Competitive bidding systems can obscure how much budget is available and prevent citizens from benefiting a structured program. They may also allow amateurs to join professional circuits without proper filters. More importantly, the existing setup does not adequately support the promotion of the performing arts or the maintenance and renewal of cultural infrastructure.
These irregularities, concentrated in Alicante, involve all ten associations in the country’s performing arts sector that came together to propose a plan for a cultural consortium in the region, backed by the Provincial Assembly.
This agreement, described as historic by the meeting’s organizers, was publicly announced after awaiting a response from the provincial institution. RedCual, the Alicante Cultural Network, began taking shape in 2020 during the pandemic, with Roo Castillo from ProTea contributing insights from the Alicante State Theater Professionals Platform.
A snapshot from Thursday’s presentation captures the moment.
In May of the same year, the associations joined forces to request support from the Provincial Assembly during the Covid crisis. They described an opening for dialogue about sector challenges in culture, and the development of several projects followed.
Creation of the provincial festival
The proposal led to the creation of the Provincial Performing Arts Festival, with the aim of ongoing collaboration. A plan to allocate 700,000 euros for this gathering in 2021 was proposed, but bureaucratic hurdles prevented its realization.
In 2022, the Provincial Council was asked to implement a model that the Albacete Culture Consortium backed, with some improvements to the festival. However, organizers felt it did not fully align with their needs. By 2023, a formal request to the chairman of the Provincial Assembly remained unanswered.
According to Pepe Ayelo of Gestió Cultural, the provincial institution owns roughly 300 million euros, yet only about 8.22% goes to Culture (approximately 23.3 million), translating to an annual cultural cost of about 12.25 euros per capita and 2.6 million in municipal cultural investment. This highlighted a disconnect between available funds and cultural priorities.
Industry and cultural managers identified persistent challenges: a dispersed governance model with seven to eight recurring calls, a bureaucratic wall that requires repeating the same documentation, and a lack of budgetary predictability and citizen participation in cultural management. There are also no councils empowered to decide how subsidies are distributed.
Another key element of the proposal is a clear plan to reform and revise cultural infrastructure. The plan includes a 20 million euro initiative to reclaim sports facilities alongside a culture-focused renewal, earmarked at 300,000 euros.
Albacete’s goals and model
The suggested goals include creating an active participation and cultural backbone body under a suitable legal framework to engage all sectors. The group recommends adopting the Albacete Consortium model, supported by the Provincial Assembly, a model that has worked with all municipalities in the province for 25 years. The idea is straightforward: those with more resources contribute more, and those with fewer resources contribute less.
The proposal requests that 25% of the Diputación Cultural budget be allocated to municipal cultural programs, establishing regional frameworks and an engine to protect and launch cultural infrastructure up to 2 million euros per year to ensure sustained resources and equipment.
Participation would include professional associations from the performing arts, music, circus, dance, playwrights, business, and cultural management sectors. Associations such as Advaem, AVED, Apccv, Comité Escèniques, GC Gestió Cultural, Apdcv, Avetid, ProTea, AAPV, and Aveet are part of this dialogue.
[citation: Provincial Assembly of Alicante; RedCual – Alicante Cultural Network; ProTea platform]