11 November in culture: what is recorded and what has not been measured

The Spanish cultural sector arrived at 11 November with cancellations, date changes, public endorsements and a sectoral manifesto. The day after, there was still no assessment available to answer the simplest question: how many people stopped working in museums, theatres, bookshops, publishing houses, production companies, venues, cultural media and artistic activities.

As of 12 November, I have not located a sectoral figure published by the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Labour, the trade union federations within the cultural sphere or the corresponding business organisations. There are general data sets that are incompatible with one another: CEOE and CEPYME spoke of less than 5% average participation; unions and organisers disseminated much higher territorial percentages, and the State Confederation of Tenants' Unions estimated up to five million participants. None of these figures measures culture as a sector.

The absence of a figure does not signify that nothing occurred. There are documented effects and workers who supported the call to action. It signifies that the available evidence responds to distinct questions and should not be aggregated as if they formed a single statistic.

Cancellation is not equivalent to measurement

Cultural institutions and enterprises left a public trail prior to the strike.

Stage Entertainment announced on 8 October the cancellation of the 11 November performances of The Lion King and El alma al aire. The company expressly attributed this to the general strike and offered exchanges or refunds. The Razzmatazz venue cancelled the Beast in Black, Sonata Arctica and Frozen Crown concert due to organisational issues arising from the day. The Gran Teatre del Liceu moved I Capuleti e i Montecchi to 12 November for preventative security reasons and potential disruptions to mobility and access. The Teatro Real brought forward the performance of The Marriage of Figaro, initially scheduled for the 11th, to the 9th. The Spanish Cultural Heritage Institute moved its conference Science and Art XI to the 12th and 13th.

These notices confirm a consequence of the call to action: public and private programmers reorganised their activity. They do not demonstrate that the corresponding staff went on strike. A performance may be cancelled to avoid mobility issues, reduce commercial uncertainty, protect a complex production or anticipate staff shortages. There may be striking workers within an institution that maintains its scheduled programming, just as a show cancelled weeks earlier may not generate any labour absence on the 11th.

Canal Sur offers a different type of evidence. Its management communicated that it had not reached an agreement with the strike committee regarding alternative programming. This disagreement documents internal negotiation and conflict concerning the provision of a public service. It does not, however, provide a percentage of participation.

Furthermore, one must separate changes whose official cause was different. The Palau de la Música attributed the cancellation of Kebyart and La Camerata to "causes beyond the organisation's control". Paral·lel 62 presented the rescheduling of the Jesse & Joy concert as being due to "logistical reasons". The strike may have been a factor, but the published sources do not state this. Classifying these as 11 November closures would turn a coincidence of dates into causality.

A rigorous inventory should distinguish at least four categories:

Activity expressly cancelled due to the strike.
Activity rescheduled due to mobility, security, or preventative measures.
Centre open with altered services.
Activity modified without a public cause attributable to 11 November.

Only then could the work suspended in each instance be studied.

General figures are likewise not equivalent

CEOE and CEPYME asserted that participation had been below 5% on a territorial and sectoral average. They indicated that they gathered information from territorial organisations, sectors, and associated enterprises. They added a reduction in electricity demand of 4.7% relative to the Red Eléctrica forecast at 17:00 and 2.5% relative to the previous day.

The organisers disseminated radically different figures. CCOO placed participation at percentages of up to 84% in Catalonia, 70% in Andalusia, Madrid, or Aragon, and 60% in other territories. The State Confederation of Tenants' Unions spoke of up to five million people and 750,000 demonstrators in Madrid. The Government Delegation in Madrid, according to other journalistic reports, calculated 120,000 attendees at the demonstration.

There is no simple choice between a true figure and a false one. Different objects are being measured using procedures that are not published with sufficient detail:

Individuals who did not attend work.
Affiliates or centres about which an organisation receives information.
Enterprises declaring normal activity.
Participants in demonstrations.
Electricity consumption relative to a forecast or another day.
Individuals who supported the call to action without being able to suspend an employment relationship.

Electricity demand may show an aggregate alteration in activity, but it does not identify sectors nor allow for the counting of strikers. A demonstration brings together people on strike, the unemployed, pensioners, the self-employed, students, and citizens supporting the protest. Normalcy declared by an enterprise also does not demonstrate that no one on its staff went on strike.

The 24-hour general strike was formally called for employees. The advance notice is the responsibility of those calling the strike, not each individual worker. Salaried personnel do not have to announce to their employer in advance that they will be striking. Participation can be determined afterwards through absences, salary deductions and business communications to the Social Security, subject to limits and subsequent corrections.

The Ministry of Labour's Statistics on Strikes and Lockouts does not publish a definitive assessment the following day. Its preliminary reports are updated with information on conflicts, participants and days not worked. Since 2026, it has also incorporated data on strike-related leave registered by the General Treasury of the Social Security. This source covers salaried employees in the included schemes; it excludes, among others, administrative mutual societies and does not register a self-employed person's decision to close their business as a labour strike.

Waiting for an immediate official figure leads to confusing the speed of information with statistical quality. The cultural problem is more profound: even when aggregate data arrives, it is improbable that they will identify the mosaic of the sector with sufficient detail.

The theatre at a standstill and the absent denominator

Juanjo Artero, Secretary General of the Union of Actors and Actresses, declared during the Madrid demonstration that "practically all theatres are at a standstill." The organisation had gathered affiliates and professionals next to the Prado Museum before joining the march.

The statement has value as a trade union assessment and as testimony to the perceived reach. It does not yet function as a sectoral rate. To verify it, one would require a list of centres, the territory covered, the number of scheduled performances, the staff called to strike, the difference between preventative cancellation and effective stoppage, and the method by which the information was collected.

The difficulty does not invalidate the political assertion. It exposes a lack of statistical infrastructure. Neither employers' associations nor trade unions have published a comparable cultural denominator. We know which theatres appear in certain notices; we do not know how many could have opened, how many suspended due to the strike, how many modified their programming out of caution, and how many operated with part of their staff.

The same problem affects the manifesto "11N: culture stops too". Press counts went from over 750 to more than 800 endorsements. No final consolidated list or verifiable closure of the register was published. The signatures show support from workers, authors, publishers, bookshops, venues and collectives. They do not measure who stopped working on 11 November.

Adherence, attendance at a march, scheduled closure, and effective strike belong to distinct series. Mixing them inflates the number and diminishes understanding.

Cultural work that leaves no administrative absence

Cultural employment does not coincide with large, visible institutions. The analysis of the Economically Active Population Survey published by the Ministry of Culture includes employees and the self-employed, cultural occupations in non-cultural sectors, and non-cultural jobs within cultural activities. In 2025, it estimated 781,400 cultural jobs, 3.5% of total employment. That magnitude serves to dimension the sector; it does not offer a record of who could legally exercise the right to strike on 11 November, nor of who suspended their work.

The legal difference matters. A strike protected by the Constitution suspends paid work done for an employer. A freelance translator, an artist working on commission or a bookseller who owns their business may voluntarily cease their activity and support the call to strike, but that decision is not recorded in the same way as the strike of an employee. There will not necessarily be a payroll deduction, a communication from an employer or a day not worked in the labour statistics.

ACE Traductores joined the call, also appealing to self-employed workers in the cultural sector. This adherence makes a professional reality visible; it does not resolve how to quantify it.

Furthermore, intermediate positions abound in culture:

Outsourced personnel working within a museum for another company.
Technicians contracted by project or performance.
Cooperatives and incorporated self-employed professionals.
Artists with intermittent contracts.
Mediators with part-time hours and multiple employers.
Workers combining cultural employment with other work outside the sector.
Projects without activity scheduled for that day, even if their members supported the strike.

Asking 'how much culture stopped?' requires deciding beforehand what counts as culture, which employment relationship is being measured, and what the planned activity was. Without such a map, the percentage produces a fictitious precision.

My own stoppage on Wednesday does not generate data either. During 11 November, I did not publish new content on this Notebook or on my social profiles. There was no employer, payroll or sold performance to record the absence. The gesture was public; its cost and statistical volume were nil for existing systems.

This void does not render all forms of stopping equivalent. A salaried person foregoes the corresponding salary and exercises a fundamental right within an employment relationship. A self-employed person assumes a potential loss of income and carries out an action of support or economic conflict that is distinct. An institution that cancels may shift costs onto the public, artists, suppliers, and insurers. Measuring requires maintaining these differences.

What would be required for a cultural assessment

A defensible assessment does not require an immediate total figure. It requires a public methodology and several layers of data.

Centres and institutions

For museums, theatres, auditoriums, libraries, and public media:

Staff eligible to strike.
Personnel designated for minimum services.
Actual strikers.
Outsourced personnel, separated by company.
Services cancelled, reduced, or maintained.
Affected public.

The percentage should be calculated based on the staff who could support the strike, not on the indiscriminate total of people linked to the centre.

Companies and private programming

For venues, production companies, publishers, bookshops, and distributors:

Centres consulted and response rate.
Salaried staff and participation.
Activities planned and cancelled.
Stated reason for cancellation.
Self-employed or performance-contracted personnel.
Invoicing postponed, refunded, or lost.

A voluntary survey must publish its coverage. 'The majority of venues' means nothing without knowing how many responded.

Self-employed work

This cannot be measured with the same instrument. A specific survey would be needed regarding:

Activity scheduled for 11 November.
Suspended activity.
Income lost or invoicing postponed.
Type of work and client.
Public communication of the stoppage.
Compatibility with other employment relationships.

The declared losses would be estimates, not equivalent to a salary deduction. Even so, they would offer information currently absent.

Adherence and mobilisation

Signatures, rallies, demonstrations, and publications must be counted separately. They measure support and social mobilisation, not labour participation.

Publication of limitations

The report should indicate duplications, incomplete responses, absent sectors, and differences between cancellation, strike, and voluntary closure. Without such notes, the total figure would obscure more than it explains.

The work could be coordinated by the Culture Observatory or by a collaboration between the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Labour, trade unions, professional associations and business organisations. There is no need to create a perfect census. It is necessary to agree on categories that do not confuse a rescheduled performance with staff on strike.

What 11 November allows us to state

11 November had visible effects on cultural programming. There were cancellations and rescheduling expressly attributed to the call to action, trade union participation from the sector and broad public support for the cultural manifesto.

There is, for now, no comparable sectoral measurement. The general figures disseminated by organisers and employers lack a common method and do not isolate culture. Programming notices prove alterations, not participation rates. Signatures prove support, not a strike. Official statistics will arrive later and will also fail to fully capture self-employed, intermittent, and outsourced work.

The deficiency is political as well as statistical. That which an institution cannot count is less easily incorporated into collective agreements, grants, social protection, and negotiations. Cultural intermittency is frequently invoked; rarely is an infrastructure built capable of measuring it when work disappears for a day.

The strike left empty stages, moved dates, and conflicting statements.

The sector still does not know how to account for its own absence.

On the open conversation

If you work in a museum, theatre, publishing house, bookshop, venue, production company, or cultural medium and have verifiable data regarding the day, you may write to me. It is also of interest to document self-employed work that was suspended, always distinguishing between support, voluntary closure, and the exercise of the right to strike.

Author's relationship to the case

I chair Kripties Fundación and supported the manifesto in a personal capacity, as I explained in Why this Notebook stops for 11N. On 11 November, I suspended the publication of new content on this Notebook and on my social profiles. I maintain no economic or professional relationship with the institutions and organisations cited.

11 November in culture: a visible strike and an unmeasured sector