Community arts participation takes many forms, from attending a local performance to making art with others or joining a cultural festival. Recent surveys show high overall engagement, but participation still varies by geography, socioeconomic circumstances, identity, and access to social spaces.
Contents
- How many people participate?
- What forms does participation take?
- Where do arts experiences happen?
- How participation varies
- Arts participation and social connection
- Culture, identity, and local events
How many people participate?
The broadest recent measure comes from England’s Participation Survey for May 2023–March 2024. It found that 91% of adults engaged with the arts at least once during the 12 months covered, up from 90% in 2022/23. Physical arts engagement reached 90%, compared with 89% in 2022/23, while digital arts engagement reached 36%, up from 28%.
These figures describe arts engagement broadly, rather than participation in a particular community group. They show that arts contact is widespread, while also indicating that digital activity is changing quickly. Among adults who engaged with the arts in 2023/24, 55% engaged only physically, 35% engaged both physically and digitally, and 1% engaged only digitally. The remainder is not assigned to a category in the cited summary, so these percentages should not be treated as a complete additive breakdown.
Frequency also differed by mode. Among adults who physically engaged with the arts in England, the most common frequency was once a week, reported by 59%. Among adults who digitally engaged, the most common frequency was three or four times a year, reported by 33%. Both patterns come from the Main report for the Participation Survey (May 2023 to March 2024).
Arts Council England’s policy-remit definition produces a narrower measure. In England in 2023/24, 78% of adults attended an art event, participated in an art activity, or watched an arts event online. Within that measure, 65% attended an art event in person, 45% participated in an art activity in person, and 36% watched an art event online. The different totals reflect different definitions, not necessarily conflicting estimates.
The United States provides a shorter observation window. In the U.S. Household Pulse Survey during April–July 2024, 25.0% of adults attended at least one live in-person performance or art exhibit during the previous month. During the same period, 16.3% created, practiced, or performed artwork during the previous month. These are monthly measures, so they are not directly comparable with England’s 12-month engagement rates. The figures are reported by the National Endowment for the Arts in New Research Explores Arts Engagement and Social Connectedness and Arts Attendance, Art-Making, and Social Connectedness: Spring/Summer 2024.
What forms does participation take?
Western Australia’s National Arts Participation Survey 2022 gives a detailed view of creative activity among people aged 15 and over. It recorded 917,000 people, or 43% of the population, creating, producing, or collaborating in making art in 2022. The broad creative-participation rate was 43%, down from 45% in 2019.
Community-based forms were significant. In 2022, 15% participated in a community choir or community theatre, and 9% were involved in Community Arts and Cultural Development projects. The survey also reported 25% creating visual arts or craft, 15% creating music, 14% producing creative writing, 9% creatively participating in dance, and 6% creatively participating in theatre.
The same Western Australia report also used a more specific art-form creation measure. On that measure, 24% created visual arts and craft, 12% made music, 12% wrote creatively, 6% danced, and 5% did theatre. These are separate reported measures and should not be combined. Other music-related activities included playing a musical instrument at 9%, singing at 4%, and writing songs, mixing, or composing music at 4%.
The U.S. 2022 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts, covering July 2021–July 2022, similarly shows that participation extends beyond formal attendance. Social dancing was the most common personal arts creation or performance activity, involving 22% of adults. Approximately 26% learned an arts subject through friends or family or by teaching themselves. Twenty percent volunteered, and 20% participated in community activities, meetings, or events. These statistics are from Arts Participation Patterns in 2022: Highlights from the Survey of Public Participation in the Arts.
Together, the results point to a wide definition of community arts participation: making, learning, performing, volunteering, and meeting can all be part of a creative social life. The surveys measure these activities differently, so the geography and time period should remain attached to every comparison.
Where do arts experiences happen?
In the 2022 U.S. SPPA, open-air facilities such as parks, pavilions, and amphitheaters were the selected venue type used by the largest share of adults for arts events, at 17.1%. Restaurants, bars, nightclubs, and coffee shops were the second-most common selected category, at 10.3%. Community centers or public libraries were selected by 4.9% of adults.
| U.S. arts-event venue category | Adults selecting the venue, 2022 |
|---|---|
| Parks, pavilions, and amphitheaters | 17.1% |
| Restaurants, bars, nightclubs, and coffee shops | 10.3% |
| Community centers or public libraries | 4.9% |
How people hear about events also reveals the role of informal networks. Social media was the first source of information for 17.0% of U.S. adults who attended an arts event in 2022. Friends, neighbors, or coworkers were the first source for 14.7%, while a community center was the first source for 5.6%.
England’s 2023/24 physical engagement data includes activities that can occur in both community and commercial settings. Reading books or magazines reached 64% of adults, attending a cinema screening reached 55%, and attending a theatrical performance reached 39%. Digital experiences included watching a prerecorded music or dance event online at 21%, watching a live music or dance event as it happened at 17%, and watching a prerecorded theatre, visual-arts, or literature event at 10%.
Western Australia’s results reinforce the importance of both creative activity and shared events. Visual arts and craft reached 25% under the survey’s creative-participation reporting, while community choir or community theatre reached 15%. In the comparison supplied by the report, community choir or community theatre participation was 15% in 2022, compared with 13% in 2019.
How participation varies
England’s 2023/24 figures show that participation is not evenly distributed across groups. Adults aged 85 and over had 86% physical arts engagement and 29% digital arts engagement, the lowest rates among the age classifications cited in the report. Female adults had 92% physical arts engagement, compared with 89% for male adults.
The report also recorded differences by sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, occupation, deprivation, and region. Physical arts engagement was 95% for gay or lesbian adults and 96% for bisexual adults, compared with 91% for heterosexual or straight adults. Muslim adults had 75% physical and 25% digital engagement, the lowest rates among the religious groups compared in the report.
Pakistani adults had 73% physical and 22% digital engagement. The digital rate was lower than every other named ethnic group except Bangladeshi adults, whose rate was 23%. Adults in higher managerial, administrative, or professional occupations recorded 96% physical and 41% digital engagement. Adults classified as never worked or long-term unemployed recorded 76% physical and 29% digital engagement.
Place-based differences were also visible:
- Physical arts engagement was 95% in England’s least-deprived decile and 82% in its most-deprived decile. Digital engagement in the most-deprived decile was 30%.
- Physical engagement ranged from 93% in the South East and South West to 89% in the North East, North West, West Midlands, and Yorkshire and the Humber.
- The highest cited local-authority rate was 97% in Chichester, South Cambridgeshire, the City of London, and Rutland. Leicester was at 80%, while Slough and Blackburn with Darwen were at 81%.
These are descriptive survey results for 2023/24. They identify differences in reported engagement, but the supplied figures do not establish why those differences occur.
Arts participation and social connection
The U.S. Household Pulse analysis for April 2–July 22, 2024 compared recent arts attendees and art creators with people who had not attended or created art. The results describe associations in the survey period; they do not show that arts participation caused a particular social outcome.
Among recent arts attendees, 42.0% reported not belonging to a social group, compared with 52.1% of adults who had not attended an arts event. Attendance at organization or club meetings 12 or more times in the prior year was reported by 29.2% of recent attendees, versus 15.0% of non-attendees.
Art-making showed a similar pattern for group membership. Among adults who created art in the previous month, 46.4% reported not belonging to a social group, compared with 57.7% of non-creators. Attendance at organization or group meetings at least 12 times a year was 28.2% among creators and 19.3% among non-creators.
Loneliness measures were mixed but still show meaningful differences. Only 2.7% of adults who attended a live arts event in person in the previous month reported always feeling lonely, compared with 5.1% of non-attendees. Recent arts attendees were more likely to report feeling lonely only rarely: 38.7%, compared with 25.4% of non-attendees. Among art creators, 18.4% said they never experienced loneliness, compared with 27.3% of non-creators.
Social and emotional support also differed. Among recent arts attendees, 29.8% said they always received needed social and emotional support and 39.5% said they usually did so. Among non-attendees, the corresponding figures were 23.4% and 24.1%. Arts creators were more likely than non-creators to say they usually received needed support, at 38.8% versus 30.2%.
Culture, identity, and local events
Western Australia’s 2022 survey measured participation connected with people’s own cultural background, language group, or community. Thirty percent of people engaged through attending events or festivals or creating art, down from 33% in 2019. Twenty-five percent attended a cultural or artistic event focused on their own background or community, compared with 29% in 2019.
Music was the leading type of cultural-background event attended, reaching 14% of the population. Visual arts and craft events and festivals or celebrations each reached 9%. Dance events reached 8%, and theatre events reached 6%. Seventeen percent created art to engage with their own cultural background, language group, or community. Among people who created art in the previous year, 45% made work for that purpose.
The survey also recorded reported benefits and festival attendance. Among people who attended creative, cultural, and artistic events focused on their own community, 96% cited at least one benefit. Fourteen percent attended at least one Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander festival in 2022; 7% attended a festival featuring many art forms, 6% a performing-arts festival, and 5% a music festival.
Participation can also support the arts materially. In the U.S. 2022 SPPA, 12% of adults acquired a piece of art, 10% donated to an arts organization or project, and 3% subscribed to season tickets with an arts organization or event. These figures broaden the picture of community participation beyond attendance: people may engage as makers, audiences, learners, volunteers, supporters, and participants in cultural identity.