Lately I’ve been struck by a feeling I’m calling Kulturpassneid.
This is a German word I’ve made up to describe envy towards countries that believe it is a good and wise idea to directly help young people access culture that might otherwise be beyond their financial reach, lie outside their usual priorities, or both.
Imagine if the Irish Government gave teenagers a don’t-spend-it-all-in-the-one-shop voucher for €200 on their 18th birthday that they could use to attend concerts and plays, visit museums and galleries, or even buy physical music and books.
This is now what happens in Germany under its Kulturpass scheme, which has been introduced to boost the creative industries and encourage young people to attend live cultural events – potentially instilling habits that last a lifetime.
And Germany’s birthday present to its youth is not a first. Its launch of the app-based Kulturpass follows the advent of similar “cultural start-up capital” concepts in Italy, France and Spain, all of which aim to increase youth engagement with the arts, culture and media.
Not surprisingly, this has caught the attention of various organisations in Ireland, prompting the hopeful citing of our European neighbours’ love of culture vouchers in pre-budget submissions.
Bookselling Ireland, for instance, has written to Minister for Finance Michael McGrath and Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (and noted booklover) Paschal Donohoe to propose such a voucher in advance of Budget 2024, saying it would “undoubtedly have a significant economic impact” and help creative sectors, including bookshops, still recovering from the impact of pandemic lockdowns.
It is urging the Government to bring in a culture voucher scheme that would give 18-year-olds “the chance to experience in-person cultural events and products”.
Industry groups aren’t the only ones who are keen. In its pre-budget submission, the National Youth Council of Ireland (NYCI) seeks a pilot “culture and media card scheme” that would give a €200 credit to 18-24 year-olds and costs this at about €88 million.
In explaining the rationale for its call, the NYCI notes how the cost-of-living crisis has constrained young people’s ability to resume cultural and social activities post-Covid, to the detriment of their mental health.
It also says it believes a culture and media card would support the aims of the Creative Youth Plan, which, for the uninitiated, is a new Government strategy for realising creative potential that, according to Minister for Children and Youth Roderic O’Gorman, “keeps the voices of babies, children and young people at the heart of planning and delivery of each creative initiative”.
Now I don’t know how babies feel about it, but I’m fairly sure most 17-year-olds on the cusp of adulthood wouldn’t turn down a use-it-or-lose-it birthday bonus, no matter how long the string of restrictions attached.
Italy, the first European country to introduce such a pass, has also coughed up the highest credit, with its 18App “culture bonus” worth €500 to 18-year-olds. Under new far-right prime minister Giorgia Meloni, however, it is set to become a means-tested scheme next year.
In Spain, the €400 youth culture voucher is divided in three, with €200 earmarked for live arts, heritage and audiovisual arts, €100 for spending on physical cultural products and €100 for outlays on digital culture, including audiobooks, ebooks and media subscriptions.
If an Irish scheme ever came into being, and obviously that’s a big if, it probably wouldn’t be necessary to specify that bullfighting tickets are excluded, as the Spanish scheme does.
In France, 18-year-olds receive a €300 pass to buy cinema, museum or theatre tickets, purchase books, art materials and musical instruments, or take part in cultural activities such as dance lessons. The money can also be used to subscribe to digital platforms, as long as those platforms are French.
The pass, which has been credited with a boom in graphic novel sales in France, originated as the flagship culture policy of Emmanuel Macron when he was campaigning to become president in 2017 and has since been extended to 15-17 year-olds, who receive €20 when they turn 15, then €30 aged 16 and 17.
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In Germany, the maximum value of individual purchases is limited, meaning the €200 voucher can’t be used to buy, say, a single pricey gig ticket. International platforms such as Spotify and Amazon are excluded, with the emphasis placed instead on local cinemas, independent bookshops and live performance venues.
It is, of course, much easier not to bother with a culture pass than it is to design one, fund one and launch one without a load of people getting annoyed about it somehow.
But organisations that would like the Government to take inspiration from these European examples know two things: that it has, in Catherine Martin, a Minister more invested in the fate of the arts and media than most, and that it has a surplus big enough to at least contemplate a trial scheme.
Culture vouchers shouldn’t be treated as a frivolous “giveaway” that could only ever come at the cost of the provision of essential services. Done right, they could be an effective means to filter revenue to much-pummelled corners of Irish society, including the night-time economy that Martin’s department has been taking baby-steps to revive.
Oversubscribed mega-gigs and bumper summer box offices belie a reality known across the creative industries: it is hard to get bums on seats.
Persuading people to leave their homes and buy a ticket for a concert, a play, a live performance of any kind or even a cinema screening is a gruelling process. For many cultural organisations, there is rarely any intermission in the struggle just to keep going.
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Traditionally, Government policies in this area have concentrated on distributing grants or awarding tax breaks to the providers rather than the consumers of culture – switching the focus to the audience for once would be a worthy experiment. And now, while the legacy of pandemic misery still lingers, is the perfect time.
Indeed, when it comes to incentivising teenagers to discover culture for themselves, there is no bad time.
