Ancient Curium now ‘too expensive to host cultural events’

The cost of holding an event at Ancient Curium has become prohibitive for cultural groups and yet is being rented out for weddings, the director of the well-established production company Papadopoulos and Schinis said on Friday.

“The cost of hiring the amphitheatre has shot up and we can’t afford to perform there, we’ve had to move our planned production to the Limassol Municipal Theatre,” company head Marios Papadopoulos told CyBC radio.

“The [amphitheatre] rental fee should be €1,400 but it’s shot up to €4,050,” Papadopoulos said. “Add to that the fee to be paid to a church to rent their parking space, to the [British] bases police for security, to the cleaning and ushering crews – none of which is included – and you’re looking at a €6-7,000 total, far more expensive than any other theatre,” Papadopoulos complained.

“Only in Cyprus is attendance at cultural performances being made prohibitive for the public,” Papadopoulos said.

But newly appointed Deputy Minister of Culture Vassiliki Kassianidou, speaking on the same programme, said fees had been calculated based on budgetary and maintenance needs.

Moreover, she said access to cultural sites was being made broadly available through doing away with museum fees.

“For years the fee for site rental was €500 across the board. We obviously can’t charge the same for all sites regardless of capacity, a differentiated rate was needed,” Kassianidou said.

Papadopoulos also expressed derision over the fact that, at the same time, parliament had recently approved the holding of civil weddings at cultural sites, a decision which he called “shameful.”

But Kassianidou said only certain sites, including historical buildings, such as Nicosia’s old municipal hall, had been chosen to host weddings, and those only after following careful consideration.

Dipa MP Marinos Moushiouttas said that nine sites were selected based on strict criteria and are offered for civil weddings, including some of the city castles, however, there has not been a single wedding booked since they were made available for the purpose last July.

“The idea was that we expected small foreign civil weddings to take place [at these sites] of about 30 people, with a fee ranging from €1,000 to €1,500 max,” the MP said.

Furthermore, rules and conditions are in place to protect the sites, such as not permitting the use of confetti.

“In one year not a single wedding has been booked, so maybe we need to review this as perhaps this cost is prohibitive,” Moushiouttas added.

Last year the regulatory decisions on ancient sites were published in the state’s official gazette on July 27, Moushiouttas explained.

“According to that table [of determined fees] Curium should cost €3,000,” the MP said.

Moushiottas held that it was the role of the antiquities department to put out timely information to potential performers, so that the increase in fees would not have come as such a shock.