Arts participation is declining. We all knew that. So now what?

The National Endowment for the Arts recently released results from its 2008 Arts Participation National Survey. Last year marked the 5th time the survey has been administered since 1982. And guess what? It spells doom and gloom.

I'm sure no one out there is really surprised that attendance has declined for all arts forms (except musicals - we still love our easily-digestible escapism) since 2002. What is surprising here is that, not only is the average arts audience now older than the average American adult, but even that older group of 45-to-54-year-olds is not coming out to arts events as much as they used to. Ballet, non-musical plays and museums are targets.

Some things didn't change - arts participation and civic engagement are still intrinsically tied together, and education level remains a solid predictor of arts activity. Exposure to arts education remains critical to continued arts participation. Children are, of course, the future in the arts, as one-third of children in school (ages 5-17) have seen a live performance in the past year outside of their school environment, a statistic comparable to that for college-educated adults. I guess that's encouraging.

The NEA prefaced the report on these findings with a disclaimer about the recession. They think it had a large impact on their findings, to which I can only say, "Yeah, and...?" Of course the economy is impacting arts participation. Live performances cost money, with the exception of Free Night, and people don't really have any money to spare right now.

But what's encouraging about findings from this survey is that it is clear interest in the arts has not really declined. New questions about Internet use reveal that 40% of Internet users listened to, viewed, downloaded or posted artworks or performances in the past year, most of them on a regular basis. The difference is that this remote viewing, via recordings or broadcasts, at least in this economy, is currently enough to satiate public thirst for arts consumption. Live theater is the only event that still has more live participation than remote participation via recordings or broadcasts, and who knows how long that will last?

So what do arts organizations do with that? Does live theater go the way of opera and start doing simulcasts and more PBS specials? (By the way, opera was one of the hardest-hit art forms according to the survey, but I wonder what viewership for the Metropolitan Opera's new simulcasts have done for these numbers.) Do the prophecies about the Internet making human contact and actual emergence from the living room null and void come true, and do they apply to the performing arts, the last bastion of hope for real unmediated experience? Well, I hope not. But maybe this is the only way to keep the arts economically viable, at least until the recession improves. And to me, that's what this survey is suggesting.
Literary reading - what the survey posits is the most affordable form of arts participation - is the only activity that went up since 2002, so clearly money's got something to do with all of this. Maybe Free Night's 5th anniversary this year can make things happen. Maybe Obama's United We Serve initiative, which incorporates volunteerism in the arts, can stimulate interest. Maybe those kiddies going to performances will help more of their parents get out and support the arts. Here's hoping.