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The Hong Kong Arts Development Council (ADC) just released the “Hong Kong Annual Arts Survey Report Highlights 2011/12” last week. According to ADC’s website, the Report Highlights collected data on the performing arts programmes which were staged in 46 venues under 23 major performing facilities, visual arts exhibitions that were held in 179 different places, and film festivals and independent/feature screening events in 47 different venues between April 2011 and March 2012, aiming to provide comprehensive statistics for the art sector by analyzing the distribution of the programmes, the ticket price, the attendance, the box office records and the presenters of these programmes/exhibitions/screening events.
Here is a quick list of key findings excerpted from the Report Highlights:
- Over 6,400 different arts and cultural activities in Hong Kong
- 124 cultural activities on a weekly average: 22 film arts programmes, 78 performing arts programme and 24 visual arts exhibitions
- Total attendance was 3.68 million
- Accumulated box office income reached HK$470 million
With reference to the Report Highlights, the number of public paid performances in almost all ticket price categories was on the rise compared to the previous year and the box office income benefited from some of the programmes with tickets fetching higher top prices. If we look into Chart 5 (fig. 1) of the Report Highlights, we will find that there were significant increases in the price categories $351-$420 and $1-$70. And then, in Chart 6 (fig. 2), it shows that the box office income of variety and pop shows had a 150% increase while Xiqu had 32.2% and music had 10%. As for the theatre, there was a 2.7% decrease even though its numbers of performances and attendance had 0.5% and 0.9% increase respectively.
Fig. 1 Top Price Ticket of Public Paid Performances (Source: P. 11, Hong Kong Annual Arts Survey Report Highlights 2011/12, Hong Kong Arts Development Council)
Fig. 2 Box Office Income of Performing Arts Programmes (Source: P. 12, Hong Kong Annual Arts Survey Report Highlights 2011/12, Hong Kong Arts Development Council)
It is no doubt that audience development is on the top of priority list for arts and culture development. Even though there was a 5% increase in total attendance (3.68 million), the general public’s participation at arts and cultural activities still had large room for improvement. According to the census results of Population Census 2011, the population for the age group between 16 and 55 were 4,417,594 and they are considered as a group who has the advantages to participate in arts and cultural activities in terms of financial ability, physical condition, etc.
Last year, the Department of Cultural and Creative Arts, Hong Kong Institute of Education organized a one-day forum on “Using Research to Inform Decisions of Cultural Managers and Cultural Policy Makers”. Many expressed in the forum that there was an urgent need for a survey on arts participation in order for strategic planning and preparing a mapping for arts and cultural development in Hong Kong. It is good news that ADC is now inviting eligible organisations to submit proposals on the “Arts Consumption and Participation Survey”.
The Government’s “Arts Capacity Development Funding Scheme” was launched in 2011 and selected 18 grantees for implementation of approved projects in 2012 to 2014 with the objective of strengthening the cultural software and building the capacity of the arts sector of Hong Kong. It is anticipated that the results of the next survey for the year of 2012/13 will be quite different from this one for the year of 2011/12. Besides, there have been a growing number of arts and cultural activities held at unconventional venues and it may be something worth looking into.
As an arts manager, I can’t help mentioning something related to arts administrative work. At the end of the report (P. 55), it says that the survey was subject to some limitations and one of them is that “some of the venue operators and presenters were not able to provide detailed data”. This is the fifth report of the annual survey but a good practice of records and archive management in arts and cultural institutions is really hard to implement or to be built.
Last but not the least, thanks to ADC for such an important report!
By: Winona, General Manager of Hong Kong Arts Administrators Association
([link_to | http://www.hkadc.org.hk/en/content/web.do?id=4ac14e32468164e301475803e7b40077 | Full Version] of Hong Kong Annual Arts Survey Report Highlights 2011/12, Hong Kong Arts Development Council)