Pacific Standard - The NEA reports that, as of 2012, only 33 percent of American adults attended one of the “benchmark” arts—classical music, jazz, opera, theater, ballet, or visits to an art museum or gallery. That’s down from 39 percent a decade earlier.
A separate study ... found 45.6 percent of respondents reported attending a live music, theater, or dance performance in the past year. That more broadly worded question included attendance at pop, rock, or hip-hop concerts.
Nevertheless, the long-term trend is decidedly down for both the visual and performing arts—and the recession, which began in 2008, can’t be blamed.
“Following a sharp decline in overall arts attendance that occurred from 2002 to 2008,” one NEA report states, “participation rates held steady from 2008 to 2012” for classical music, jazz, and dance performances. However, ticket sales for non-musical plays continued to slip further during those final four years, and attendance at stage musicals—one of the few art forms that had been holding steady earlier in the decade—declined from 2008 to 2012.
1 comment:
The Lowell Folk Festival, billed as the largest free one in the US, gets a big attendance every year. And it is free -- come one come all.
But they pass the virtual hat at each stage before each act. The "hat" is an empty 5 gallon water bottle and it typically fills up, at least at the larger stages. Everyone puts in what they have, if anything, and there's a big sense of sharing involved.
The times I've gone to a more posh venue, like a museum, there's been either a fixed entry fee, or a "suggested donation" that's enforced by coercive expectation.
That might have some relevance for the situation.
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