|
The Arts
The combined annual attendance for arts and cultural performances, exhibits and other programs in Houston is more than 10.7 million, which includes both Houston residents and visitors.
With nearly 21,000 concerts, plays, exhibitions and other arts programs presented in Houston annually, residents and visitors have access to a wide variety of cultural programs.
The nonprofit arts are a $626.3 million industry in Houston, which generates $69.5 million in local and state government revenue.
Houston's nonprofit arts organizations support 14,115 full-time jobs in the local community. An additional 12,192 professional artists call Houston their home. In total, 29,729 jobs are sustained by Houston's nonprofit arts industry.
Nonprofit arts organizations in Houston, which spend $270 million annually, leverage a remarkable $356.3 million in additional spending by arts audiences—spending that pumps vital revenue into local restaurants, hotels, retail stores, parking garages and other businesses.
Event attendees spend an average of $33.49 per person in Houston, not including the cost of admission. This is $11 more than the national average.
Tourists spend an average of $82.10 per person in addition to the cost of their event tickets, a total spending of $132 million a year.
Houston are art and cultural events and exhibitions report 9.2 million visits per year. This is more than twice the number of people who attended Houston's three major league professional sports teams in 2005.
In the past 18 years, Houston has added or expanded 10 art museums or galleries, four major theaters or performance centers and 15 science and history museums.
With $185.8 million, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston led all arts organizations in the U.S. in private donations in 2006, according to a survey by The Chronicle of Philanthropy.
The Houston Museum District is one of the largest in the country, with 18 world-class institutions within walking distance of one another.
The Houston Museum of Natural Science, with 3,171,690 tickets sold in 2006, is the third most visited museum in the U.S., following only the Smithsonian Institution and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Houston is one of the few U.S. cities (New York City, Chicago, Seattle and San Francisco are others) that offer world-class, year-round resident companies in all of the major performing arts—symphony (Houston Symphony), opera (Houston Grand Opera), drama (Alley Theatre) and ballet (Houston Ballet).
Houston’s distinguished collection of civic art, by international artist like Joan Miro and Jean Dubbufet and contemporary artists like Mel Chin, Brad Goldberg and Tony Cragg, can be seen along the 7.5-mile METRORail that links downtown with the Museum District, Texas Medical Center and Reliant Park.
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston inaugurated its new $83 million, 192,447-square-foot Audrey Jones Beck Building in 2000. The opening, which more than doubled the museum's size, catapulted MFAH from 30th to sixth-largest art museum in the nation in terms of exhibition space.
Sources: Houston Arts Alliance, Greater Houston Partnership
|
