All children up to 12 years old visit De Schalm free of charge

Cooperation with ASML
ASML and Theater de Schalm in Veldhoven have long known how to find each other for all kinds of activities. This has led to a deeper cooperation with a high-profile and special result: All children up to 12 years of age may attend youth performances in Theater de Schalm in the genre youth and family for 'free' from 2024. Introducing children to culture is an important aspect within their development. Through this collaboration, ASML and Theater de Schalm want to further lower the threshold for theater attendance and open the doors wide for a broad and youthful audience. 

Making culture accessible to everyone
We live in times when daily life becomes more expensive in all areas. As a result, a trip to the theater is becoming a kind of luxury that far from everyone can afford. Culture enriches everyone's life and helps to better understand issues within society.  "By introducing children to culture from an early age, their world grows and they have a carefree afternoon or evening out. Offering free youth theater ensures that every family can go to the theater, even families with a small budget. With our partners such as Theater de Schalm in the heart of Veldhoven, ASML likes to contribute to an attractive living environment. Experiencing culture together is a nice part of that," says Carl Leen, program manager for Social Involvement at ASML. 

All children up to 12 years old free of charge
The offer applies to all children up to 12 years of age who want to visit a performance in De Schalm that falls within the genre 'youth and family'. At least one paying adult per booking accompanies the children's party. It is therefore still necessary to reserve tickets. The option to purchase a regular paid children's ticket also remains.

For parents with a small budget
Parents or guardians who cannot pay for their own theater ticket themselves, and/or that of their children aged 13 to 18, can request a financial contribution through Stichting Leergeld Veldhoven en de Kempen. "So also with Stichting Leergeld we have been able to make a nice additional arrangement. This allows us to join forces to make culture as accessible and low-threshold as possible for all children. We welcome even more partners and co-funders, so that this becomes an even more widely supported and sustainable Veldhoven initiative," adds Theatre de Schalm's director Sjoert Bossers enthusiastically.

Impact of De Maaspoort Venlo
Theater De Schalm was inspired by a similar project of De Maaspoort in Venlo, which last year was the first theater in the Netherlands to start offering youth performances to children free of charge. In doing so, they have already reached more than 5,000 children. The average attendance at family performances rose from 46% to 74%. It has also been shown that, since the introduction, parents take their children more often to performances outside the youth and family genre: the number of children visiting cabaret, opera, ballet and musical is increasing substantially. Offering youth performances free of charge thus leads to more youthful visitors, but also to wider attendance at other cultural offerings. This gave De Schalm the idea to present the project to ASML, which immediately embraced it. 

Terms and condition
All terms and conditions can be found here.