In their extraordinary general meeting on Wednesday 21 October 2020, the member organizations of CircusInfo Finland have decided to not pursue further the merging project of CircusInfo Finland and Dance Info Finland.
The decision was put to a vote in the extraordinary general meeting with the participating member organizations voting YES 11, NO 7 and ABSTAIN 2. The decision to go forward with the merger would have required a majority of two thirds, i.e. 12 YES votes, and therefore the merger did not receive the required support. Both information centres will continue in their current forms.
Dance Info Finland held their extraordinary general meeting at the same time. Their member organizations voted unanimously for the merger.
The member organizations that voted for the merger saw that a larger organization would be a stronger force and could maintain its level and quality of services better after possible upcoming budget cuts. Organizations that opposed the merger had held extensive internal discussions about the subject and while they as well saw some of the benefits, they considered the disadvantages to be more significant. Among the causes of concern were the proposed new information centre’s member base and equal representation of both fields of art.
The infomation centres will continue to collaborate in several ongoing projects, including Pragma Helsinki (link opens on another site), international events such as fairs and the Performing HEL showcase (link opens on another site).