Free Admission for Chemnitz Students
Beginning October 1, 2016, the Kulturticket (Culture Ticket) will take effect – free tickets to museums – and Theater fans can hope for last-minute seats
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In Chemnitz, the student ID card doubles as a ticket to the Chemnitz Theater and five city museums. Photo: David Friel
When students show their student ID card, they typically receive a discount in all public and private cultural institutions, such as theaters or museums. This is standard internationally. The city of Chemnitz takes it one step further: Anyone who is enrolled at the Technische Universität Chemnitz for the 2016/2017 winter semester can enjoy free admission to all city museums. This includes the Saxon Museum of Industry in Chemnitz, Natural History Museum of Chemnitz in DAStietz, the Chemnitz Art Museum located on the Theaterplatz, the Gunzenhauser Museum, the Schlossberg Museum as well as the Henry van de Velde Museum in the Villa Esche.
Students can save a bit of money when they visit Chemnitz’s theaters as well. Admission to shows is also free. However, this is only true of tickets that remain unsold until 15 minutes before the show is set to begin. “With this offer, we can accommodate students a bit better and we hope for a direct and spontaneous exchange,” says Uta Thomson, press officer for the Chemnitz Theater. To reserve seats for the shows, students will also be able to buy tickets in all five theater branches for just 50 percent of the standard admission cost. These five branches include the Opera, Philharmonic, Ballet, Theater and Puppet Theater. “In the current program, we think the musical Struwwelpeter will be especially interesting for young people. British punk-cabaret band The Tiger Lillies adapted the well-known Struwwelpeter texts and composed morbid-melancholic music as accompaniment,” recommends Uta Thomsen. The Tiger Lillies themselves will not be performing live, however.
Whether the Kulturticket will also be continued in the 2017/18 winter semester remains to be determined. The Student Council is currently sharing the costs of the arrangement with the City of Chemnitz. However, the city budget has only allocated a sum of 20,000 euros for the next two semesters. Following this, the Student Council is expected to assume the entire cost of the project. “We’re in the pilot phase. Right now we are advertising the flat rate, especially to new students, and we’ll see what kind of reception there is,” says Mario Thomas, of the Student Council’s cultural department. In 6 to 9 months, the Student Council will send out a questionnaire to determine whether the students wish to continue to use the Kulturticket, and will determine the future of the project. If the program is extended, it will likely mean an increase of the semester contribution that students pay. The increase would, however, be kept to a small scale, according to Thomas. “50 cents up to one euro, maximum,” he estimates. Next year, additional institutions including the Archaeology Museum (smac) could potentially also be considered for the program.
More information about the five branches of the Chemnitz Theater and their program schedules (in German): http://www.theater-chemnitz.de
Museums in Chemnitz, including the five city museums (in German): http://www.chemnitz.de/chemnitz/de/kultur-freizeit/museen/
(Author: Timon Ostermeier, Translation: Sarah Wilson)
Mario Steinebach
22.09.2016
