“Our audiences have wallets, too, and their expenses have also risen,” Barda said. With inflation in Hungary at nearly 16% and the national currency reaching historic lows against the dollar and euro, households too are struggling with rising prices - something which could lead to a decline in theater attendance and a subsequent spiral of financial troubles in the cultural industry, she said. “We’d like to avoid shutting down or having to cancel performances, so obviously we’ve got to cut down in all sorts of ways," Barda said. To cut costs, the theater will stage around two-thirds of its normal winter program, isolate parts of the building that don't need to be heated and reduce the frequency of rehearsals that require full stage lighting. In an effort to curb energy consumption, Hungary's government ordered a 25% reduction in the use of electricity and natural gas in public buildings - including in cultural institutions - and mandated that their heating be kept to a maximum of 18 degrees Celsius (64 degrees Fahrenheit).īeata Barda, director of the Trafo House of Contemporary Arts in Budapest, said her theater's electricity bills have risen threefold since June and that there's an “uncertainty factor” in what kind of gas bills they might receive going into winter. It also made cuts to a popular utility subsidy program that since 2014 has kept the bills of Hungarians among the lowest in the 27-member European Union.Īs a result, many businesses and households saw natural gas and electric bills jump by as much as 1,000% from one month to the next. Hungary's government in July declared an "energy emergency" in response to rising prices and supply disruptions linked to Russia's war. It's an example of the pain hitting countries across Europe as energy prices skyrocket because of Russia's war in Ukraine, forcing some factories to shut down, making life more expensive and fueling fears of an impending recession. The temporary closure of the Erkel Theatre is just one of many cases of cultural institutions in Hungary struggling to stay afloat as high inflation, a weakening currency and energy costs take a heavy financial toll. “Something needed to be done because, after all, people’s wages. the order of magnitude is huge,” Okovacs said. The institution's energy bills have become "more expensive by eightfold, sometimes tenfold.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |