King's to track public attitudes to culture
King's College London is launching a new programme of work to ensure the UK doesn't lose the expertise about how to use culture to add value to major events gained through staging the Cultural Olympiad in 2012 and other recent major events.
Culture at King's has secured an additional £110,000 from the Legacy Trust UK to take forward the recommendations made in its first Cultural Enquiry, Beyond Performance, which explored the role that arts and culture play in maximising the value of major sporting and national events. The Enquiry made the case for the creation of a consortium body and programme of work, which King's is now in the process of setting up.
Brought together for up to five years and made up of organisations from across culture, sport, Higher Education, local government and the events industry, the consortium will identify some of the conditions necessary for staging successful cultural programmes within major events to ensure a lasting legacy.
To support the work of the consortium, Culture at King's has commissioned a public tracking study with Nielsen, which will act as a barometer for attitudes to culture in the UK.
The results of the first wave, released today provide new insights into attitudes to arts and culture in the UK, including:
- High prices are more of a deterrent to sport than cultural events
- 12% of people attend some form of arts or cultural event at least once per month, with 59% attending at least once per year
- The top 5 types of cultural event attended in the past 12 months are Films; Exhibitions; Public art installations; Street art; and Theatre
- Amongst younger people, aged 16 to 29 years, 49% consider themselves an 'arty person' vs 51% a 'sporty person'
- 54% of people think cultural events enhance sporting events of which they are a part
Despite recognising the overall value of staging cultural events as part of major sporting events to the UK as a whole, only 37% of people think arts and cultural spaces in local areas are important
The second wave of the tracking study will report in November and further waves are planned for 2015. Culture at King's will also hold its first symposium later this year hosted by Deloitte bringing together key players in events management, culture, sport and business.
Commenting on the tracking study, Deborah Bull, Director of Cultural Partnerships at King's College London said:
'This is the first time attitudes to culture have been tracked on an ongoing basis. At a time when we have so many major events in the calendar – from the WWI commemorations to the Rugby World Cup – this national barometer promises to be an invaluable tool for event organisers and cultural practitioners.
'The success of the Cultural Olympiad was a high point in public engagement with culture – with universal recognition of the value it could bring to major events. However, now that the organisations that made it possible have dissolved, there's a genuine risk we will lose this expertise.
'We need to hold on to that learning so we can create even better events in the future, which add real value to local communities. As an independent voice – and with the support of the Legacy Trust – King's is well-positioned to take this on, and we are working to create a consortium that brings together all the key players to realise this vision and make the integration of culture into major events a given, not an add-on'.
More information:
The cultural inquiry report is available online: www.kcl.ac.uk/cultural/cultura … yond-Performance.pdf
Provided by King's College London
