Scottish Government

High Level Summary of Statistics Trend Last update: Friday, September 23, 2011

Participation and Attendance

In 2007 The Scottish Government's Scottish Household Survey asked adults questions about cultural participation and attendance for the first time. This has now been followed up in the 2008 survey to give a combined 19,000 responses. Key findings regarding cultural participation and attendance include:

Participation

• 72% of adults in Scotland stated that they had participated in arts or cultural activities during the previous year.
• Reading for pleasure was the most popular activity undertaken with 64% of adults in Scotland having done so in the previous year. Other common activities included: dance (22%), craftwork (12%) and playing a musical instrument (11%).
• Reading for pleasure was the activity most likely to be done at least once per week (for 81% of all people doing this activity). For those who play a musical instrument, this was most likely to be done on a weekly basis (56%).
• Women were more likely to have participated in some form of cultural activity than men (77% v 67%).
• Participation was highest for the 25-44 year age group (74%) and lowest in those aged over 75 years (64%).
• Participation was lowest in the most deprived areas (63%) and highest in the least deprived areas (80%). Other demographic patterns for cultural participation and attendance providing the breakdown by urban-rural classification, disability and highest qualification are given in Scotland's People Annual Report: Results from the 2007/2008 Scottish Household Survey and supporting web tables.

Attendance

• 75% of respondents indicated that they had attended an arts or cultural activity during the previous year.
• The arts and cultural events attended by the largest proportion of Scottish adults were going to the cinema (52%), visiting a library (31%), theatre (28%), live music (27%) or museums (26%).
• The most frequently attended cultural event was visiting a library with 20% of library users visiting at least once per week. Cinema attendance is also frequently undertaken with 28% of cinema goers attending at least once per month.

Factors affecting participation and attendance

• Factors affecting participation and attendance were explored in depth using data collected by the SHS Culture and Sport Module. Results are available from People and Culture in Scotland 2007/2008.

Other sources show that:

• There were 1.15 million visits to the National Museums of Scotland in 2008/09, a reduction of 350,000 (23%) from the 1.5 million in 2007/08. A major factor was the temporary closure of the Royal Museum for refurbishment in April 2008.
• There were 1.35 million visits to the National Galleries of Scotland in 2008/09, a reduction of 150,000 (10%) from the 1.5 million in 2007/2008.
• The number of readers at the National Library of Scotland was approximately 71,000 in 2008/09, an increase of 2,000 (3%) from 2007/08.
• In 2008/2009 the Scottish Arts Council ( SAC) through its Flexibly Funding ( FXO) and Foundation Funding ( FO) programmes awarded grants totalling £38.8 million to 92 organisations. Audience figures for these organizations totalled 5.4 million. These figures are not comparable to years prior to 2007/2008, the year in which the new funding strategy was implemented. Information relating to each FO and FXO is available on the Scottish Arts Council's website but it should be noted that funding quoted on the SAC website only includes that accounted for within the financial year and so appears less than the total given above.
• There were over 498,000 attendances at Scottish Screen Regional Film Theatres in 2008/09. This was an increase of 15,000 (3%) from 2007/2008.

Further Information

• Scottish Household Survey 2007/2008: Culture Web tables
• Scottish Arts Council Annual Review 2008/09: Foundation Funding
• Scottish Arts Council Annual Review 2008/09: Flexible Funding
• Scottish Household Survey Annual Report 2007/2008
• People and Culture in Scotland 2007/2008