A collaborative project of the Association of Performing Arts Presenters, American Symphony Orchestra League, Dance/USA, OPERA America, and Theatre Communications Group, supported
by The Pew Charitable Trusts.
The nonpartisan Urban Institute publishes studies, reports, and books on timely topics worthy of public consideration. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders.
Note: This report is available in its entirety in the Portable Document Format (PDF).
ABOUT THE PARC PROJECT
The Performing Arts Research Coalition (PARC) brings together five major national service organizations (NSOs) in the performing arts—the American Symphony Orchestra League, the Association of Performing Arts Presenters, Dance/USA, OPERA America, and Theatre Communications Group—to improve and coordinate the ways performing arts organizations gather information on their sector.
The unprecedented collaborative effort is coordinated by OPERA America and supported by a three-year, $2.7 million grant to OPERA America from The Pew Charitable Trusts.
Working with the Urban Institute, a leading nonprofit research organization in Washington, D.C., the project is collecting data in 10 pilot communities: Alaska, Cincinnati, Denver, Pittsburgh, Seattle, Austin, Boston, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Sarasota, FL, and Washington, D.C.
Information is being gathered on administrative expenditures and revenues of performing arts organizations, the value of the performing arts as experienced by both attenders and nonattenders of arts events, and audience and subscriber satisfaction with performances and related activities.
The findings from these various research activities are expected to help performing arts organizations across the country improve their management capacity, strengthen their cross-disciplinary collaboration, increase their responsiveness to their communities, and strengthen local and national advocacy efforts on behalf of American arts and culture.
Research findings will be available each year of the initiative and a summary analysis will be released in 2004. The national service organizations are regularly sharing findings with their members, policymakers, and the press, indicating how this information could be used to increase participation in and support for the arts, locally and nationally.
For further information, please contact OPERA America at (202) 293-4466.
Table of Contents
Foreword
Preface
Highlights of Findings from the Five Communities
Alaska Findings
Attendance
Value to the Individual
Value to the Community
Barriers to Attendance
Methodology
FOREWORD
The Performing Arts Research Coalition (PARC) project is providing the nonprofit performing arts sector in Alaska with valuable information on how it is perceived and valued, both by people who attend arts events and by those who do not. This will have a significant impact on how we reach out to current ticket buyers to keep them coming back. It will also affect how we invite people who have never bought a ticket to come and experience their first performance.
Alaska faces growing economic problems principally from the decline in the industrial economy (i.e., oil and fishing) in favor of a service economy. The consequences of this shift are decreases in household income and erosion of the tax base. The data confirm this perception, showing only 16 percent of respondents with incomes greater than $100,000, a figure lower than in the past. A reduced economic base could have serious repercussions for the number of tickets sold, as well as the level of contributions to arts organizations.
A number of findings surprised our group, leading us to begin adapting our resources to serve our communities better and to increase the visibility of the performing arts.
1. The data show that the education level of our audience and potential audience is higher than we expected. Fully 70 percent have earned two-year, four-year, or postgraduate degrees. This
finding will affect the intellectual quality of future marketing materials.
2. We were surprised at how many people go to the movies (86% attend annually), particularly compared with other leisure activities such as sporting events and pop/rock concerts. We are
investigating possible crossover promotional campaigns with movie theaters and video stores.
3. The numbers citing lack of information as a barrier to attendance (40%) tell us that we need to find new ways to reach potential ticket buyers. We are contemplating ways to generate more "word of mouth" discussion in our communities and increase our visibility on the Internet to reach many younger people who may get information electronically.
Information collected from the audience and subscriber surveys has already prompted one Anchorage presenter to address parking problems it didn't realize it had, and a second to adjust its house temperature after learning that patrons were too cold. A Juneau organization decided to completely redesign its lobby space as a direct result of the findings.
We look forward to charting the effectiveness of marketing strategies, observing what trends develop, and conducting focus groups to explore specific areas in depth. We want to examine the
correlation of voting behaviors in relation to arts attendance, and determine peoples' preferences on how they spend their free time. We want to explore the difficult question of how to translate "value to the community" into "willingness to pay" for the performing arts.
Ed Bourgeois, Anchorage Opera
on behalf of the Alaska PARC Working Group
PREFACE
The Performing Arts Research Coalition—PARC—provides a historic opportunity for five national service organizations to work together in an unprecedented three-year project to measure the level of participation in and support for the arts in 10 communities across the country.
The first findings from that project—the results of household surveys conducted in Alaska, Cincinnati, Denver, Pittsburgh, and Seattle—are now available. They enable us to draw for the first time a detailed picture of the value of the performing arts to individuals and their communities, and to offer a greater understanding of the perceived obstacles to greater attendance.
The findings are extremely encouraging. They reveal an arts audience far larger and more diverse than currently believed, comparable in size to audiences for movies and sports. Support for the performing arts also appears to be broad, with far-reaching cultural, social, and educational implications. Attendance at arts events, for example, was perceived by attenders and nonattenders alike to be of significant value to communities, and especially important to the development and education of children. Several attendance barriers cited were primarily perceptual; for example, potential audiences did not fully appreciate the ease of attending performances and the accessibility of the arts experience.
Such information should be useful to a variety of stakeholders, including policymakers evaluating the role of government in supporting the arts; funders needing hard data on which to base and increase their financial support of the arts; media seeking a wider consumer base; and managers of arts organizations tackling the twin challenges of increasing and diversifying their audiences.
The size and breadth of the performing arts audience also suggest an appetite for expanded arts coverage in newspapers, radio, and television, and that arts coverage should perhaps be considered in broader terms than performance reviews. Grantmakers may be interested in placing their arts support in the larger context of the range of civic benefits that derive from arts attendance.
Local initiatives that improve parking and reduce perceived and real obstacles to convenience and safety could have a significant impact on the size of the arts audience and the frequency of attendance, particularly if such efforts are combined with communication strategies that introduce more people to the arts experience.
We invite you to review on the following pages these common threads and to reflect on the vibrant picture they paint of the high levels of participation in and appreciation for the performing arts in these five communities. In closing, PARC wishes to convey how indebted the coalition is to the generous support of The Pew Charitable Trusts and to the outstanding service of the Urban Institute in designing and administering this project.
Marc A. Scorca
OPERA America President and CEO
PARC Project Coordinator
HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE FIVE COMMUNITIES
Following are the key findings from the five household surveys for Alaska, Cincinnati, Denver, Pittsburgh, and Seattle. The findings cover participation rates, characteristics of attenders,
perceived value of the performing arts to individuals and to communities, and barriers to greater attendance.
PARTICIPATION RATES
The research indicates that attendance at live professional performing arts events, at least on an occasional basis, is an activity enjoyed by a significant majority of adults in the five communities studied. The notion that the performing arts only appeal to a narrow segment of the general public does not appear to be accurate.
- Attendance Levels: Nearly two-thirds of respondents reported attending a live professional performing arts event in the past 12 months. These numbers range from 69 percent (in
Alaska) to 61 percent (in Pittsburgh). Frequent attenders, defined as those who attended at least 12 performances over the past year, range from 18 percent of respondents (in Denver) to 12 percent (in Cincinnati).
- Arts vs. Sporting Events: In all five communities, more people have attended a live performing arts event at least once in the past year than have attended a professional sporting event. However, arts attenders are active citizens who participate in a wide range of activities and volunteer for a variety of community organizations.
- Performing Arts and Leisure Activities: The research confirms that frequent performing arts attenders are also the most frequent attenders of other leisure activities, including sporting events, movies, festivals, museums, and popular concerts. Attenders were generally more involved with these activities than nonattenders of performing arts events. Rather than an "arts" versus "other activities" distinction, the findings suggest that people generally are either involved in community activities (be it attendance at performing arts activities or otherwise) or they are not.
- Performing Arts and Volunteering: In all five communities, arts attenders and frequent arts attenders are considerably more likely to volunteer than are nonattenders—not just for arts organizations, but generally in their community. Although there is clear evidence to support this relationship, the data cannot be used to suggest that attendance at performing arts results in higher levels of volunteerism. Nonetheless, arts attenders display characteristics that are conducive to greater civic engagement and stronger communities.
CHARACTERISTICS OF ATTENDERS
The arts audience is diverse. It includes people from all age groups and income levels, and is not limited, as is commonly believed, to older and affluent individuals.
- Age and Attendance: The most noteworthy finding from the surveys is the lack of a strong relationship between age and level of attendance.
- Household Income and Attendance: Nonattenders show a trend toward lower incomes and frequent attenders show a trend toward higher incomes. However, the percentage of attenders with moderate household incomes is not greatly different from those in the highest income households.
- Education and Attendance: There is a strong relationship between education level and category of attendance. That is, as education level increases, so also does the percentage of respondents who are attenders or frequent attenders.
VALUE OF THE PERFORMING ARTS TO THE INDIVIDUAL
The research indicates clearly that arts attenders place a very high value on the role of the arts in their lives in terms of enjoyment, their understanding of themselves and other cultures, creativity, and connection to their communities. This holds true across age groups, income levels, and the presence or absence of children at home.
- Offers Enjoyment: A strong majority of respondents have strong opinions about the level of enjoyment derived from live performing arts. More than three-quarters of respondents
strongly agree or agree that the arts are enjoyable.
- Factors Unrelated to Enjoyment: Household income, age, and the presence of children at home are largely unrelated to the degree to which respondents find live performing arts to be enjoyable.
- Impact of Education on Enjoyment: In four of the five communities, as level of education increase, so does the percentage of respondents who strongly agree with the statement that attending live performances is enjoyable.
- Stimulates Critical Thinking: In almost all cities, more than three-quarters of respondents also strongly agree or agree that attending live performing arts is thought provoking.
- Factors Related to Critical Thinking: The strong belief that the performing arts are thought provoking does not differ substantially by household income level, age, or the presence of children in the home. However, consistent with expectations, this belief is held most
commonly by frequent attenders and least commonly by nonattenders.
- Increases Cultural Understanding: Respondents in each of the five communities have similar views regarding the extent to which live performing arts help them better understand
other cultures. Overall, between 68 percent (in Cincinnati) and 76 percent (in Alaska) of respondents strongly agree or agree with this statement. This strong level of agreement holds
regardless of education, income, age, or whether or not there are children at home.
- Encourages Creativity: Between 58 percent (in Pittsburgh) and 65 percent (in Alaska) of respondents in each community strongly agree or agree that attending live performing arts encourages them to be more creative. Education level and household income play little role
in whether one feels strongly that attending live performing arts encourages higher levels of
creativity.
VALUE OF PERFORMING ARTS TO COMMUNITIES
Attenders place an even greater value on the arts in their communities than they do in their own lives. They believe strongly that the arts improve the quality of life and are a source of community pride, promote understanding of other people and different ways of life, and help preserve and share cultural heritage. Above all, they believe that the arts contribute to the education and development of children. Especially noteworthy is the fact that a majority of nonattenders share similar views.
- Individual vs. Community Value: The percentage of respondents with positive opinions about the value of the arts to their community is even higher than that reported in the preceding section. This leads to the conclusion that people place a higher value on the arts in their communities than they place on the value of the performing arts in their own lives. Combining both the percentage of respondents who strongly agree and agree with each of these statements, a clear and substantial majority is in agreement, in every community, with every statement in the survey about community values.
- Value to Children: More than 9 out of 10 respondents in each of the five communities either strongly agree or agree that the performing arts contribute to the education and development of children. These opinions about the contributions made by the performing
arts to the education and development of children are universally strong, regardless of education level, income, age, presence of children, or frequency of attendance.
- Increased Quality of Life: More than 8 out of 10 respondents strongly agree or agree that the performing arts improve the quality of life in their community.
- Preserves Cultural Heritage: A strong majority of respondents in each of the five communities strongly agrees or agrees with the statement that the arts help preserve and share cultural heritage. Among these respondents, the research finds no relationship between this belief and education level, income level, or the presence of children at home.
- Strengthens Local Economy: In contrast, respondents are less inclined to value the contribution of the performing arts to the local economy.
BARRIERS TO ATTENDANCE
There are, of course, barriers to arts attendance among nonattenders and barriers to more frequent attendance among those who already attend arts performances. What is particularly interesting is that, despite what some might suspect, the cost of tickets ranks lowest among
the three primary barriers.
- Three Key Barriers: Of the 11 barriers suggested in the survey, only three are cited by a majority of respondents in the five communities. Prefer to spend leisure time in other ways and hard to make time to go out are the two most-cited barriers. Cost of tickets consistently ranks third overall across the sites.
- Prefer Spending Time Elsewhere: About one-third of respondents in each community indicated that their preference to spend leisure time in other ways is a big reason why they do not attend more performing arts events. One of the most notable characteristics of the preference to spend leisure time in other ways is that it is one of several factors that clearly differentiates attenders from nonattenders in all five communities.
- Difficulty Finding Time: Interestingly, attenders and frequent attenders are almost as likely as nonattenders to say that hard to make time to go out is a substantial barrier. The one variable that makes this a big factor for more people is the presence or absence of children in the home.
- Cost of Tickets: The cost of tickets is the only "big" barrier that attenders cite more often than nonattenders or frequent attenders. Especially noteworthy is the fact that the cost of tickets as a barrier to performing arts attendance is substantially unrelated to education level, age, or whether there are children in the home.
The research makes it clear that attenders and frequent attenders share the same concerns about limited time and the cost of tickets with nonattenders. Yet the first two groups find attendance at the arts sufficiently rewarding to overcome these obstacles. Artists and arts
organizations have the challenge of offering performances of sufficient quality, supported by strong customer service and community programs, to help potential attenders and frequent
attenders overcome these barriers.
Other obstacles cited less often by attenders and nonattenders also offer arts organizations an opportunity to build audiences by overcoming barriers of perception.
- Lack of Appeal: The statement that the performing arts do not appeal is cited as a big barrier by between 10 and 14 percent of respondents in the five communities. This barrier is very clearly tied to education level and, as might be expected, clearly differentiates attenders from nonattenders. Performing arts organizations might consider increasing community programs and adult education activities that could help build an interest in the arts among
nonattenders.
- Feel Out of Place: A number of nonattenders said they feel uncomfortable or out of place at performing arts events, although fewer people cite this as a big barrier, and the relationship with education is much weaker in all communities. Performing arts organizations might wish to examine the way audiences are greeted and made to feel welcome upon entering the
theater and before performances, during intermissions, and at the conclusion of the event.
Additional barriers, such as difficulty or cost of getting to or parking at events, are obstacles whose importance varies by community. This particular barrier could be addressed by arts organizations if they are in a position to make special parking arrangements for their audiences. Similarly, the belief that performances are in unsafe or unfamiliar locations could be mitigated by improved lighting, more visible security, and general awareness of the needs of the audience beyond the final applause.
Note: This report is available in its entirety in the Portable Document Format (PDF).
Acknowledgments
The authors of this report—Mary Kopczynski and Mark Hager of the Urban Institute—acknowledge the contributions of the nine performing arts organizations in Alaska that are involved in the Performing Arts Research Coalition effort.
We thank Marian Godfrey, Stephen Urice, and Shelley Feist of The Pew Charitable Trusts for their generous and enthusiastic support of this effort. We are also grateful for the leadership
provided by the Performing Arts Research Coalition. In particular, we wish to applaud Marc Scorca, president and CEO of OPERA America and project coordinator for the Coalition, and Donald Delauter, Operations Manager for OPERA America, for their guidance of the Alaska effort.
Finally, we wish to thank Harry Hatry for his careful review of this report and his guidance throughout the project; Sarah Wilson for her assistance in managing key aspects of data collection; and Frank Wilkosz for his assistance with data analysis and table preparation. Errors are those of the authors, whose views do not necessarily represent those of the Urban Institute, the Performing Arts Research Coalition, or The Pew Charitable Trusts.
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