March 19, 2015 · Team HG
The foundation Grand Theatre was declared bankrupt today. As a result of the bankruptcy, the organization ceases to exist. What will happen to the venue is still unclear. The Municipality of Groningen is in discussions regarding this with the owner of the building and a number of cultural institutions in the city. The 22 employees of Grand Theatre Groningen must look for another job. Mr. S.J. de Vries of RAAD advocaten has been appointed as trustee. Renée Waale, interim manager since February 1st, just announced this.
According to Waale, there is no single cause to pinpoint for the bankruptcy. “The situation is a combination of an oversized contract and excessive ambition for the subsidy amount made available by the Municipality of Groningen. There were also overly optimistic expectations regarding revenue and insufficient control over expenditure. Then things start to slide very quickly.”
The organization has been struggling with a liquidity problem since December. Waale: “The fact that the Grand Theatre cannot pay the bills is very painful. The fact that this also involves a large number of self-employed individuals in the cultural sector, such as individual artists, theater groups, and suppliers, as well as our partners such as cultural organizations and funds, makes the situation even more painful. We realize that we are unintentionally dragging others down with us in our financial predicament.”
One of the scenarios with which the Grand itself had attempted to make the organization future-proof proved fruitless last Tuesday. The Municipality of Groningen, a subsidizer since the discontinuation of national government funding in 2013, rejected the submitted request for an advance payment of four months (an amount of €207,000), which would have provided time to further develop the future vision. A blueprint already existed: ‘Grand 3.0’; a much smaller organization focused on talent development, fitting the ambition of the city of Groningen and to be realized in close collaboration with a number of cultural partners in Groningen.
Stichting Grote Markt 35, the landlord of the Grand Theatre, says it intends to continue renting out the building as a theatre.
