What Is the Percentage Growth and Decline in the Preforming Arts
- Skip to page content
Media coverage of the performing arts in America paints a contradictory picture. On the 1 hand, the arts announced to be booming: The number of organizations offer alive performances continues to grow, Broadway plays and live opera performances are bringing in record audiences, and the demand for commercial recordings is stronger than ever. Other stories, still, focus on theater groups, symphony orchestras, and trip the light fantastic companies that are cutting costs or closing their doors because they are unable to attract the audiences and contributions needed to meet expenses. How can these stories exist reconciled? What are the overall trends affecting the performing arts in the final few decades, and what do they imply about the future of arts in America?
A new RAND report, The Performing Arts in a New Era, past Kevin McCarthy et al., addresses these questions. The study, supported past funds from The Pew Charitable Trusts, is the first to provide a comprehensive overview of the performing arts. It synthesizes bachelor data on theater, opera, trip the light fantastic, and music, in both their live and recorded forms. Although nigh of the existing data are about the nonprofit performing arts—and those data take serious limitations—the report also analyzes the commercial performing arts, such as the recording industry and Broadway theater, also as the volunteer sector, by which the authors mean arts activities that are carried out primarily by amateur and small customs-oriented nonprofit groups. The research focuses on signs of modify in arts audiences, artists, arts organizations, and financing over the by 20 years—both in the aggregate and, where the data permit, past discipline and sector.
The authors conclude that the structure of the performing arts organization is undergoing a fundamental shift. While the commercial recorded and broadcast performing arts manufacture is growing more than and more concentrated globally, live performances are proliferating at the local level, typically in very small organizations with low operating budgets and a mix of paid and unpaid performers and staff. At the aforementioned time, a few very large nonprofit and commercial organizations are growing larger and staging ever more elaborate productions. Midsized nonprofit organizations, on the other hand, are facing the greatest difficulty in attracting plenty revenues to encompass their costs. Many of these groups are probable to disappear.
Public Involvement
The number of Americans attention live performances and purchasing recorded performances has been growing consistently over the years. The most dramatic growth has been in the market for the not-live arts, both recorded and broadcast performances. The study attributes the popularity of media delivery to several factors: the increasing quality of electronically reproduced substitutes for alive performances, the rising straight and indirect costs of attending a live performance, and an increasing preference amongst Americans for dwelling house-based leisure activities.
While it is true that Americans have likewise been attending more live performances of all kinds, the authors point out that most of the increment in attendance is the result of population growth and increasing education levels, not an increase in the percentage of the population that attends live performances. This distinction is important because lower population growth and shifts in the composition of the population—both of which are expected in the future—may weaken attendance levels.
The authors cite a number of sociodemographic trends that are likely to further dampen future demand for live performances. Although education levels are expected to ascent—a trend that should create more demand for the arts—Americans are placing an increasing premium on flexibility in their leisure activities. They favor fine art experiences that let them to choose what they want to practise, when and where they desire to exercise it. (This preference helps explain tape levels of attendance at fine art museums.) Additionally, baby boomers volition gradually be replaced by a younger generation that appears less inclined to attend live performances and is more comfortable with entertainment provided through the Net and other emerging technologies. The uncertain condition of arts education in public schools may also be a factor in reducing demand for the arts, although little research has been conducted in this area.
Artists
Overall, three broad trends narrate the population of artists. Get-go, their numbers have been growing dramatically. The prodigious increment in both nonprofit and commercial arts organizations between 1970 and 1990 led to a doubling in the number of self-proclaimed professional person artists over that period to i.6 1000000, about 261,000 of whom are performing artists. There are also more amateur performing artists—those who pursue their arts and crafts as an avocation with no expectation of existence paid for it—and they are estimated to outnumber professionals by 20 or 30 to i.
Second, performing artists continue to dedicate themselves to their fine art even though their pay and chore security take scarcely improved since the 1970s. On average, performing artists earn considerably less, work fewer weeks per year, and face higher unemployment than other professionals with comparable teaching levels. The median annual salary of professional and technical workers in 1989, for example, was 10 percent higher than the median salary of professional person actors and directors, and more than twice as high equally the median salaries of musicians, composers, and dancers. Moreover, the salary figures for artists include non-arts income from the part-time jobs that artists, unlike other professional workers, tend to hold when they are unable to notice piece of work in their chosen profession.
3rd, the presence of superstars continues to tilt the arts market place toward a select few. Technological advances have helped magnify modest differences in talent and diffuse that information, while marketers have increasingly focused on certain artists equally "the best." These developments tend to coalesce need effectually a very few stars and drive their wages above everyone else's in the field. Similar professional athletes, few performing artists arrive to the top, but many are inspired by stories of those who do. New technologies such as the Internet could give artists more than command over their futures by assuasive them to market themselves straight to audiences. But information technology seems more probable that the importance of critics and marketers volition increment, not decrease, in an Internet-driven amusement earth.
Performing Arts Organizations
The number of nonprofit performing arts organizations increased by over 80 per centum between 1982 and 1997, while the number of commercial performing arts organizations increased by over 40 percent (see Effigy i). At the aforementioned time, the boilerplate real revenues for nonprofit performing groups accept declined, suggesting that near of the new nonprofit organizations are pocket-size. These small companies—specially those with annual revenues under $100,000—tend to emphasize local participation and rely heavily on volunteer labor.
Opera is the only discipline in the nonprofit sector in which companies on boilerplate experienced real revenue growth between 1982 and 1997 (see Figure 2). In contrast, the average budget size of groups performing "other music," that is, music other than classical instrumental music, vicious virtually four percent per year. The dramatic growth in the number of nonprofit performing groups combined with declining budgets, particularly in non-classical music categories, suggests a new trend in the organizational dynamics of the performing arts world: proliferation of niche-market place nonprofits and volunteer organizations.
Performing arts spaces have been built at a rapid pace in the past 30 years. Co-ordinate to 1993 data collected by the Association of Performing Arts Presenters, over ane-tertiary of all their member venues were built betwixt 1980 and 1993. Most of these organizations are tax-exempt, and many receive strong financial support from local governments. Many theaters, symphony halls, and all-purpose performing arts centers, for case, are financed by community evolution block grants. It is non clear, yet, who will use these facilities or whether their day-to-day operations volition exist affordable to many performing groups.
In dissimilarity to the alive performing arts, organizations in the recording and broadcasting industries—of which the vast majority are commercial—are consolidating. These two industries are now among the about concentrated in the nation and are increasingly organized on a global scale.
Organizational Finances
The revenues of America'southward nonprofit arts organizations fall into three main categories: earned income (ticket sales, other business activities, and investment income), philanthropic contributions (from individuals, foundations, and businesses), and direct government subsidies. In the 20 years between 1977 and 1997, as total average annual revenues for performing arts organizations rose steadily, the percentage received from earned income, contributions, and government remained remarkably steady. Despite anecdotes nearly empty seats at live performances, amass information on earned income for nonprofit performing groups do not show a downward trend in any of the art forms. As Figure 3 shows, the boilerplate per centum of full revenues that are earned varies by discipline, with dance companies at the low end at about xxx percent and theater groups at the loftier end with almost threescore percent. In the aggregate, performing groups are about as dependent upon the market as they take been in the past, despite intensive efforts at marketing and audience development, and despite abrupt rises in the cost of tickets. (Boilerplate ticket prices for orchestras, for example, increased by lxx percent between 1985 and 1995.)
On average, performing arts organizations receive just 5 percent of their revenues from authorities funding, according to 1997 data, and that funding has trended downward until recently. The main cause of the decline has been an almost 50 percent decrease in federal funding since the early 1990s, only as Figure four shows, that decline has been moderated by an increase in land and local appropriations. The event has been a shift in government funding from the federal to the land and increasingly the local level, with implications for the average size of grants, the characteristics of grant recipients, and the programming decisions of those recipients. In particular, state and local governments tend to focus less on the arts per se and more on the social and economic benefits to local communities in awarding grants.
In dissimilarity, private contributions from individuals, corporations, and foundations—which make upward an average of 35 percent of the total revenues of nonprofit performing arts organizations—increased steadily from 1977 to 1997 (see Figure 5). Although contributions from individuals increased more than any other single source of giving, particularly from 1992 to 1997, this increase seems to have come in the form of more than numerous minor donations that require higher evolution costs. Funding from corporations has also been growing, but corporate donors are increasingly providing back up for targeted purposes rather than giving unrestricted grants that allow organizations more flexibility in using these resources.
Considering systematic data are not available on creative output—such as number of productions, performances, or admissions tickets sold—the authors point out that trends in real expenses averaged across organizations are difficult to interpret. It is impossible to know, for instance, whether the two.2 percent annual increment in opera companies' expenditures betwixt 1987 and 1997 is due to increased costs per production or an increased number of productions per season. Similarly, the 2.8 percent decline in symphony orchestras' annual expenditures over the same menses could reflect greater efficiencies or a cutback on the length of their seasons.
In fact, a skilful deal of case-study evidence suggests that performing arts organizations are using multiple strategies to deal with financial demands in an increasingly competitive leisure marketplace. The authors depict some of the strategies for cut costs, developing revenues, and financing performances that various organizations are pursuing, and bespeak out that the size of an organisation's budget will frequently decide which strategies volition be most constructive. In an effort to increase their revenues, for example, big nonprofits rely more than on star-studded blockbuster productions, midsized organizations on "warhorse" programming (traditional works loved by full general audiences), and minor commercial, nonprofit, and especially volunteer organizations more than on programs for niche markets. Many large nonprofits have also adopted for-profit business models to stabilize revenues: As their productions grow larger and more elaborate, and the celebrity artists they characteristic more expensive, many large nonprofits are turning to the aforementioned acquirement-enhancing and financing techniques that take long been popular among for-profit firms, such equally merchandising spin-off products and collaborating with fiscal partners in productions or facility structure.
A Vision of the Hereafter
If the trends of the past 20 years go along, the authors envision a fundamental shift in the performing arts system. Instead of a sharp demarcation between a nonprofit sector producing the live high arts and a for-profit sector producing mass amusement, major divisions in the future volition be along the lines of big versus small-scale arts organizations, or firms that cater to broad versus niche markets.
Large organizations—both commercial and nonprofit—volition rely increasingly on massive ad and marketing campaigns promoting celebrity artists to attract large audiences. Although for-turn a profit firms volition withal focus primarily on the recorded arts (with the notable exception of Broadway), and nonprofits will continue to perform live, distinctions betwixt what is "popular" and what is "high" art will continue to erode equally both sets of organizations seek to produce the next blockbuster. Equally the rewards of success and the costs of failure continue to climb, these large organizations volition seek to minimize their risks by choosing conservative programming and technology-intensive productions designed to appeal to the largest possible audience. At the other stop of the scale, small performing arts organizations will exist both more dynamic and more than diverse than their larger counterparts. In the commercial sector, small firms will target niche markets within the recorded branches of the performing arts. At times these firms volition movement into areas such as classical recordings that take been abandoned by larger firms because these markets don't provide them sufficient margins and volume. Technological changes such as the Cyberspace and eastward-commerce volition enable small-scale for-profits to provide more than adventuresome programming that serves a wider variety of smaller, more than specialized markets.
In the nonprofit and volunteer sectors, the growing number of pocket-size organizations will have little in common with larger nonprofits in terms of programming, audience demographics, or the professional stature of most of their artists. Small performing arts groups will focus on low-budget, depression-tech live productions that rely heavily on volunteer labor. Many will cater to local and specialized markets, specially ethno-cultural communities and neighborhoods. Others will provide opportunities for hands-on participation for nonprofessional artists in traditional high-arts forms.
The biggest change suggested by these trends relates to the middle tier of nonprofit arts organizations, particularly those opera companies, symphony orchestras, ballet companies, and theater groups located outside major metropolitan areas. Probable reductions in demand, rising costs, and static or even declining funding streams volition force many of these institutions either to become larger and more prestigious—which many lack the resources to do—or to go smaller and more than community-oriented, using local talent to keep costs downward and adapting programming to local audiences. Still others will simply close their doors, unable to reconcile conflicts among their diverse stakeholders.
Implications for the Arts
What will these trends hateful for the vitality of the performing arts in the future? How are they probable to affect the quantity, quality, and availability of the arts? The authors advise that the quantity of performances will increase in some areas and decrease in others, depending on whether they are alive or recorded, and whether they involve the loftier, folk, or pop arts. Professional alive performances of the high arts, for case, will be increasingly concentrated in big cities and provided by high- budget nonprofit organizations that tin can back up the price of top-echelon performers and productions. Touring artists and performing groups will bring the alive professional arts to audiences in smaller cities and towns that are non able to sustain top-level performing arts.
The recorded and broadcast performing arts should continue to proliferate and diversify. Advances in production, recording, and distribution technologies will allow Americans to cull among a wider variety of performances and fine art forms than they do today. Although the Net'south power to produce sustained profitability remains to be demonstrated, it is already reaching far-flung audiences and creating healthy markets for art forms that had previously been economically insignificant. In the future, niche arts markets may be non only possible, but assisting.
Americans will also have increasing access to live performances in their ain communities. Pocket-sized professional nonprofit and for-turn a profit performing groups will be able to build and maintain insufficiently small only loyal audiences who value their artistry and volition be willing to participate both as consumers and patrons. Pocket-sized organizations in the volunteer sector volition proceed to provide depression-budget productions of keen cultural and artistic variety performed largely by volunteers.
The outcome of hereafter changes on the quality of the arts could be more serious. Several trends are likely to make information technology more than hard for talented actors, composers, musicians, and dancers to mature artistically. If the polarization of artistic incomes created by the superstar miracle continues to abound and the number of both large and midsized arts organizations contracts, young artists will have fewer opportunities to proceeds experience in their field. Moreover, the pressures on performing arts organizations to earn ever greater revenues are producing programming that appeals to mass audiences in both the large nonprofit and the commercial worlds. As marketplace categories with demonstrated success increasingly govern the selection of what gets performed and recorded, innovation is likely to be discouraged. Even the decentralized distribution system provided by the Net poses its own obstacles: With then many artists entering the scene, it becomes harder for artists of unusual talent to concenter the attention of more than a small circumvolve of admirers.
The effects of change on access to the arts will be mixed, every bit are the effects on quantity. Although live professional performances will decline in some parts of the land, customs-based performances and recorded products will proliferate. The central issue for access is likely to hinge on futurity patterns of need.
Considerations For Policy
How does this assay of the performing arts aid inform discussions of policy? The critical issue in arts policy is how current trends affect the broader public interest. The authors contend that this issue has non been given adequate attention by the arts customs. Developing a policy- analytic adequacy for the arts today will crave a new framework that is grounded in an agreement of the public interests served by the arts, the specific roles that government can play in promoting those interests, and the strategies that authorities at every level has at its disposal.
The report concludes with a word of each of these aspects of a policy framework and identifies time to come research areas that volition contribute to the development of such a framework. The authors fence that the policy argue until recently has been too narrowly focused on supporting the production and performance of the arts—what they call supply strategies—rather than stimulating public involvement in the arts—or need strategies. A new framework for the discussion that puts the public benefits of the arts at its centre volition crave approaches designed to increase individual exposure, knowledge, and access to the arts. The authors call for more than systematic assay of how individual tastes for the arts are formed and how the public and individual benefits of the arts tin be identified and measured, and so that policymakers can explore more than diversified and innovative approaches to promoting the arts in American society.
Related Products
This study is part of the RAND Corporation Research cursory series. RAND research briefs present policy-oriented summaries of individual published, peer-reviewed documents or of a body of published work.
Our mission to assistance improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis is enabled through our cadre values of quality and objectivity and our unwavering commitment to the highest level of integrity and upstanding behavior. To assistance ensure our research and analysis are rigorous, objective, and nonpartisan, nosotros subject our research publications to a robust and exacting quality-assurance process; avoid both the appearance and reality of financial and other conflicts of interest through staff preparation, projection screening, and a policy of mandatory disclosure; and pursue transparency in our inquiry engagements through our commitment to the open publication of our research findings and recommendations, disclosure of the source of funding of published inquiry, and policies to ensure intellectual independence. For more information, visit world wide web.rand.org/about/research-integrity.
The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit institution that helps ameliorate policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis. RAND'southward publications exercise not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors.
Citation
Format:Source: https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB2504.html
Post a Comment for "What Is the Percentage Growth and Decline in the Preforming Arts"