April 25, 2014
