Author: Kiplinger, Austin

Publication Year: 1981

Media Type: Book

Summary:

Abstract:

Paper presented at Conference on the Economic Impact of the Arts, sponsored by Cornell University, Graduate School of Business and Public Administration, held in Ithaca, New York, May 27-28, 1981.

My own participation in the arts scene has been largely with choral and symphonic music, where costs have been escalating above and beyond the inflation averages. Yet it doesn't do any good to wail and gnash our teeth about inflation because inflation is a fact we have to live with.

Labor-intensiveness is another characteristic of the arts that we are familiar with. We all know that it takes as long to write a play or symphony, or create a picture or ballet today as it did a hundred years ago, yet what we so indelicately call labor costs have risen sixty-fold in the meantime.

We cannot recapture these increased costs through admission charges alone. Like colleges that cannot raise tuition to cover fully the rising costs of higher education, the arts cannot willy-nilly raise prices commensurate with rising costs. In the performing arts, if we can maintain ticket income at 50 percent of costs we are doing uncommonly well, so we spend much time seeking public and private gifts - that other income that we cannot do without.

To the corporations of America, I say quite simply: you take up the slack in arts budgets. It is a way of strengthening the social capital of every community. It will provide a healthy environment for your own stockholders, employees, and customers. The arts are as much a part of our environment as air, water, office buildings, housing, roads and parks. (p. 76-78)

Arts & Intersections:

Categories: Private Sector