How Our Community Benefits How The Artists Benefit How To Get Involved Why a Festival?
How the arts, performing arts in particular, benefit a community is a loaded question! In short - the arts bless communities in deep and lasting ways!
The obvious & quantifiable way is the powerful impact the arts has on the economic well being of the communities where the arts flourish. There is a nifty economic calculator online that estimates the wonderful "ripple effect" benefit of the arts. Punching in some preliminary numbers (low end estimate) of how our event will bless the community, kaching, kaching - a nice chunk of more than just spare change. In doing research on the matter I came across an article presented at Princeton University's "How the Arts Impact Community's" conference in 2002. Although the author is somewhat pessimistic about studies the paper includes a grid on page 4 of the document originally created by Kevin McCarthy.
That in and of itself is well worth taking a look at!
It organizes information under the following headings:
Material/Health
Cogitive/Psych.
Interpersonal
Economic
Cultural
Social
We invite you write in the comments section how YOU believe your community benefits from the arts!