Shanghai cultural centre struggles to find 90,000 yuan needed each day for survival
A Shanghai arts centre manager has complained about the high daily cost of maintaining the extravagant project, sparking concern about other expensive infrastructure going to waste in mainland cities.
Lin Hongming , general manager of the Shanghai Oriental Art Centre, said he was struggling to find the 90,000 yuan needed each day to maintain the 1.14 billion yuan structure, the People's Daily reported yesterday. The Shanghai project is one of series of big-budget drama theatres on the mainland, headed by Beijing's 2.6 billion yuan plus National Theatre, which is expected to cost more than 330,000 yuan per day to maintain, according to mainland media reports.
Mr Lin also told the newspaper that the centre had a number of expensive facilities which were rarely used, including a 20 million yuan organ and an indoor ice stage.
'The ice stage has been used only once since the centre was put into use in mid-2005,' the People's Daily quoted Mr Lin as saying.
He expressed disappointment that those facilities were so rarely utilised, saying this was due to the high cost of using them.
Lilian Zhang, a Shanghai International Studies University student, said the centre's high ticket prices locked her out of the theatre.