Arts attendance up

The National Endowment for the Arts says findings from its recently published survey of public participation in the arts show gains in arts attendance, and in particular a sizable growth in poetry reading.

“U.S. Trends in Arts Attendance and Literary Reading: 2002-2017,” a partnership between the NEA and the U.S. Census Bureau, covers shifting patterns of arts attendance and literary reading for the years 2002, 2008, 2012 and 2017 as measured by the share of Americans 18 and older who reported doing any of these activities at least once in a year.

Between 2012 and 2017, the share of adults who attended visual (going to art museums, galleries and craft festivals) or performing (ranging from dance to theater) arts activities grew by 3.6 percentage points to 132.3 million people, representing nearly 54 percent of the U.S. adult population. Most of the increase came from visits to art museums or galleries and the “informal” arts sector, including outdoor performing arts festivals, touring places for their design or historic value and “other” performing arts events not tracked individually, including rap and hip hop, country music, rock and folk music.

The rate of poetry reading between 2012 and 2017 among adults grew by 76 percent, to 28 million people in 2017. A total of 106.8 million people attended performances in 2017, up 3.2 percentage points from 2012.