The State of Choral Music in America-3: Arts & the Economy

Last week I blogged about the human capital that choral music generates, that intangible, transcendent something that stirs the human spirit so deeply and that we value so highly.  This week I want to blog about a more tangible aspect: the economic impact of choral music and the arts in general.  And it is surprisingly considerable.

Americans for the Arts, a nationally prominent non-profit that works to advance the arts and arts education, just released its fourth study of the impact of the arts on our economy, Arts & Economic Prosperity IV.  It’s a compilation of surveys of almost 10,000 American arts organizations of all kinds and over 150,000 audience members or attendees, and it took place in 2010, when we were still in the grip of the Great Recession.  They made some thought-provoking discoveries:

•  Non-profit arts and culture organizations pumped $61.1 billion into the US economy in 2010.
• Attendees spent $24.60 per event, above and beyond the cost of the ticket, thereby sending $71.4 billion to local merchants.
• Although the arts as a whole received only about $4 million from government funding across the country, they generated $22.3 billion in revenues to local, state and federal governments.
• Arts organizations supported 4.13 million full-time jobs

Some 182 individual communities participated in the study, and the Puget Sound region was one of those communities, represented by Tacoma, Seattle and Bellingham.  Several local choral groups took part—Seattle Girl’s Choir, The Esoterics, Seattle Chamber Singers, Northwest Girlchoir—as well as museums, theater companies, dance troupes, orchestras, heritage and cultural organizations, art galleries, and film companies.  In those three combined communities:

•  Well over 7 million people attended arts events and performances.
•  Local governments gathered in $20.5 million in revenues.
•  The state of Washington took in more than $25.5 million in revenues from the arts
• The arts in the region supported 13,000 full-time jobs.
• Arts organizations and attendees in all three cities sent $527 million into their local economies

Why should we in the arts, especially choral music, care about this?  More on that next week!

Dr. Linda Gingrich

Artistic director, Master Chorus Eastside