Luxembourg's national statistics portal, STATEC, in collaboration with Luxembourg’s Ministry of Culture, has published a report on statistics concerning the cultural sector in the Grand Duchy.
The separation into castles, museums, performance stages and cinemas was made based on the criterion of the main activity of the cultural institution.
Luxembourg has 53 museums and 5 castles, which have at least one permanent exhibition and are open to the public. Most of these museums and castles are located in the north of the country. The performance stages, on the other hand, are more heavily concentrated in the centre, which boasts thirteen institutions. The cinemas are distributed as follows: the north, east and centre each host three cinemas while the south has six. The three cinemas in the centre have the largest capacity with 3,263 seats. However, in terms of the stages’ capacity, the south offers the greatest number of seats available.
The COVID-19 pandemic has severely impacted attendance at cultural institutions: in total, attendance fell by 67% between 2019 and 2020, according to STATEC. Performance stages were the most affected with a significant drop of 74%, followed by cinemas which fell by 69%. Museums and castles fell by 58%. 2021 was marked by a relaunch of activities. Cinemas, as well as museums and castles each saw their attendance increase by 39%. The performance stages observed a slower recovery of 10%. The year 2022 showed higher attendance levels, though still below the attendance levels recorded in 2019. Attendance numbers to performance stages are at 94% of their 2019 level, those to museums and castles at 91% and those to cinemas at 67%, STATEC found. At the regional level, the centre recorded the highest total number of entries into performance stages. The centre welcomed about 57% of entries into the performance stages on average, between 2019 and 2022. The south received 36% of show entries. The east and north received 7% of admissions to performance stages. The north and east are first in museums and castles – they received 45% of admissions to museums and castles, followed by 42% in the centre and 13% in the south.
Performance stages employ the largest number of people of the four cultural institutions with a total of 630 people in 2022, followed by museums and castles with 534 people and cinemas with 114 people. Total employment was fairly stable between 2019 and 2022. Employment in museums and castles even increased slightly during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to STATEC data, gender equality was nearly achieved in employment at museums, castles, and cinemas. However, on performance stages, men held the majority with 56% of positions in 2022.
In terms of the time burden of employment, non-parity was observed across all cultural institutions. In 2022, 60% of full-time positions were held by men and 68% of part-time positions were held by women.
