Nationally
According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis and the National Endowment for the Arts, arts and culture contributed $877.8 billion, or 4.5 percent, to the nation’s gross domestic product in 2017. Arts and culture also employed over 5 million wage‐and‐salary workers.
Research also shows the value added by arts and culture to the U.S. economy is five times greater than the value from the agricultural sector.
In 2017 alone, the U.S. exported nearly $30 billion more in arts and cultural goods and services than it imported.
According to the Americans for the Arts Arts & Economic Prosperity 5 (AEP5), research showed that the typical arts attendee spends $31.47 per person, per event, beyond the cost of admission.
The vast majority of California’s performance venues depend on donors, grants, and often up to 50% of our revenue comes from ticket sales; donors, foundations, and our audiences are all in their own form of economic crises.
Even if venues could open tomorrow, many of us could not feasibly present any performances under health and safety guidelines not because we would not be interested in a safe reopening but because we simply could not afford it. Social distancing cuts our capacities down to 25% or less in most instances. Staffing--most of whom are laid off--would need to be increased to enforce guidelines from mask wearing, to parking guidelines, to increased cleaning efforts. Our concessions--an area where venues can actually retain the profits--would result in an overall loss in revenue once we factor in reduced demand and capacity plus safety additional measures.
Performing arts centers with once robust education programs are now unable to enter classrooms. The benefit of arts education, from increased cognitive retention to social emotional skill building, is disappearing from classrooms despite active pursuits from industry workers because educators simply do not have time in their limited distance learning schedules. The Arts are being edged out in order to make room in online lessons for the core subjects of math and language arts, though the arts are vital for deep learning in these as well as all subject areas.
The only way arts is entering the socially distanced or online classroom will be through passionate teaching or through parent funding. Teachers and parents, while powerful advocates, have little in the way of dollars to support music, drama, or fine arts at even the most basic levels. Community arts organizations want to help, but cannot. And what of our marginalized students? Low-income communities certainly will not see an abundance of donations to support arts education during this economic crisis. Privileged communities will continue to have access to the arts; underprivileged communities will continue to miss out.
Economic crisis further stratifies social classes. The powerful have the resources to not only survive, but thrive. The working classes are stretched--instability in employment leads to instability in all parts of life. The same is true for arts and cultural institutions. LiveNation will survive, but will the small community museum or local non-profit arts center?