See chapter 2.7.
The main objective of San Marino policy is to extend access to new social groups, while increasing attendance by regular users, mainly through the reduction of prices. In line with this policy, performance and concert tickets did not considerably increase from 1999 to 2003, except for some downward or upward adjustments due to the introduction of the Euro. For example, theatre tickets cost 40 000 Lira in 1999 and 21 EUR in 2003; concert tickets cost 20 000 Lira in 1999 and 10 EUR in 2003. The only considerable increase can be noticed in the rise of subscription rates costing 320 000 Lira in 1999 and 195 EUR in 2003.
In the theatre sector, there has been a considerable increase in the number of spectators during the 2000/2001 and 2001/2002 seasons. This is due to a number of measures including: experimental “mini-subscriptions” which were made available to those wishing to attend repeats of the most successful performances; shoppers at the Conad supermarket were given a reduction on a theatre subscription to the 2000/2001 season; subscription holders of both theatres (Teatro Nuovo and Teatro Titano) were granted a special discount. Concert subscriptions were first introduced in 2000. Besides regular and reduced rates, a special tariff was given to members of the music association.
San Marino citizens have free access to State Museums (Guaita Castle, Rocca Castle with its Museum of Ancient Weapons, State Museum in Pergami Palace, Government Building, Saint Francis Museum); discounts are available to foreign visitors. Promotional “week-end packages” are available for tourists. In 2013, partly as a result of the adoption of the new system to control access to State Museums, the entrance fees to public museums and monuments have been updated and diversified (full, reduced, multi-museum, free).
The use of technology also helped to attract increasing numbers of tourists to visit cultural places, especially young people (see chapter 2.4 on digitalisation applied to the museum sector through the introduction of multimedia tools).
Increases in museum attendance have been recorded during specially organised events, such as the European Heritage Day, when there was a record number of visitors (10 611) on 12th September 2004 and on 11th September 2005, with 9 037 entries to San Marino sites and museums and more than 10 000 on 10 September 2006. San Marino participated in the European Heritage Days, with a total of 8 880 entries, on 9 September 2007. Moreover, in response to the invitation by the World Tourism Organisation to celebrate “World Tourism Day” on 27 September 2005, the Congress of State, with Decision n. 48 of 20 September 2005, authorised free entry to the State Museums and invited private museums to do the same. This was supported by an information campaign.
Since 1994, elementary schools annually organise an exhibition entitled “Who Reads Travels with the Mind”. Over the years, the exhibition has been enlarged to include didactic projects developed by schools, meetings with the authors, workshops of animated reading and refresher courses for teachers and parents. A fruitful collaboration has been established for several years with the San Marino Music Institute for the realisation of music animation projects destined to students in various age groups. This exhibition has now become a fixed event.
A number of specific cultural initiatives directed to San Marino residents and aimed at promoting participation are organised by institutions, which, in some cases, boast a century-old history. An example is the San Marino Archery Federation, gathering flag weavers, musicians, figurants and archers, whose costumes draw inspiration from those used in the ancient Court of the Dukes of Urbino. This Federation was created to preserve the memory of ancient traditions by evoking shooting competitions with the crossbow, an ancient defence instrument at the time of the Communes. In the 1980s, all the trophies, banners won, parchments, old costumes, documents, ancient crossbows and targets of the Federation were placed in the seat hall, in the historical centre, forming a museum with a very high moral and material value. This Museum is open to the public only once a year, on 3 September, on the occasion of the Anniversary of the Republic’s Foundation and the Archery Competition. The State Military Band and the Serravalle Band offer free music courses with a view to training new musicians. Among San Marino historical groups, the Cerna dei Lunghi Archi, Associazione Sammarinese Giochi Storici, I Fanciulli e la Corte di Olnano and Gruppo Arti e Mestieri carry out a lively activity in the cultural and historical fields through their historical processions. All these institutions represent, still today, an important element of cultural involvement and promotion, both within and outside the country.
“At the theatre in the balcony!” is the theme introduced by the Office for Social and Cultural Activities (UASC) for the theatre season 2006/07. In order to make the theatre more accessible to all, attract younger generations and facilitate theatre lovers, the UASC has proposed an advantageous offer concerning both the price of single performances and that of subscriptions to the balcony (the ticket price for one performance is 13 EUR and the subscription price for 12 performances is 120 EUR).
In San Marino there are no institutions responsible for protecting and disseminating the cinema or audiovisual heritage. In the past, the Office for Social and Cultural Activities (UASC) organised some retrospective reviews on special themes or dedicated to a specific author, such as “Occhi sul Cinema” (see chapter 2.1). Today, the cinema planning by the UASC is dedicated once a week to art cinema, which, until 2010, was organised on a three-month planning basis by an external expert. These reviews are targeted to a niche audience, which varies according to the proposed film (with a total of about 30-80 spectators per film). Starting from April 2011, art films will be identified through a logo (“l’altro cinema”, meaning “the other cinema”), since the collaboration with the external expert has been interrupted. Another initiative started in 2011 is entitled “Projectare il cinema”, organised by the Degree Course in Industrial Design of the San Marino University in collaboration with the UASC. “Projectare il cinema” proposes a series of significant films concerning the relationship between project and cinema in the various contexts of design, photography, video and multimedia, with the participation of professors and professionals who introduce the films and provide some analysis.
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