According to a report by the Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR) on Friday, the amount involved was 650,000 euro. According to the report, this is stated in "internal documents". The amount of the deficit was not expressly confirmed by the Beethoven Festival and the City of Bonn, but they did not want to deny it either.

On Friday, the festival's supervisory board convened a special meeting at short notice to discuss the matter. In a Beethovenfest announcement, the "context of an imminent deficit for 2018" was subsequently mentioned. The total budget of the Beethoven Festival is 4.6 million euro, the city of Bonn supports the festival annually with 1.6 million euro, the rest is mainly generated by donations from sponsors and proceeds from ticket sales. Especially when it comes to ticket sales, the plandoes not seem to have worked out this year. Many concerts of the festival, which officially ended with a capacity utilization of about 70 percent, were only moderately attended. A total of 31,000 tickets were sold, the Beethovenfest announced last September.

The question of how the deficit sum will affect the upcoming festival has not yet been answered by the Beethovenfest on Friday. They are still cautiously optimistic. The deficit could be "financed to a large extent by the company's profit presentations," according to the Beethovenfest’s spokesperson. The chairman of the FDP parliamentary group, Werner Hümmrich, however, assumes after a conversation with treasurer Margarete Heidler that the financial gap at the non-profit International Beethovenfest GmbH will have to be filled with a six-figure supplementary payment from the city budget.

Original text: Bernhard Hartmann

Translation: Mareike Graepel