More than 1 million people registered to enter a draw for the Ministry of Culture’s “Arts FUN Go” (藝FUN券) vouchers on opening day on Saturday, and by press time last night the number exceeded 2 million, the ministry said.
The NT$1.2 billion (US$40.55 million) electronic voucher program is designed to encourage spending in the arts and culture sector, and is separate from the Executive Yuan’s Triple Stimulus Vouchers.
The winners of the 2 million sets of NT$600 vouchers are to be drawn during a live-streamed event at noon tomorrow, and winners will be able to start using their vouchers at noon on Wednesday.
Photo courtesy of Pingtung County Government’s Cultural Affairs Department
Registration opened at 9am on Saturday and by 3pm, 920,000 people had registered; by 4:09pm, the number had surpassed 1 million, the ministry said.
Minister of Culture Lee Yung-te (李永得) yesterday visited a book exhibition in Taichung organized by the Indie Publishers Association of Taiwan, the Taiwan Association for Independent Bookshop Culture and other groups.
Publishers and bookstores were among the “first wave” of businesses to be hit by the COVID-19 outbreak, Lee said, noting that this year’s Taipei International Book Exhibition was one of the first large-scale exhibitions in the nation to be canceled.
The February show was postponed to May before organizers canceled it altogether.
Nearly 1,000 bookstores and publishers have registered to be among the locations and arts groups to redeem the Arts FUN Go vouchers, Lee said.
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