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February 11, 2004

Persistence of vision

Boston media was abuzz with a new report last week outlining the arts audience and the value of the arts to its citizens. Among the key findings of the study (prepared by the Performing Arts Research Coalition...more on this later):

• More than three-fourths of greater Bostonians went to a live performing arts event in 2002, and more than one in six attended twelve or more events.
• More Bostonians attend live performing arts events than professional sporting events.
• Respondents, regardless of how often they attend, strongly agree that the performing arts play a positive role in their lives.
• Bostonians strongly agree that the performing arts contribute to the education and development of children.
• Bostonians agree more strongly about the contributions of the performing arts to their community than about the value of performing arts to themselves.
• Bostonians who attend the performing arts are more likely to vote than nonattenders.

Of course, the leading news in most stories was the comparison of live performing arts attendance to professional sporting events. In the wake of the Patriots' jam-packed Super Bowl event, and in the heart of Red Sox country, such statistics seem contrary to experience and common sense. Problem is, that will make such findings less likely to stick in the political and civic minds of decision-makers.

When feedback seems contrary to experience, we tend to cherry-pick only the facts that fit our experience. In cognitive and management theory, it's called 'confirmation bias'. In politics, it's called reality. So you can say that more people attend live performing arts events than professional sports, but what most people see during every evening newscast is a stadium or ballpark filled with tens of thousands of people. They don't see the thousands of smaller performing arts events with smaller audiences, but larger aggregated attendance. The numbers don't fit their experience, so their experience wins out in the end.

Similar 'more arts than sports' findings were waived in Wisconsin several years ago with similar flash but limited longer-term impact. They are fabulous statistics, with real numbers to back them up. But they are swimming upstream to gain and retain the attention of those driving policy (that's why the voting habits of attendees offers an interesting spin in this report). Keep swimming, I say, but expect to fight the riptide for quite some time.

Those interested in the study -- which was a massive, national effort to research and compare 10 communities -- should visit its homepage on the web, or take a peek at the 10 community reports available for download.

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