At its last meeting of the year, the Cultural Advisory Board met in the Bürgersaal at Fresenius University of Applied Sciences. The dominant topic of the evening was the increasingly depressing situation of the "kuenstlerhaus43" theater. Recently, the offer of a new venue in Goldgasse was withdrawn by the potential landlord because no subsidy for the rent was forthcoming for the 2026 municipal budget after the city councillors' committee deliberations. According to theater operator Susanne Müller, this would have been essential for renting the new venue, as well as for any property in the city center.

"So you are driving the kuenstlerhaus43 against the wall with your eyes wide open," commented Dr. Helmut Müller, Chairman of the Cultural Advisory Board, on the lack of a subsidy increase. "In light of the decision at the time to include over one million euros in the budget for the renovation of Obere Webergasse 43, one has to ask what substance this decision had at all." After the city councillors had decided to spend millions on renovating the theater in the original venue in 2021, this measure fell through last year after the then owner passed away. According to the committee, this case set an unfortunate precedent, which at the very least led to irritation in Wiesbaden's non-profit cultural scene.

"Now the theater, which with its location in Obere Webergasse had shown in exemplary fashion what inner city revitalization can look like, is no longer faced with the question of expansion, but with its back against the wall," adds Dr. Müller. The Cultural Advisory Board urges the city councillors to consider carefully before deciding on the budget whether they want to cause collateral damage by driving a successful theater into the wall with their eyes wide open. A change of venue would mean higher rents for pretty much all cultural institutions in the city center. The certainly unintended message behind the current situation is fatal for all subsidized cultural institutions in Wiesbaden.

The lack of prospects for the theater is compounded by the currently critical situation of the interim venue rented from the municipal company GWW in the Palasthotel. The lease ends on August 31, 2026, which means that the theater is already unable to make reliable plans for the next season. The city is planning to renovate the former luxury hotel, the start and end of which has not yet been determined. Any preliminary work could start in summer 2026. Just recently, another commercial tenant in the Palasthotel secured a rental period until the end of 2026. "Anyone who is familiar with the length of Wiesbaden's decision-making processes knows that it is very unlikely that work will begin in the Palasthotel in the summer that would make it impossible to run a theater," says Dr. Müller.

Regardless of the outcome of the budget decision, the Cultural Advisory Council is appealing to the City Council to ask the municipal authorities to extend the rental agreement to the 2025/26 season in order to enable the theater to prepare and carry out its work. The extension would create the opportunity to continue looking for a perspective for the theater. This would also send the message that the city is seriously interested in providing effective support for culture, which is currently more important than ever for the revitalization of the city centre.