{"id":790,"date":"2005-10-26T08:28:14","date_gmt":"2005-10-26T15:28:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp\/2005\/10\/everythings_about_a_date_in_ka\/"},"modified":"2005-10-26T08:28:14","modified_gmt":"2005-10-26T15:28:14","slug":"everythings_about_a_date_in_ka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/main\/everythings_about_a_date_in_ka.php","title":{"rendered":"Everything&#8217;s about a date in Kansas City"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The on-line arts research warehouse <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cpanda.org\/\">CPANDA<\/a> has a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cpanda.org\/arts-culture-facts\/cpcp\/cpcp.html\">new &#8216;quick fact&#8217;<\/a> this month that&#8217;s bound to annoy the aesthetically pure. Drawn from a cultural participation study in 1998, the summary shows the stated motivations of surveyed Kansas City residents who had attended an arts event in the prior year.<\/p>\n<p>The answers shouldn&#8217;t shock any of us by now:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>62 percent said that &#8221;a lot of the reason&#8221; for their attendance was &#8221;to get together with friends or family for social reasons&#8221;\n<li>47 percent said that &#8221;a lot of the reason&#8221; was &#8221;to support a friend or family member who was involved&#8221;\n<li>41 percent said that &#8221;a lot of the reason&#8221; was the &#8221;quality of the art&#8221;\n<\/ul>\n<p>But the gut punch comes in the alternate responses that showed the &#8221;quality of the art&#8221; was <i>completely irrelevant<\/i> to 21 percent of those surveyed. In other words, 21 percent of respondents claimed that artistic quality played <i>no<\/i> role in their motivation to attend. None.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m not saying there is a <i>proper<\/i> motivation for attending a cultural event. I honestly believe there&#8217;s truth, honor, and beauty in (almost) all ways of connecting with cultural experience. I&#8217;m just suggesting that many arts organizations continue to believe their own promotional materials &#8212; that it&#8217;s all about excellence &#8212; when a sizable percentage of their audience doesn&#8217;t agree.<\/p>\n<p>In my head, I&#8217;m picturing a group professional actors staring out at a full house, realizing that perhaps 20 percent of the people staring back at them had no interest in the calibre of their work (at least when choosing to attend). Sure, the audience may have chosen them as the best environment for their date or gathering. Sure, they may be there as family and friends of those on stage. And sure, the same people could be sitting anywhere else at that moment, but they chose not to be. Despite all those wonderfully positive choices, it&#8217;s likely a disconnecting statistic, nonetheless.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The on-line arts research warehouse CPANDA has a new &#8216;quick fact&#8217; this month that&#8217;s bound to annoy the aesthetically pure. Drawn from a cultural participation study in 1998, the summary shows the stated motivations of surveyed Kansas City residents who had attended an arts event in the prior year. The answers shouldn&#8217;t shock any of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-790","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}