The €300m support package to prop up the culture sector is insufficient because mainly subsidised organisations are eligible, museum chiefs in the four big cities have told culture aldermen in a letter asking for more financial support.

Earlier the Dutch museum association warned that 100 out of 400 museums would close before the end of the year, and that small and medium-sized museums would be hit hardest. Last week the Museum of Bags and Purses in Amsterdam, an independent association, became the first museum to announce it would not open again.

The organisation for theatres and concert halls VSCD, which calculated that as many as a third of its 127 associated members could go under, has also asked for an extra €55m for the sector in a letter of its own. Measures that the government might contemplate are scrapping VAT on tickets and making a substantial donation to local councils so they can support municipal venues, the VSCD said.

Without extra support the cultural landscape will turn into ‘a wasteland’, broadcaster NOS quoted the the museum chiefs’ letter which was signed by the directors of the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam, the Centraal Museum in Utrecht, the Kunstmuseum in Den Haag and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.

Even if prime minister Rutte were to announce the partial re-opening of museums as part of a relaxation of the corona rules on Wednesday, the cost of a hygiene protocol and accommodate social distancing would be prohibitive for many museums, director Rein Wolfs of the Stedelijk Museum for modern art, said,

‘Museums will struggle with a loss of income for a long time yet. Try tackling that an stay afloat,’ he said.

Meanwhile, some theatres would not even bother to open because of the costs involved, the VSCD said.