By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews
For you, it may just be a night at the play, a trip to an art gallery or going somewhere to listen to live music.
But with your admission ticket — maybe a dinner beforehand, drinks afterward, or overnight at a motel — that play, that gallery and that venue has a noticeable impact on Lincoln County’s economy. Your night out is helping an arts employee pay their rent, the concert hall hire a plumber or painter, and the nearby restaurant fill a seat so they can employ a cook and waiter.
“The fact is that arts organizations are businesses,” Randy Cohen, vice president of research at Americans for the Arts, told a gathering of Lincoln County cultural and tourism representatives Tuesday.
As part of a nationwide survey it does every five years, Americans for the Arts conducted an economic impact study of 29 Lincoln County nonprofit groups in 2022-23. Cohen stopped in Newport as part of a four-day barnstorming tour of Oregon, telling audiences on the coast, the Willamette Valley and Bend that arts organizations are an important cog in the state’s economy.
“Art is just not a nice thing … these are businesses,” he said.
Even as most climbed out of the doldrums following two years of pandemic-related shutdowns, the research showed that the 29 Lincoln County arts and culture organizations:
- Generated $50 million in spending the community, including $15.9 million themselves and $34.2 million by their audiences;
- Accounted for 610 jobs, including 221 in their organizations and 389 attributed to their audience’s spending;
- Had attendance totaling 667,000 people – 67 percent of whom lived in the county; and
- Had audiences spend an average of $50.47 per event — $19 for local residents and $115 for out-of-county visitors.
“The arts isn’t just for the sake of art,” Cohen said. “It’s putting food on the table for 610 people.”
Lincoln County was one of 19 Oregon markets surveyed by the national arts group.
“This is an industry that not only provides a cultural experience but supports the economy,” said Jason Holland, who has spent the past three years as executive director of the Oregon Coast Council for the Arts. “There’s an enclave of arts here. It’s special – and it helps make this a livable community.”
Actual numbers higher
To measure the impact of spending by nonprofit arts and culture organizations in Lincoln County, the Oregon Coast Council on the Arts first identified the eligible organizations – there were 97 and 29 participated. Those organizations — festivals, performing and visual arts organizations, history and heritage centers, public art programs, museums, and community programs — then completed a survey on their fiscal year 2022-23 expenses and attendance.
In addition, surveyors asked 1,332 people attending local events between May 2022 and June 2023 about their spending and where they lived.
The findings are based on the data provided only by those 29 organizations, Cohen said, and no estimates or extrapolations were made to account for the many non-participating organizations.
“That means we know the actual numbers are much higher,” Holland said in an interview with YachatsNews.
Some basics from the report:
- During fiscal 2022-23, the 29 participating nonprofit arts and culture organizations generated $50.1 million in total economic activity — $15.9 million of their own spending and $34.2 million spending by their audiences.
- That money supported 610 jobs, generated $23.9 million in household income for local residents, and delivered $8.6 million in tax revenues to local, state, and federal governments.
- A total of 1,817 volunteers donated a total of 62,263 hours to the 29 participating organizations, donations of time with an estimated aggregate value of $2 million.
- The organizations reported that they received in-kind contributions with an aggregate estimated value of $253,300;
- The organizations reported the attendance to their in-person events totaled 677,050 — 67.2 percent living in Lincoln County and 32.8 percent nonresidents.
- Event-related spending totaled $34.2 million, excluding both the cost of admission and any food or drink purchased on site. That came out to $50.47 per person. Nonlocal attendees spent an average of $115 – mostly lodging, meals and transportation — versus $19 for local residents.
“When taken all together, these cultural tourism findings demonstrate the economic impact of the nonprofit arts and culture industry in its truest sense,” the report concluded. “If a community fails to provide a variety of opportunities to experience the arts and culture, it risks not attracting cultural tourists and their valuable dollars as well as losing the discretionary spending of its own residents who will travel elsewhere in search of the diverse artistic expressions and authentic cultural experiences they seek.”
Numbers to advocate
Cohen made it clear why his organization conducts the local and national surveys – to help local arts and culture organizations convince local and national policymakers that they need and deserve their financial support.
“It’s a really major U.S. industry and that’s the case in Oregon too,” Cohen said. “It’s so easy to take the arts for granted – until it’s not there. We need to be relentless; we have to advocate to tell our story.”
Almost every arts organization in the county, in Oregon and across the country closed for all or most of the pandemic. Many folded during that time and most are still struggling to recover. While many organizations or venues received federal or state pandemic relief funds, a new Oregon Arts Caucus made up of state lawmakers was largely unsuccessful in funneling state money toward those groups during the 2023 Legislature.
Holland said the Newport Performing Arts Center is still feeling the after-effects of the pandemic, but that more groups – and audiences – are returning to the facility, which is embarking on long-awaited $2 million backstage remodeling this month.
In 2022 there were 117 events at the Newport center, he said, drawing 12,324 people to programs. There have been 153 events staged or scheduled this year by its nine resident organizations, with audiences of 22,415.
“I’m encouraged to see the trend,” Holland said, “but we’re not saying ‘OK, we’re done.”
- Quinton Smith is the editor of YachatsNews.com and can be reached at YachatsNews@gmail.com
To read the Lincoln County arts research report, go here
To read a summary of the Lincoln County findings, go here