Hong Kong Arts Festival line-up to be announced: critics hope for more diversity

Culture vultures are beginning to preen their feathers again in anticipation of that annual October event – the arrival of the Hong Kong Arts Festival programme. But like all long-awaited treats there is a danger it can disappoint. Will the line-up be a little bit less than dramatically exuberant, a tad risk averse and even, heaven forfend, a tiny bit bland?

Certainly, it may not be as thrilling as it was in 1973 when the first festival brought over Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Yehudi Menuhin and the London Philharmonic Orchestra, a stellar line-up the likes of which Hong Kong had never seen before. Today, audiences are relatively spoiled for choice. Still, the sheer size of the month-long festival – there were more than 130 performances this year – makes it the highlight of the Hong Kong cultural calendar.

But as we await next year’s full line-up, there are nagging concerns about the future direction of the festival. Organisers warn that a freeze in government subsidies is hurting operations, while critics say the programming is woefully out of date and lacks diversity.

Tisa Ho, the HKAF executive director since 2006, is lobbying the Leisure and Cultural Services Department to raise its annual subvention of HK$33 million – a sum that has not gone up in five years.

“We are locked into a deficit-funding mode of thinking. I am told that because the festival is doing so well, it doesn’t need extra help. I tell them it is not ‘help’, but an investment,” Ho says.

Under her watch, the festival’s annual budget has nearly doubled from HK$62 million in 2006, the year before Ho took over from Douglas Gautier, to HK$110 million, 70 per cent of which comes from ticket sales and sponsorship. It is by no means a small budget. The Avignon Festival in France – one of the best – had a similar budget of HK$115 million this year.