Drivers of In-Person Attendance and Employee Levels

What Drives In-person Attendance?

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Arts & Culture Organizations

Positive Effect
  • Organization age, size, sector
  • Higher local funding
  • More programmatic offerings
  • Spend on programmatic offerings
  • More square footage
  • Targets kids, Asian Americans
Negative Effect
  • World premieres
  • Targets young adults, African Americans, Hispanics/Latinos
  • High lowest ticket price
  • Higher state, federal funding

Community Arts and Leisure Characteristics

Positive Effect
  • Leisure complements
  • Number of art museums
Negative Effect
  • Market Arts and Culture dollar activity
  • Number of artists and arts providers
  • Public radio and TV stations
  • Number of arts education organizations
  • Number of community, music organizations, opera companies
  • Number of PACs, orchestras

Community Socio-demographic Characteristics

Positive Effect
  • High percentage children
  • Total population
  • Level of philanthropy
Negative Effect
  • High percentage of young adults
  • High percentage African American, Hispanic/Latino
  • Socioeconomic level
  • Median age

Public Funding

Negative Effect
  • Amount and Number of Federal & State Arts Grants

 

What Drives In-person Attendance?

What organizational characteristics affect this performance?

In-person attendance varies by sector and increases with organizational age, square footage, budget size, the number of programmatic offerings, the amount spent directly on programs (emphasizing the importance of findings related to the Investment in Program Index), targeting kids or Asian-Americans, and having higher levels of local funding.
Attendance tends to be lower when organizations receive higher levels of support from state or federal agencies, when their lowest ticket prices is not terribly low (representing the importance of an accessible price point), if they produce proportionally more world premieres, or if they target young adults, African-Americans or Hispanics/Latino

How do community arts and leisure characteristics affect performance?

• In-person attendance tends to be higher for organizations in communities with more leisure options, and lower for organizations in communities with high total arts dollar activity, more artists and arts providers, or more public broadcast dollar activity.
The more art museums, the higher the attendance for all art museums, perhaps driven by the convenience of flexible entry times and the ability to easily navigate between multiple museums in the same day. By contrast, more within-sector competitors in the arts education, community-based, music, opera, PAC, or theatre sectors drives down attendance for organizations within these sectors.
 
How do socio-demographic characteristics of the community affect performance?
 
• Physical attendance is lower in communities where the total population is larger, there is a higher percentage of children in the community, and the community’s overall level of philanthropy is high.
• Where the socioeconomic level and median age are higher, attendance tends to be lower.  It is also lower if the organization is in a market with a higher percentage of the population between 18-25 years old, African-American or Hispanics/Latino.
 
What impact does public funding have on performance?
•Physical attendance is lower in communities with higher state and federal government grant activity in the local market.
 
 

What Drives Full-time Employees?

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Arts & Culture Organizations

Positive Effect
  • Organization age, size, sector
  • Has a parent organization
  • Higher local, state and federal funding
  • More programmatic offerings
  • Higher fixed assets
  • Targets kids, young adults
Negative Effect
  • Higher media ticket price

Community Arts and Leisure Characteristics

Positive Effect
  • Market Arts & Culture dollar activity
  • Leisure complements
  • Public radio & TV stations
  • Number of arts education, community, music organizations
  • Number of orchestras
Negative Effect
  • Number of artists and arts providers
  • Number of other museums, theatre companies

Community Socio-demographic Characteristics

Positive Effect
  • Total population
  • Median age
  • High percentage of young adults
  • High percentage of Hispanics/Latinos
Negative Effect
  • Level of philanthropy
  • High percentage of Asian American

Public Funding

Positive Effect
  • Amount and Number of Federal & State Arts Grants

 

What Drives Full-Time Employees?

What organizational characteristics affect this performance?

• The number of full-time employees that an organization has tends to increase with with its age, square footage, budget size, board size, occupancy expenses, the number of programmatic offerings, amount of total investments, and top ticket price.
• Organizations that target people under 25 years old or Hispanics/Latinos, and those awarded NEA or IMLS grants tend to have more full-time employees.
• The number of full-time employees tends to be lower for organizations that present higher levels of local and world premieres and for those who target Asian-Americans.

How do community arts and leisure characteristics affect performance?

• An organization’s number of full-time employees tends to be higher for organizations in communities with more public broadcast dollar activity, higher total arts dollar activity and more leisure activities, which act as complements in this case.
• More artists and arts providers in a community drive down the number of full-time employees.
• The higher within-sector competition in every sector, the lower the number of full-time employees.
 
How do socio-demographic characteristics of the community affect performance?
 
•T he number of full-time employees an organization has rises when there is a higher percentage of young adults in the community and with larger total population. The number is lower in communities where the socioeconomic level and median age are higher, and when there are higher percentages of the population who are either children or Asian-American.
 
What impact does cultural policy have on performance?
• Organizations tend to have more full-time employees in communities with higher state and federal government grant activity in the local market.