Creative Participation

Actively participating in arts and culture activities is just as important (if not more so than) attending in person or online venues and events, so we're keen to share our findings about people's personal creative engagement during the past few years.

May 2022

Through examining evidence about participatory activity from the latest wave of Cultural Participation Monitor data, this recorded session discusses the overall levels and profile of engagement and how it’s changed during Covid-19. This session also includes reflections from Barbara Eifler of Making Music.

A quick summary before we begin

Creative activities are widespread, 45% of respondents having done 'Any' since start of COVID... and the pandemic didn't change that greatly.

Changes to engagmeent during the pandemic.png

Increased participation from 2020-2021 was mainly driven by young people attending outside the home, although we also saw increases in the amount done for some art forms and activities across the board.

Age is a key differentiator in breadth of engagement overall, which interacts with families, another important factor, as are being neurodivergent, location, age, and gender (esp. regarding female respondents for visual arts/crafts).

So let's see what else the data is saying...

Download the Data Presentation

Philanthropy and Giving

We asked respondents specific questions about their attitudes to financial support for the arts, either personally or politically:

Willingness to Attend

Looking at which audiences are most and least willing to attend live events in the near future and which are more or less likely to have already booked for them.