Attendance rose significantly in 2021, even though it hasn’t recovered to pre-pandemic levels yet
November 2021
Cultural Participation Monitor
Wave 5 | Winter 2021
This research is from The Audience Agency's nationwide longitudinal (ongoing) panel survey of changing views about participating in creative and cultural activities through the recent and ongoing crises, and beyond, the Cultural Participation Monitor.
Themes
In-person engagement doubled in 2021 compared to 2020, especially for film, heritage sites, and museums, while online engagement is starting to trend down.
Attendance dropped significantly for all artforms during the pandemic. However, latest findings show that the gap in attendance levels is slowly closing compared to pre-pandemic levels.
For many activities (outdoor arts, film, performing arts, heritage), engagement in 2021 was double or more the proportion engaging in 2020.
When looking more specifically at only people who attended arts or heritage activities at any point during the pandemic, we can see that cinema trips were the most popular. This is followed closely though by well spaced and ventilated activities like museums and heritage, along with spending time outdoors (which was also relatively more popular in 2020).
The proportion of people who attended an arts or heritage event during the pandemic went up by two thirds in 2021 (in the period up to October 2021) compared to the pandemic period in 2020 (March to December 2020). The proportion who visited heritage sites and museums has doubled, and attendance to live music gigs has tripled, from 5% to 16%.
While in-person engagement has been on the rise, reports of online cultural engagement are falling this year from 31% in 2020 to 24% in 2021, and just 13% in the last two months.
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Watch nowOther findings from Wave 5 | Winter 2021
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Willingness to attend cultural events in person may be on the rise
Willingness to attend might be going up slightly, but still a third are not comfortable returning in-person (even before Omicron).
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Audiences still care about Covid safety measures
Attenders still feel strongly about Covid safety measures in place at cultural venues, and they would like to see them continue. Ventilation and crowd management are the safety measures rated most important.
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Shifts in audience behaviour are likely to be longer term – but may bring new audiences
People are expecting to keep attending less culture in-person than they used to, with audiences likely to skew towards younger, more urban groups, or families.
