About this Study

The Arts and Economic Prosperity 6 (AEP6) is an economic and social impact study of the nation’s nonprofit and arts cultural industry produced by Americans for the Arts. AEP6 provided detailed findings on 373 regions from across all 50 states and Puerto Rico and representing rural, suburban, and large urban communities.

Creative Greensboro served as a local partner in the research project along with The Arts Council of Greater Greensboro and the Highpoint Arts Council. A special thank you to the Creative Greensboro staff who surveyed people at various local events, gathering insights from more than 2,000 participants. This collaborative effort delved into the intrinsic link between the arts and community well-being.

Findings: Arts and Culture Boosts the Local Economy

In 2022, nonprofit arts and culture organizations and their audiences generated $235.3 million in economic activity in Greensboro - $104.2 million in spending by the organizations, which leveraged an additional $131.1 million in event-related spending by their audiences. This economic activity supported 3,629 jobs and generated $33.3 million in tax revenue.

When people attend a cultural event, they often make an outing of it - dining at a restaurant, paying for parking or public transportation, enjoying dessert after the show, and returning home to pay for child or pet care. Attendees at the City of Greensboro’s nonprofit arts and culture events spend $41.64 per person per event, beyond the cost of admission - vital income for local merchants and a value-add that few industries can compete with.

Arts and culture organizations also strengthen the visitor economy: 39.7 percent of Greensboro’s arts attendees travel from outside Guilford County; these cultural tourists spend an average of $57.14 per person. When asked, 85.3 percent of those nonlocal attendees reported that the primary purpose of their visit was “specifically to attend the performance, event, exhibit, venue, or facility” where they were surveyed.

Spending at BIPOC & ALAANA Events

The AEP6 study included an expectation - for the first time - that the local and statewide research partners would collect a portion of their audience surveys from attendees to events that were presented, produced, or hosted by arts and culture organizations that primarily serve BIPOC (Black Indigenous People of Color) and ALAANA (African, Latino, Asian, Arab and Native American) identifying communities. The goal is to measure the impact of arts and culture inclusive of all communities, cultures, and identities, and to create better tools to advocate for communities that have historically been overlooked, underfunded, and marginalized.

To complete this analysis, we collected 321 surveys from attendees to BIPOC and ALAANA arts and culture organizations (representing 30.5 percent of the overall sample of 1,052 audience surveys, and 214 percent of the researchers’ goal to collect a minimum of 150 surveys from attendees to BIPOC and ALAANA organizations in the City of Greensboro).

Attendees to BIPOC and ALAANA arts and culture organizations spent an average of $44.59 per person, per event as a result of attending an event in the City of Greensboro during Fiscal Year 2022.

Conclusion 

Arts and Economic Prosperity 6 delivers a clear and welcome message: when communities invest in arts and culture, they are not investing in community development at the expense of economic development. Rather, they are investing in an industry that stimulates the economy, supports local jobs, and contributes to building healthy, vibrant, and more livable communities. When we support the arts, we are investing in both Greensboro’s economic and community well-being.

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Participating Nonprofit Arts and Culture Organizations 

This study could not have been completed without the cooperation and participation of the 65 nonprofit arts and culture organizations in the City of Greensboro, listed below, that provided the financial and attendance information necessary for the analysis:

À La Carte Corp.; African American Atelier; Art Alliance of Greensboro; Bold and Taking Over Dance Team Corporation; Carolina Theatre of Greensboro; Casa Azul of Greensboro; Center for Creative Aging North Carolina (dba Creative Aging Network-NC); Center for Visual Artists Greensboro; Choral Society of Greensboro; City of Greensboro (Office for Arts and Culture); Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro (Public Art Endowment); Community Theatre of Greensboro; Dance Project; Downtown Greensboro; Eastern Music Festival; Forge Greensboro; Green Hill Center for NC Art; Greensboro Ballet; Greensboro Coliseum Complex; Greensboro Downtown Parks; Greensboro History Museum; Greensboro Literary Organization; Greensboro Opera; Greensboro Science Center; Greensboro Symphony Orchestra ; Greensboro Tarheel Chorus; Greensboro Television Network; Guilford College Art Gallery; Guilford County Schools; High Lonesome Strings; Bluegrass Association; Hirsch Wellness Network; Jalloh's Upright Services of NC; Kids Poetry Basketball; Magnolia House Foundation; Miriam P. Brenner Children's Museum; Montagnard Dega Association; Music for A Great Space; North Carolina Folk Festival; North Carolina Theatre Conference; Piedmont Blues Preservation Society; Blandwood; Preservation Greensboro; Reconsidered Goods; Revolution Mill; Royal Expressions Contemporary Ballet; Sable Books; Scrapmettle Entertainment Group; Steven Tanger Center for the Performing Arts; Strange Fruit Foundation; Sweetgum Puppets; Tab Arts Cente ; The Choral Arts Collective; The Guilford College Bryan Series; The Music Academy of North Carolina; Theatre of Movement; Touring Theatre Ensemble of North Carolina; Triad Musicians Matter; Triad Pride Performing Arts (Greensboro); Triad Stage; UNCG Opera Theatre; UNCG School of Theatre; UNCG's Greensboro Project Space; United Arts Council of Greater Greensboro; Uptown GSO; Weatherspoon Art Museum