Arts may marketers bemoan the aging of its audience, but in the short run, there is a larger market available for audience development populated with aging baby-boomers.
According to the 2010 census, the fastest growing population group was those ages 65 to 69, up by a third from 2000. That group will expand even more rapidly in the decade to come, starting in 2011, as baby boomers begin to turn 65. The Northeast had the largest percentage of people 65 and older, at 14 percent (compared to 13 percent nationally). But the states with the top incremental increases were in the West: Alaska, Nevada, Idaho, Colorado and Arizona helped push the 65 to 69 age cohort up by 23 percent over the decade.
In total, there were 40.3 million people ages 65 and older as of April 2010, a rise of about 15 percent from 2ooo. Seniors grew more rapidly than the 10 percent pace of the nation as a whole. The only age group to experience a decline was that of the 75- to 79-year-olds, reflecting the low number of births during the Great Depression in the 1930s.
A pedestrian count study conducted by ARA revealed that 1.2 million people entered Madison Square Park in June 2011. The total broke down as 1.0 million on weekdays and 200.000 on the weekends. ARA counted pedestrians at all eight gates to the Park from approximately 8am to 8pm. The Park, an oasis in the Flatiron District of New York City, hosts art exhibits, public programs and special events throughout the year. ARA surveyed and counted family visitors at one such event, Kids Fest, on October 15, 2011. A total of 8,248 family members (adults with children) entered the Park between 11am and 2pm. The survey of 166 families revealed that more than 40 percent traveled from outside of Manhattan to attend the event. ARA is proud to be associated with the Madison Square Park Conservancy which enlivens the neighborhood with thoughtful programming and careful maintenance of the green space.
NBC/Universal held its second annual Education Nation summit at Rockefeller Plaza from September 23 to September 27. ARA was asked, as it was last year, to interview and conduct a pedestrian count of visitors to the the Education Experience. The study described visitors’ demographics, geographic origin, reasons for coming for coming, sponsor recognition, and the influence of sponsorship on the opinion of sponsoring brands and organizations, and other information. The five-day event attracted visitors from the New York region, elsewhere in the United States and from other countries.
Aline Chatmajian
The idea of a Boutique Museum Pass came to me a few years ago when I realized how many great small museums there are in New York and that tourists, especially, limited their visits to the majors. I knew from my own travels that each time I returned to a city – be it Montreal, London, or Paris – I would seek out new and different destinations, digging deeper into the cultural firmament.
About a year ago, I offered the idea, to Anne-Marie Nolin, Head of Communications at the Rubin Museum of Art, suggesting that museums with a more targeted curatorial focus band together to promote themselves and encourage New Yorkers and visitors alike to broaden their horizons. Anne-Marie and her media relations colleague at the Rubin, Alanna Schindewolf, have made this a reality. The “Museum Discovery Pass” is now a reality and offers two-for-one admission to seven small, more specialized museums including:
- American Folk Art Museum
- Asia Society Museum
- Jacques Marchais Museum of Tibetan Art
- Museum of Chinese in America
- The Noguchi Museum
- Rubin Museum of Art
- The Studio Museum in Harlem
You can print the wallet-sized pass from each museum’s website (e.g., www.rmanyc.org/visit). It is also available at NYC & Company’s Information Center at 810 Seventh Avenue at 53rd Street. The Pass is good from March 1 until May 31, 2010, a great time to get out and visit museums representing different international cultures.
An iPhone App has been made available for TKTS in New York through iTunes. It is free through March 1, 2011. The app features a real-time display of what is available for same-day purchase for Broadway, Off-Broadway, Off-Off Broadway and selected dance and music productions. There is also a comprehensive search for show descriptions, theatre locations, and performance schedules, as well as links to the official show Web sites. The service was launched by the Theatre Development Fund, which operates TKTS.
Peter Gelb’s successful experiment at the Metropolitan Opera – broadcasting live performances in HD in movie theatres across the country – has set the stage for other performing arts and live entertainment to be seen on the big screen. The latest initiative, according to the Hollywood Reporter, involves four Broadway shows, including Memphis,which is still running in New York, to be broadcast globally starting with Memphis in the U.K. and Ireland on Nov. 24, with South Africa, Hong Kong and several major European territories to follow before the end of the year. Smokey Joe’s Cafe, Jekyll and Hyde (starring David Hasselhoff) and and Putting It Together (the Sondheim revue starring Carol Burnett) will launch across Europe starting early in 2012. NYC and London-based Supervision Media and New York’s Broadway Worldwide have signed exclusive licensing arrangements with these shows. Broadway Worldwide’s production of Memphis was presented in movie theatres throughout the US and Canada earlier this year. Memphis remained on tour in the United States with current bookings through August 12, 2012.
A recent survey by The Strategic National Arts Alumni Project, based at Indiana University, found that 92 percent of arts graduates who want to work are doing so. More than half – 57 percent – are either currently working professionally in the field or have done so in the past. Only six percent reported being currently unemployed.
The details, however, reveal a typically busy lifestyle for arts professionals with 57 percent holding down two jobs currently and another 18 percent working three or more jobs.
On the upside, 54 percent of those working solely outside the arts at the current time said their arts training was relevant to their job. And 71 percent not professionally active now continue to make or publicly perform their art.
Although not a random sample, the sample size was robust with 13,581 alumni from 154 institutions responding to the online survey. The 2010 wave is the most recent in what has become an annual survey.
International tourism is up in the first 11 months of 2010 as 55 million visitors from other countries traveled to the United States. The U.S. Department of Commerce reported that this is a 10 percent increase over the same period in 2009. November 2010 marked the 14th straight month of increases in U.S. arrivals.
Among the top overseas countries, the largest year-to-date percentage increases came from South Korea, Brazil, Australia, and Japan, while the UK registered a small decline. The greatest increase among European nations was France, which had a 12 percent increase year-to-date and a 25 percent hike this past November compared to November 2009.
The increase from France in consistent with results ARA has been observing at recent visitor surveys at New York museums. At the International Center of Photography, for example, which welcomed about one-third of its visitors from other countries, France was the best-represented other nation in 2010. As a result ARA conducted its recent intercept interviews in both English and French.
ARA completed a study of potential riders of a new recreational ferry service, as well as captured reaction to a pilot project for the service, NYHarborWay Water Taxi, that ran between June 4 and September 6, 2010. The study, targeting New Yorkers and visitors, explored reaction to a daytime ferry connecting waterfront parks including South Street Seaport, Brooklyn Bridge Park (Pier 1), and Brooklyn Bridge Park (Pier 6), as well as Governors Island (see map below). A total of 749 intercept interviews were collected.
In addition, ARA interviewed 154 passengers of the NYHarborWay pilot project who expressed great satisfaction with the service. The study was conducted for NYC & Company and the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) during the summer of 2010.
An iPhone App has been made available for TKTS in New York through iTunes. It is free of charge through March 1, 2011. The app features a real-time display of what is available for same-day purchase for Broadway, Off-Broadway, Off-Off Broadway and selected dance and music productions. There is also a comprehensive search for show descriptions, theatre locations, and performance schedules, as well as links to the official show Web sites. The service was launched by the Theatre Development Fund, which operates TKTS.