Ray of hope: Budapest Jazz Club to be saved

A couple days ago, we wrote about the sad news: Budapest’s iconic jazz centre, the Budapest Jazz Club, has to close its doors. However, good news arose yesterday evening. On Wednesday, the Budapest Assembly granted an extraordinary HUF 10 million (EUR 26,900) support to the Budapest Jazz Club.

Gergely Karácsony, Mayor of Budapest, posted the following on his social media page on Wednesday:

“Today, on my proposal, the General Assembly of Budapest granted an extraordinary extra HUF 10 million (EUR 26,900) to the Budapest Jazz Club. This will allow the club to reopen and use its Budapest-owned premises for free this year. Unfortunately, we cannot give more than that, as there are many cultural workshops in need of support that have not even received that much.

“At the same time, I find it outrageous that the club’s management has created the false impression that its financial problems were caused by the capital. The real problem is that, like many other valuable performing arts workshops, they have not received any funding from the Ministry of Culture this year.

“We have done what we could, now it’s up to the government.”

While this is undoubtedly good news, we hope there will not be further disagreements between the iconic place and the leadership of the capital. You can find our article on the initial news of the closure HERE.