Aepiv

Overview

Arts & Economic Prosperity IV (AEPIV) is the most comprehensive economic impact study of the nonprofit arts and culture industry ever conducted in the United States. AEPIV was conducted by Americans for the Arts, the nation’s leading nonprofit organization for advancing the arts and arts education.

As one of 182 study partners across all 50 states and the District of Columbia, PCA facilitated the gathering of detailed economic and event attendance data from study partner nonprofit arts and culture organizations located throughout Charlottesville and Albemarle. In addition, PCA collaborated with the community’s other arts organizations to collect approximately 2,000 surveys from at least 900 arts and culture event attendees in Charlottesville and Albemarle during 2011.

According to data from the study, the arts and culture industry generates $114.4 million in annual economic activity in the Charlottesville area, supporting 1,921 full-time equivalent jobs and generating $9.2 million in local and state government revenues.

The data from these surveys shows that arts and culture organizations spent $49.5 million during fiscal year 2010. Those dollars, in turn, generated $31.2 million in household income for local residents.

In addition to spending by organizations, the local arts and culture industry leverages $64.9 million in event-related spending by its audiences.

While for-profit businesses and individual artists are excluded from this study nationally, exceptions were allowed for five for-profit venues in Greater Charlottesville due to the significant role they play in the overall cultural life of the region: the nTelos Wireless Pavilion, Chroma Projects Art Laboratory, Les Yeux du Monde, Skylight Studios, and The Jefferson Theater. Venues and groups affiliated with the University of Virginia and PVCC were considered eligible nonprofits for the purposes of this study.

Nationally, the AEPIV study reveals that the arts industry produced $135.2 billion in economic activity. This spending – $61.1 billion by arts and culture organizations plus an additional $74.1 billion by their audiences – supported 4.1 million full-time equivalent jobs and generated $22.3 billion in federal, state and local tax revenues.