The National Endowment for the Arts is out with another statistical study, an attempt to state the value Americans place on the arts by looking at the time and money they spend consuming the arts and based on numerous federal studies by the U.S. Economic Census, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), and the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
While the information about the perforrming arts is more plentiful, there is some data about “museums” — though since there is no definition for “museums,” we have to assume that all museums, not just art museums, are in these numbers.
With those caveats, here are a few interesting numbers:
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In 2009, the most recent year for which estimates were available, U.S. consumers spent $6 billion on admissions to museums and libraries. That compares to $14.5 billion on tickets to performing arts events, $10.5 billion on tickets to movie theaters, and $20.5 billion on sports admissions.
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On an average day, museums draw more than 500,000 people. On an average weekend day or holiday, this figure climbs to 885,000 people. By comparison, 1.5 million (age 15 and older) attend the performing arts, 3.4 million go to movie theaters, and 2.7 million attend sporting events.
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The survey shows that on average visitors spend 2 hours and 24 minutes at museums.
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Not surprisingly, while peak attendance for performing arts activities and sports events occurs in the evenings – between 8 and 9 p.m. for performing arts and 7 p.m. for sports events – for museums, peak attendance occurs between noon and 1 p.m.: lunch hour.
How to interpret this, aside from the fact that museums seem to be a good value — which is an obvious selling point nowadays.
Two, versus the alternatives here, museums are punching below their weight in attendance.
Three, intuitively, given these attendance patterns, museums would do better if they were open in the evenings. People are going during lunch hour because that’s the only time they can on a weekday.
On that score (see my earlier pleadings on the subject, starting here), I am pleased to record here that the Museum of Modern Art recently initiated summer evening hours: between July 1 and Sept. 3, MoMA will be open until 8:30 p.m. on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. Currrently, MoMA is open until 8 p.m. on Fridays, and 5:30 p.m. on other days.
And the Frick Collection will stay open, with free admission, from 6 to 9 p.m. on May 13 — and promises to have these special evening hours (with music, sketching, curator talks) once for each special exhibition it mounts (this one is connected to the current Rembrandt show). It’s a start (though the Frick said it tried staying open one evening a week, at full price, back around 2002 — but charged full price and had no special offerings).
Here’s a link to the NEA report and another to the NEA press release.