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
Denver Findings
Attendance
Value to the Individual
Value to the Community
Barriers to Attendance
Methodology
FOREWORD
In a city where sports and outdoor activities are extremely popular, two out of three respondents from the Denver metropolitan area attended a live, professional performing arts event last year. Of those people, one in four attended 12 or more performances. Community leaders are aware that interest in the arts is at a level equal to or surpassing sports, but many citizens and most people outside Denver view the city as a sports-crazed area, not an arts leader.
Nearly 9 of 10 respondents agreed that the performing arts improve the quality of life in the Denver metropolitan area at a time when growth and traffic issues threaten to lower Colorado's high quality of life. Denver just passed a $25 million bond issue to refurbish the turn-of-the-century Auditorium Theatre. This came in hard economic times, and after millions of tax dollars had already been pledged to a new football stadium and convention center expansion.
More than 9 of 10 respondents agreed that the performing arts contribute to the education of
Denver's children—a heartening sign at a time when arts education is continually endangered by school district budget cuts. This agreement also reaffirms the Denver arts community's dedication to student performances and school tours.
The results of this project will be of interest to community leaders and stakeholders in the arts community as they continue to fight for arts funding. In addition, the Colorado Business Committee for the Arts, in partnership with Deloitte & Touche and the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce, released an economic impact study in October of 2002. That study indicates that the Denver arts and culture industry generated $1.1 billion in economic impact in 2001, with 9.1 million people attending cultural events. The number of arts attenders outpaced the 7.5 million attending ski resorts and 5.3 million attending professional sporting events.
The Scientific and Cultural Facilities District (SCFD) positively impacted the greater metropolitan Denver arts organizations with a distribution of $33 million in 2001. In 2004, the SCFD will be looking for collaborative support for reauthorization of the sales tax that funds its efforts. Studies such as the PARC Community Report and the CBCA economic impact study help us understand the role that the arts play in our lives and in our community.
Katharine Tyson, Denver Center Theatre Company
on behalf of the Denver 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. Grant makers 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. 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 communities. 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 to older and affluent individuals as is commonly believed.
- 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 levels 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 levels, 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 understand other cultures better. 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. When combining the percentages of respondents who strongly agreed and agreed with each of these statements, a clear and substantial majority was 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 agreed or agreed 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 held consistently, regardless of education level, income, age, presence of children, or frequency of attendance.
- Improved 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 agree or agree 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 rank as the top two most-cited barriers in the various sites. 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
differentiate 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 are obstacles whose importance varies by community. The difficulty or cost of getting to or parking at events 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 twelve performing arts organizations in Denver 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 Chris Shuff, Director of Management Programs at Theatre Communications Group, for their guidance of the Denver 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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