Pop Art

An article in the New York Times today claims that the number of arts festivals happening nationwide over there has reached a record high of about 3000, drawing audiences of around 130 million.

I roughly estimate those attendances as being about 45% of the USA's population, although it doesn't account for the fact that obviously a much smaller arts-going population must be attending multiple events to give that sort of box office estimate.
And also, that's still only 1 festival every 96,000 head of population.

I wonder what percentage of our population attends arts events? How many festivals do we have in Australia, compared to our population?

And I wonder what sort of similar comparison could be made with the people who attend our traditional form of culture - sporting events?


Is it possible to increase the general status of arts events in Australia? Are we hindered or helped by our smaller population?

Food for thought.


http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/30/arts/30SUMM.html?pagewanted=1&todaysheadlines


Cheers,
Craig

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