Let’s assume that the “50 percent” will come. So that relatively soon, even in cinemas, theaters, concert halls and cabaret stages, not just a quarter, but half of all seats will be able to be occupied in a chessboard pattern. What will this bring? In a video link with cultural representatives from State Opera Director Serge Dorny to Music Council President Helmut Kaltenhauser to Lower Bavarian cabaret supplier Roman Hofbauer last Wednesday, the five Bavarian ministers Florian Herrmann, Klaus Holetschek, Judith Gerlach, Michael Piazolo and Bernd Sibler had the “concerns in the industry”. Probably also their demand for a 75 percent filling of the concert, theater and cinema halls, without which private organizers are practically unable to act.
There was a loosening in the room. After a weekend with lots of text messages, phone calls and worried looks at the renewed increase in the number of infections, the Bavarian cabinet then decided neither 75 nor 50 percent at its meeting on Monday, but: nothing at all. “Neither loosening nor tightening,” said Minister of State Florian Herrmann in a press conference. Because of the threatening “omicron wall” one must continue to monitor the situation very closely. They have a “high sensitivity” to the burdens in the particularly restricted areas and want to offer “art, culture, cinema” perspectives. If the situation in the hospitals does not deteriorate, Herrmann announced, one could “possibly imagine easing in the next week”, i.e. specifically “switching from 25 to 50 percent”.
But would half full be the solution? “It’s better than nothing,” say private promoters like Axel Ballreich from Konzertbüro Franken, gnashing his teeth, “actually it helps the State Opera and not us.” The occupancy rate is just one problem. Especially for organizers of rock and pop concerts or similar without fixed seats, only a regulation “without distances, if necessary with masks” works. This is the only way he can set up a program again with regional and German bands in the next few months, most of which has been canceled internationally anyway: “’23 is the new ’22.”
“Cosmetic Quota Increases”
After the “arbitrary 25 percent nonsense” Bernd Schweinar, rock director and managing director of the Bavarian organizers’ association VP.By, calls for an end to “cosmetic quota increases”. Instead, the government should work out reliable medium-term solutions for organizers for the time after the Omicron wave. He has in mind: “Access only for boosters, no tests, no minimum distance and games under full load. Private organizers can choose their audience, the legislator must give them this freedom for a cost-covering implementation from April or May – and for the open air – Festivals in summer anyway!”
One thing remains, whether 25, 50, 75 or 99 percent: the unequal treatment of culture compared to other areas of public life. In particular, the creative people feel worse off than the gastronomy. According to the latest decisions of the state government, the hosts are allowed to fill their restaurants and dinner shows to the last seat without having to ask the guests for test or booster proof. The opposition in the state parliament, on the other hand, is up in arms: “It’s unacceptable that there are double standards here,” says Wolfgang Heubisch, cultural policy spokesman for the FDP and former art minister: “The stricter rules in the cultural sector are bitter. The warm ones are also comforting Words and expressions of sympathy from Minister of Art Bernd Sibler are not. The fact that he always only promises, invites people to round tables, but in the end nothing comes of it, is pathetic.”
Volkmar Halbleib, SPD, criticizes the unequal treatment “sharp and can absolutely understand that the cultural organizers see the state government’s course (…) as disparaging their work.” Sanne Kurz from the Greens considers the “taming of culture” to be “audacious”: “It is unique in all federal states and absurd. Culture is the only area of life in Bavaria that is so disadvantaged. What kind of message is that? the public?” The Greens want to make an application against the discrimination.
This has already happened at the local level in Munich. Here, the governing coalition is calling on Mayor Dieter Reiter to support the cultural sector in the Free State. Because the risk of infection in the culture is not greater because of “functioning hygiene and ventilation concepts”, according to Julia Schönfeld-Knor, SPD/Volt. And David Süss, Green/Pink List, says with a view to spring: “The virus doesn’t care whether it is prevented from spreading in an open air or a beer garden, a cinema or a restaurant.” In the case of Florian Herrmann, however, such comparisons are not yet fruitful: he understands the “subjective feeling” of being disadvantaged, but there is “no logical link between the areas”.