SMU DataArts released their National Trends study for 2025 in the last couple weeks. At first there is a brief flicker of optimism when you read that earned and contributed revenue is returning to pre-pandemic patterns until you realize that refers to the ratio of earned to contributed revenue. Overall revenue has fallen below pre-pandemic levels.
Expenses are lower too, but that is due to reduction in personnel expenses. There was some good news for artists in that payments to them didn’t drop as much as overall personnel expenses. But unfortunately that seems to indicate organization staffing got cut back quite a lot. Indeed, SMU DataArts noted staff counts have dropped to their lowest point in six years.
On the other hand, attendance is growing even as programming is being cut back.
Our data shows a continued downward trend in the average number of distinct programs per organization, from 150 in 2023 to 83 in 2024. These findings indicate that arts organizations may be making strategic reductions to their programming while focusing efforts on attracting and retaining more attendees for each program.
It is somewhat encouraging to think that arts organizations are starting to do a better job of marketing and retaining audiences. There is some hope that some arts organizations may have a strategy that will enable their recovery. I would be interested to learn what steps organizations had taken to achieve that. I would be just as interested to learn that audiences are so eager to participate in these offerings, the arts organizations didn’t have to make much effort. (I am sure that is true in some communities, but unlikely true in general.)
My preference would be to stop reading on that page because the last section of the summary shows more organizations are running deficits or have an ever shrinking gap between revenue and expenses as well as dwindling reserves with which to cover deficits.
