Culture has been one of the sectors most affected by the pandemic, impacted by restrictions and capacity limitations that made its shows unviable. One of the initiatives promoted by the Barcelona City Council to support this sector has been the Culture Bonuses, a campaign that aimed to encourage a return to bookstores, record stores, concerts, theaters, and movie theaters after confinement.
This initiative allowed obtaining vouchers with a value of 40 euros where the user paid 30 and the council put the rest. In a second phase, 20-euro vouchers were included, aiming to especially impact cultural activities such as cinema or bookstores, with lower tickets than those for concerts or theater.
The campaign, which began in July 2020 and lasted until December 2021, has resulted in some 296,000 vouchers used, generating 8.3 million euros in business volume. The municipal investment has been almost 2.09 million euros. Christmas 2020 was when the most Culture Bonuses were spent, with Sant Jordi and summer festivals as the other main peaks in demand.
By sectors, the Culture Bonuses have been used, mainly, to go to the theater, with 58.8% of the vouchers and an impact of 4.9 million euros. The president of the Associació d'Empreses de Teatre de Catalunya (ADETCA), Isabel Vidal, values the initiative very positively and indicates that they would like it to continue.
Behind theater, book purchases have been placed, with almost 24% of all vouchers and 1.9 million in generated business volume. Concert halls and music festivals have taken 16% of the Culture Bonuses, with an impact of 1.3 million euros. The last positions have been for cinema, with 0.95% of the vouchers purchased and an impact of 79,000 euros, and record purchases, with 0.3% of the vouchers and 25,180 euros.
A total of 188 establishments and cultural spaces in Barcelona joined this initiative. Specifically, 17 movie theaters, two film festivals, 109 bookstores, ten record stores, 34 theaters, 16 music venues, and three music festivals participated. Cinemas such as Yelmo, Verdi, Cinesa, or Renoir Floridablanca; bookstores such as La Central, Laie, Altaïr, FNAC, Abacus, Casa del Libro, Documenta, or Alibri; theaters such as La Villarroel, Tivolí, Romea, Sala Beckett, Barts, or SAT! Sant Andreu Teatre, and venues such as Apolo were some of the establishments that joined.
Given these figures, the Deputy Mayor for Economy, Jaume Collboni, concludes that this measure has been "an undeniable success." This good reception of the Bonus Cultura has also been seen in a similar measure that the city council applied to local commerce, the Bonus Consum. The City Council invested more than four million euros in this initiative, which consisted of selling 10-euro discount vouchers to buy in city establishments, as well as consume in their bars and restaurants. The campaign ended with 360,000 vouchers used and 1,900 establishments joined, with an impact of more than 7.5 million euros on the commercial fabric.