The topic of the organisation of Positivus music festival in Riga caused heated discussions in the city council.
This will be the third year when the municipality decides to support this festival’s organisation. Some members of Riga City Council support this festival, others believe there are more productive ways to spend EUR 200 000.
For example, Lauris Ērenpreiss invited colleagues to not support this “waste of money”. He said the negative consequences of this festival were not taken into account. The deputy mentioned former classmates who overdosed and died at various festivals and parties.
Anna Vladova said Riga cannot afford to pay for children’s school lunches, but apparently can afford to spend EUR 200 000 on some music festival.
His colleague Andris Morozovs said it would be better to spend this money on healthcare services.
National Alliance member Jurģis Klotiņš said Riga City Council members do not have access to the price list and how much organisers pay artists for their performances. The funding provided by Riga City Council is public money, and deputies have a right to know how it is used.
On top of that, he believes this money could be used to finance various cultural projects, which are planned to receive funding of EUR 500 000.
Opposition party Progressives faction leader Mārtiņš Kossovičs invited his colleagues to support this festival. Because there is no unity on this matter in the coalition, he believes that if Progressives don’t support this festival, the festival could experience development problems. Riga’s image as a reliable partner could suffer as well because of that.
Kossovičs said that when they moved the festival to Riga, organisers asked for support for three years. This means the municipality should provide this support.
The politician added that this time Progressives will not play political games and will support providing co-financing to the festival.
Harmony member Mihails Kameņeckis responded to this proposal by saying that it is cynicism, enormous cynicism and is nothing more than Kossovičs’ opinion. According to him, Progressives support the idea to provide money to the festival because it’s their project.
Positivus festival moed to Riga when Progressives were in the ruling coalition in Riga City Council and Mārtiņš Staķis was the mayor.
LETA previously reported that on Wednesday, the 31st of January, Riga City Council decided to provide EUR 200 000 to Positivus.
The majority of coalition members and opposition faction of Progressives voted in favour of allocation of funding.
Opposition party Harmony and coalition partners – Natālija Ābola, Juris Radzevičs and Dainis Turlais from Honour to Serve Riga, Jurģis Klotiņš, Kaspars Spunde, Edvards Ratnieks, Ieva Siliņa from “National Alliance/Latvian Association of Regions” faction and independent deputy Jakovs Pliners – voted against.
This funding is planned to compose 9.76% of the festival’s total estimate.
According to information provided to city council members, it is planned for Positivus to take place in Lucavsala on the 19th and 20th of July.
This will be the third Positivus festival to be organised in Riga. Before then it was held in Salacgriva.
According to information from the municipality, in July 2022 the festival was organised in Riga fore the first time. In two days festival was attended by 20 000 and 23 000 people respectively. At least 6 000 of them were foreigners.
In 2023 the total number of Positivus festival’s attendees reached 25 000 each day. The total number of foreigners exceeded 6 000.
It is predicted that the number of foreigners that may come to the festival next year could reach at least 7 000.
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