Chairman Dietmar Kerschbaum was on leave together with the commercial director during the meeting of the LIVA supervisory board on Friday. The cultural managers were no longer acceptable to Mayor Klaus Luger (SPÖ) after malpractices surrounding Kerschbaum’s term of office became known.
Mayor and chairman of the LIVA supervisory board Klaus Luger had already made it clear to the “Krone” before today’s meeting: the era of Dietmar Kerschbaum as chairman of the Linz events company is over. The supervisory board met at 10 a.m. and unanimously decided to put the Burgenland resident on leave until further notice. Commercial manager Rainer Stadler was also released with immediate effect. Luger announced this after the meeting. The mayor emphasized that the exemptions “would not mean any prejudice.” It was also decided that LIVA would be subject to a compliance audit.
Audit bureau report beginning of the end
Kerschbaum – and with him the commercial director – encountered a whole list of misconduct – starting with a damning report from the control agency from July 2023. This criticized, among other things, the lack of regulations for the allocation of free tickets and a proliferation of subscription offers with a sharp decline in the number of subscribers and higher representation costs.
Questionable ‘self-dealing’
On Tuesday evening, the weekly magazine ‘Falter’ reported new allegations against the LIVA boss. For example, he is said to have received the hearing committee’s questions in advance in the context of his appointment – which Kerschbaum does not deny. Decisive for the current exemptions are also the questionable ‘self-actions’, in which the trained tenor committed himself and was paid excessively for it. Moreover, despite the expansion of the workforce, he is said to have outsourced the programming to an agent who himself looked after potential artists for the concert hall. The allegations will now be reviewed, Luger says, before deciding whether to stick with Kerschbaum long-term or not.
“Correction” failed
Before today’s meeting, Kerschbaum had announced that he wanted to correct the “stated allegations” – an endeavor in which he was unsuccessful. “That cannot even be done in one meeting of the supervisory board,” says Luger. In view of this, he considers an exemption as “the best solution for both parties”. However, Kerschbaum promised to help clarify matters fully. The corresponding processes will be started as early as next Monday.
The affair comes at a very bad time for the Brucknerhaus: next Friday and Saturday the celebrations in honor of the 50th anniversary of the art and culture site will take place. From now on, we will look at how we can change the planned setting for the coming weeks, says Luger. In any case, LIVA’s formal capacity to act has been given.
Source: Krone
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