Season Launch Press Conference - 2012
2011. October 24.
The Palace of Arts held its season launch press conference on October 24. At the event, general manager Csaba Káel presented the new five-year strategic plan of the institution and outlined the cooperation planned with invited partner institutions.
Since its opening, the Palace of Arts has been visited by several million people, with more than 650 thousand visitors last year alone. The number of events held here is increasing dynamically; last year the institution was home to 1 100. Over the last three years, however, the state subsidies received by the institution decreased by close to 40 percent, reaching critical levels.
By preparing the five-year strategic plan, the Palace of Arts is looking to find a solution as to how it could uphold the international position it has gained in representing quality culture and maintain the high level and number of its events through adapting to changed circumstances and conditions, as well as opening up new directions.
The Palace of Arts feels there is considerable potential in cultural tourism; cooperation with the public media is just around the corner, within the framework of which programmes based on the unparalleled audio and motion picture archives of the Palace of Arts will be broadcast on television and radio. During the coming season, programming based on attention grabbing topics and artistic concepts, as well as programming coinciding with milestones in music history will become more emphatic. Furthermore, the fact that, as of 2012, the Palace of Arts will be planning, organising and editing its programmes for whole seasons (for the September-June period) will allow for more predictable long-term planning.
A basic assumption of the strategic plan is that the cultural services industry, given its direct and indirect economic impact, could become one of the most successful sectors of the country. It is imperative for the continued health of Hungary’s cultural life that more and more Hungarian co-productions are developed and that the leading institutions of the field work in close cooperation. It was in the spirit of this collaboration that the Palace of Arts invited the Liszt Academy of Music, the Hungarian State Opera, the Budapest Festival Centre, the Media Service Support and Asset Management Fund, the Hungarian Tourism Plc, and the resident institutions of the building, the Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra, the National Dance Theatre and the Ludwig Museum, to its season launch press conference.