“Utahns go to arts events—plays, concerts, dance performances, gallery exhibits and movies—more than people anywhere else in the nation, according to new data compiled by the National Endowment for the Arts,” writes Sean P. Means in Friday’s (9/2) Salt Lake Tribune. “An estimated 84.5 percent of adults in Utah attended visual or performing arts events or went to the movies in 2015, according to a pair of ‘arts data profiles’ issued Tuesday by the NEA. That’s the highest level of any state in the country, and well above the national average of 66.2 percent. The NEA has been issuing results [from its] Survey of Public Participation in the Arts periodically since 1982. That survey has been augmented by the Annual Arts Basic Survey, launched three years ago. This is the first time data in the two surveys—gleaned from U.S. Census figures and other research—have been broken down for a state-by-state comparison, said Sunil Iyengar, the NEA’s director of research and analysis.… The NEA numbers say Utah leads the nation in attending live music, theater or dance performances in 2015, at a level of 51 percent, compared to the national average of 31.6 percent.”
Posted September 7, 2016
