At its 46th meeting on October 29, 2024, the Cultural Advisory Board addressed two pressing issues in local culture.

At the press conference the day before, the town hall coalition of the Greens, SPD, Die Linke and Volt announced that cultural spending would be increased compared to the draft municipal budget for 2025. The plan is to increase institutional grants to cultural institutions by €487,000. The increase in institutional funding thus corresponds to 80% of the amount recommended by the expert jury for the 2024 budget. A total of € 240,000 will now be made available for independent project funding (around half of the Cultural Advisory Board's request); the draft budget previously only included € 120,000. At the meeting of the Cultural Advisory Board, Head of Cultural Affairs Dr. Hendrik Schmehl added that, among other things, the requested funds for the World Design Capital funding program are also to be approved.

The Cultural Advisory Board had drafted a letter to the parliamentary groups in the town hall in advance, which it intends to adhere to after discussion in the committee. "We are not ignoring the difficult budget situation," notes Dr. Helmut Müller, Chairman of the Advisory Board. "We also see the will and the attempts to make more possible for culture and expressly welcome the partial estimates that have now been published. However, the financial situation in the independent scene is precarious. And our municipal cultural institutions cannot continue like this in the long term. There needs to be a significant increase in the cultural budget." The letter, in which the Cultural Advisory Board calls for the full implementation of the jury's recommendations for institutional
grants and an increase in annual free project funding to the original amount of € 500,000 will be sent to the parliamentary groups in the next few days.

The committee dealt in detail with the issue of the location of the independent theater kuenstlerhaus43. Following a surprising change of ownership and the subsequent sale of the theater's original venue at Obere Webergasse 43, the redevelopment plan pursued by the city was no longer pursued. In the current alternative venue in the former Palasthotel on Kranzplatz, the theater is threatened with closure in the short term because the rental contract with the municipal GWW expires on 31.12.2025.

"We all agree that kuenstlerhaus43 should stay in Wiesbaden," says Dorothée Rhiemeier, Deputy Chair of the Advisory Board. "That's why we now urgently need to ensure that there is a perspective for kuenstlerhaus43. On the one hand, the much too short stay in the Palasthotel must be extended. On the other hand, it needs a permanent perspective." The Cultural Advisory Board has passed a resolution comprising three parts: Firstly, the kuenstlerhaus43 should be secured a permanent perspective in Wiesbaden. Secondly, negotiations with the new owner of Obere Webergasse 43 about a rental solution are to be continued. Thirdly, a rental agreement beyond 2025 is to be reached in talks with GWW.

The progress of the talks with the buyer on the one hand and GWW on the other will be reported to the Advisory Board at the next meeting on November 26, 2024. The meeting will appropriately take place on the premises of the theater in the former Palasthotel.