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Success In Abandoning Economic Argument For the Arts

June 8, 2026

by:

Joe Patti

Some students at Miami University did something last month I have been watching to see for a long time. They made an argument for the value of art to a governmental entity without using economic impact as a measure and apparently convinced the city council of Oxford, OH to take action.

According to Angela Meleca the student made an argument on the basis of well-being, belonging, and social connection after conducting a survey of 177 residents “five civic outcome categories: well-being, belonging, social connection, personal relevance, and perspective shift.”

The conversation didn’t move to whether the arts have value. It moved to: where should this go, how do we expand it, how do we integrate this into our planning process?

That is the shift. When you bring outcome data into the right room, the arts stop being defended and start being deployed.

[…]

Here’s what the data made possible that advocacy alone never could: Public art stopped being described as a cultural amenity. It started being described as infrastructure.

Source

In a separate post about a week later, Meleca said framing public art in the lens of the five civic outcomes is what shifted the perception from “nice to have” toward “must have.”

For decades, public art has been evaluated through output metrics: attendance figures, number of installations, and economic activity. Those measures keep public art classified as a cultural amenity rather than civic infrastructure.

The Oxford project used a different measurement framework.

Rather than counting outputs, it measured civic outcomes across five categories that decision-makers already use to justify public investment: well-being, belonging, social connection, personal relevance, and perspective shift.

Source

For over a decade now I have been arguing that economic impact and attendance aren’t a valid measure of the value of arts and culture. Just as Ruth Hartt notes that demographic data about your visitors doesn’t tell you about why people are participating and what they seek from an experience, economic impact doesn’t tell you how enjoyable the experience was and where the friction points might have been.

Billions are spent on construction new stadiums based on the projected economic impact. But does any of that tell you about a sense of well-being and social connection being engendered in your community? You might as well try to measure the value of a baseball game by the number of hot dogs sold.

I have been to some minor league baseball games in really small stadiums that may have cost $1 million to build, but maybe not. People are able to chat and mingle with others throughout the town and region. They feel comfortable letting their kids run around or hang out with other kids in the area foul balls are known to go.

It is much easier to lean over the railing to get something signed by the players. The fact you can get an all you can eat pass for popcorn and hot dogs for the season is part of the experience, but it isn’t the measure of value of the experience.

A minor league team logo on clothing might not have as broad a geographical cachet as the majors, but the presence of those stadiums and the experience they provide have a lot of value to the communities in which they are located for reasons other than economic impact.

Audience Relations, Building Public Will For Arts And Culture, Government Relations

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It’s Not Enough To Have Free Admission

June 2, 2026

by:

Joe Patti

About a week ago The Art Newspaper had an article on the debate about free admission at US museums.

There are a lot of factors discussed but one of the things that caught my eye was the suggestion that free admission alone isn’t necessarily going to increase attendance and participation, there has to be a change in the programming to align with the interests of the audiences you are trying to reach.

The piece opens with the example of Baltimore’s Walters Art Museum and Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) which eliminated their admission fees around the same time.

[Walters] decision to eliminate admissions in 2006 led to an increase in attendance “by 45%, and minority participation went up by a factor of three”, but still that greater influx of traffic did not pay for itself. People came for free but did not spend more while there.

…the long-term results have not been positive overall for either museum. After the first year or so of increased attendance when entry became free, the number of visitors declined at both institutions, by 18.6% at the Walters and 12.7% percent at the BMA, according to a 2021 survey.

Source

A little later the article mentions Walters collection

….are of ancient objects from the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Asia, as well as medieval and pre-20th century European art, which appeal to somewhat specialised tastes and unsurprisingly might not be an obvious draw in Baltimore, a city that has lost a third of its population since 1950 and currently is almost 63% African American

Source

It goes on to mention that BMA recognized the community has changed and controversially sold off some of their collection to purchase works by “under-represented, non-white and African American artists.”

They compare that with Detroit Institute of Arts which eliminated admission for residents of the surrounding three counties in exchange for a share of property taxes to support their operation. They pretty quickly changed their programming mix and the visitor experience to meet the expectations of a fuller range of whose taxes they were now receiving:

As part of the DIA’s elimination of its admissions fees, the museum made notable changes in its displays and programming. A department of African American art was created, and a reinstallation of art placed a greater emphasis on contemporary art. According to Timothy Chester, the former director of the Grand Rapids Public Museum and currently a museum consultant, “the DIA added a variety of interpretive signage and interactive tools to help make installations more relevant to diverse audiences. Critics accused the institution of ‘dumbing down’ the museum, but such criticism quickly faded.”

Source

Arts Facilities, Audience Relations, Finance, Marketing/PR, Pricing

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Changing The Experience Of Visual Art For Colorblind

June 1, 2026

by:

Joe Patti

Creative West had a story about an accessibility aid I had no idea existed —color correction lenses for people with colorblindness.

The lenses don’t completely provide an accurate viewing of color the way eye glasses can allow people to see things in sharp detail. Rather, they allow people to see gradients and nuances between colors that had previously all appeared to be the same.

The Albuquerque Museum Foundation provides the glasses to visitors for free to help people experience their collection. The Creative West piece provides a link to a story David Lee wrote about his experience.

He had been a frequent visitor to the museum so was familiar with the collection and hoped to have his socks knocked off by the difference with the glasses the same way his nearsighted grandfather had been when he realized he could see individual leaves on trees.

It wasn’t that extreme, but he did notice differences. Also, it apparently takes 15-30 minutes to get used to viewing things through the glasses.

David Lee writes:

But I persisted, giving the paintings I’d already seen additional long looks, and something interesting began to happen. When I started repeatedly taking the glasses off and on again, differences began to emerge. Colors through the corrective lenses seemed more vivid, warmer, and often a little darker. I sensed, though, that this darkness was due not to any obscuring of what I was seeing, as with sunglasses. Rather, I seemed to be taking in more color overall.

[….]

Hoping to test the glasses out on real grass and trees, I finagled permission to step outside with them for a minute. In the sculpture garden out front, I was surprised again: The lawn somehow looked brighter and more alive without the glasses. With them, it seemed dull and dark – kind of lifeless. The trees I looked at didn’t change much either way. Maybe this outdoor test needed more time, too.

Source

Because those with color blindness have it in different degrees and relation to difference colors, the museum reports the lens result in a wide range of visitor experiences. Some don’t really see any change while others experience a more marked change.

Given that around 10% of males and a smaller number of females are color blind, this is an underserved population of immense numbers that museums could potentially serve and welcome.

Arts in an Age of Technology, Audience Relations

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Every Price Tells A Story

May 27, 2026

by:

Joe Patti

Seth Godin made a post about price and its relation to value and story rather than cost of production.

I am excerpting heavily here because he says a lot of things about price, but I have a narrative I am going to focus on. So read the full post if you want all his thoughts.

It’s better to explain your fair price once than to apologize for low quality over and over.

[…]

When someone says, “that’s too expensive,” what they mean is that the story you’ve told them so far (and the reputation you’ve earned) doesn’t match the price you’re charging. You probably don’t need a lower price, but you might need to earn a better story.

“It might not be for you,” is almost always part of “we make the best (for someone).”

Bargains, sales and coupons are a sport and a narrative. They’re not just a discount, they create their own sort of value and expectation.

Convenience is often underappreciated as a component of value.

[…]

The most resilient slogan you can earn is, “you’ll pay a bit more, but you’ll get more than you paid for.”

Source

What I really appreciate about these thoughts, (as well as those I didn’t include), is that they emphasize that pricing doesn’t exist in a vacuum isolated and unrelated to story and reputation.

Every price has at least one story associated with it, and one of those stories may be one being told by a customer.

I have made a number of posts over the years citing research that shows free admission or low prices often damages brand perception rather than helping new audiences and visitors discover and become invested in your organization.

Which is not to say low prices don’t lower a barrier to entry for new audiences. There has to be some form of communication that connects the preferred rate to an identity group the person belongs to -resident of a neighborhood, member of a club, etc. Essentially, there is a story attached to the pricing.

Similarly, there are companies out there who will work with you on pricing who emphasize pricing based on the purchaser’s perceived value rather than yours. You may think a section of seats are the most mediocre in your venue, but there are a lot of people who will pay much more than you’re charging. Likewise, you may think an artist is the most gifted of their generation, but low awareness outside professional circles will translate into few buying tickets to a special exhibit.

Godin’s line about convenience being an underappreciated component of value reminds me that many of the barriers to participation arts and culture visitors identify are often outside the control of the organization – things like parking, traffic, restaurant reservations, perception of crime, etc.

Though elements like the ticket purchase path, wayfinding to and through the venue, feeling of welcome, are all within the control of the organization.

The ease of navigating all these elements contributes to an often intangible perception of value associated with an experience.

Those first and last lines I quoted had the most impact on me when I read them.

I hadn’t considered them before. Especially the idea it is better to explain the value behind the pricing rather than apologize for poor quality.

I sort of feel like the brand promise of paying a bit more but getting a bit more has permeated a lot of the work I have done and facilitated and has been echoed back by participant comments. But working to consciously embody that as an individual and organization dovetails well into the core missions of a lot of arts and cultural organizations

Marketing/PR, Pricing

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