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PAPER
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
The following paper was laid on the table:-
(1) Report to the Urban Council by the Director of Urban Services and Secretary, Urban Council, for the month of February 1985.
QUESTIONS
1. MR. STEPHEN M. L. LAU asked the following question (in Cantonese):-- May I ask what are the guidelines for acquiring cultural performances from overseas? What are the percentage of Oriental and Western Cultural Programmes over the past two years? In view of the present financial position of the Urban Council, has any thought been given to modifying the guidelines to reduce cost or subsidy?
MR. FREDERICK K. K. FUNG, VICE-CHAIRMAN OF THE CULTURE SELECT COMMITTEE, replied as follows (in Cantonese):---This question concerns the presentation of cultural programmes and is in three parts. The first part covers the guidelines for the engagement of overseas groups and artists. The second part relates to the percentage of Oriental and Western cultural programmes in the past two years. The third part raises the point as to whether the guidelines may be modified to reduce cost or subsidy in view of present financial stringency.
The major aim of the Council's cultural presentation policy, as stated in its Policy Manual, is to increase the accessibility of the performing arts to the public by organizing programmes of Western and Eastern music, opera, drama, dance, films and other performing arts by local and overseas artists at suitable Council venues. In pursuance of this policy, emphasis has been placed on variety of programmes covering the different performing arts and balance between overseas and local presentations in drawing up the annual programme of cultural presentations.
Apart from the above criteria, other factors in the selection of overseas performing groups and artists are their artistic merits, the likely audience appeal of the proposed programmes, the financial viability of bringing them to Hong Kong and the availability of suitable venues during the proposed period. As regards the last two factors, it has been the normal practice to consider only those overseas groups and artists on Asian tour as the sharing of expenses on air passage and freight among presenters in the Asian region would reduce costs to the Council.
As regards the percentage of Oriental and Western cultural programmes, the balance of programmes given by Oriental and Western groups and artists is as follows: For 1983/84, of the regular cultural presentations, 283 (71.3%) were by local performers and 114 (28.7%) by overseas artists. Of the 444 presentations in 1984/85, 357 (80.4%) are local programmes and 87 (19.6%) overseas ones. These figures do not include the annual Festival of Asian Arts, which features oriental presentations from the cultural heritage of countries in the Asia and Pacific region. The 1983 and 1984 Festivals presented 81 and 75 indoor programmes respectively, of which 44 and 43 were local.
Because the Urban Council must ensure value for money, the Culture Select Committee has always attached great importance to the financial viability in considering proposals from overseas and local groups and artists, but high artistic standard and a well-balanced overall programme remain the dominant factors in determining the engagement of performing groups and artists. Efforts will continue to be made to ensure that the subsidy level for the overall cultural presentations programme will not exceed 30 per cent.
MR. STEPHEN LAU (in Cantonese):-Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask whether the Urban Council is ready to do a marketing research to find out whether the present percentage is suitable and appropriate. The subsidy is now 30 per cent, is that the maximum subsidy or can we lower the figure to something like 20 per cent for instance?
MR. FREDERICK FUNG (in Cantonese):-Mr. Chairman, as to whether the percentage is suitable, well, it is a matter of individual viewpoints. Now we have 71.3 per cent and 80.4 per cent and that shows you the local performances are increasing in numbers. As to which one is the best figure, it is difficult to say; as to whether it is necessary for us to have marketing research or to conduct an opinion poll to find out what exactly the general public wants, perhaps we can defer to discuss this point at committee level. As to whether we should reduce the subsidy, in fact, we have discussed this question at committee level, but eventually we agreed that we should keep it at 30 per cent. The reason is that if we want to reduce the subsidy, then there are two possibilities, one is to cut down the number of programmes and secondly to increase the admission fees. That may lead to the possible consequence of our not being able to bring in overseas groups and expose our general public to international programmes of professional standard. At the same time if we want to increase the admission fees, then it will be beyond the affordability of the general public and, therefore, these programmes will be for people who can afford it and will be restricted to a certain class of people. That is the reason why we decided to keep the subsidy level at its present level, but we will keep this in review.
MR. TONG KAM-BIU (in Cantonese):-Mr. Chairman, from the paper we know that local artists in 1983/84 is over 70 per cent and 1984/85 is over 80 per cent, now my question is do we spend more on local performers or overseas performers? I would also like to have the attendance figures, are people coming to overseas performances more?
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