WWD5
Attendance at Cultural Events
Community
What we do
Attendance at Cultural Events
Attending cultural events provides opportunities for social interaction, exposure to different art forms, education and exposure to cultural, historical, geographical, sociological, or political ideas, and a sense of community.
Cultural attendance in Understanding Society includes attending a film at a cinema or other venue, an exhibition or collection of art, photography, sculpture or a craft exhibition, an event which included video or electronic art, an event connected with books or writing, street arts or a public art display or installation, a carnival or cultural specific festival, a circus, a play/drama, pantomime or musical, an opera/operetta, a classical music performance, a rock, pop or jazz performance, a ballet, or a contemporary or culturally significant dance performance.
Key Value
A monetised social value of £3,100
Monetised social value of a 1 person ‘attending at cultural events’ once/twice per year
The study by Wang, Mak, and Fancourt (2020) explored the relationship between arts engagement, mental health, and life satisfaction. The results are particularly strong in showing the effect of attending cultural events on overall life satisfaction, even with less frequent attendance.
So, engaging in cultural activities can contribute to positive mental well-being and enhance overall life satisfaction.
This study used data from Understanding Society: The UK Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS), which provides high-quality longitudinal panel data comprising stratified and clustered data. Life satisfaction was measured using a single question “overall, how satisfied are you with your life nowadays?”. Responses range from 1 (completely unsatisfied) to 7 (completely satisfied). The first column in the table below represents the coefficients obtained from the study. The second column shows the coefficients converted into WELLBYs (the 0-10 life satisfaction scale). The third column displays the corresponding WELLBY value.
Therefore, the change in life satisfaction associated with attending cultural events once/twice per year is worth 0.204 WELLBYs, or 0.204*£13,000 = £2,650.
| Coefficient | Converted Coefficients | WELLBY VALUE (coefficient *£13,000 and rounded) | |
| Never/almost never (ref.) | 0.000 | 0.000 | £0 |
| Once/twice per year | 0.13 | 0.204 | £2,650 (inflation adjusted and rounded £3100) |
| Once per month | 0.11 | 0.172 | £2,200 |
| Once per week or more | 0.17 | 0.267 | £3,500 (inflation adjusted and rounded £4100) |
| Notes: Monetary figures in bold are those where the coefficient was significant at p < 0.01.
|
|||
We adjusted the value for inflation. The adjusted value and rounded value is £3,100 for attending cultural events once/twice per year .
Our approach to inflation adjustments is explained on our Methodology page HERE
Bronze
Effort
Accuracy
Monetised value:
Multiply the proportion of your participants you expect to attend cultural events by £3,100
APPLYING THE WELLBY VALUE: If you can’t ask people directly about their attendance at cultural events, because you’re unable to survey them, or this is a plan for a future project, then you can use this value as a proxy for increased frequency of attendance at cultural events.
NOTE: If it is a regular attendance please use the value for attending cultural events once per week or more. It is £4,100 per person per year.
This value should be applied only when the attendance at cultural events would not have occurred otherwise, i.e., when the intervention or project enables new access or removes barriers to participation. The social value figure is not meant to reflect the impact for those who would have attended cultural events anyway.
It could be particularly relevant for:
- People living in more deprived areas, where cost, accessibility, or awareness of events might be limiting factors.
- Individuals without access to private or reliable public transport, which can prevent travel to cultural venues.
- Residents of rural or isolated areas, where local cultural infrastructure is limited or non-existent.
- Young people or older adults with limited social networks, where isolation may be a barrier to attending shared or public events.
- Minority or marginalised groups for whom cultural events may not feel accessible or inclusive without tailored provision.
In terms of estimating your confidence in the value actually being created for people — or ‘what would have happened anyway’ — users of this value should judge their level of confidence that individuals would not have otherwise attended one or two cultural events in the year. This could be informed by your understanding of the target population who are attending.
Check the FAQ for details on not overclaiming the value.
Example
You are delivering a summer events series across June, July, and August, offering art exhibitions, music concerts, and theatre performances in or near communities identified as being in the most deprived areas. These events are free or low-cost and intentionally designed to be inclusive and accessible, removing common barriers to participation such as affordability, transport, and awareness. You anticipate that 20 people from these areas will take part. Based on the nature of the programme and its target audience, you estimate that 10 out of the 20 will go on to attend at least one or two cultural events per year, who would not have done so otherwise.
According to wellbeing valuation figures, the monetised social value of one person attending cultural events once or twice per year is £3,100 (in 2023 prices). Since the programme enables 10 people to newly engage in cultural participation:
10 × £3,100 = £31,000 in total social value generated
Silver
Effort
Accuracy
Monetised value:
Consider what frequencies of attendance at cultural events you might shift people from and to. Therefore you can calculate an estimate of the overall shift, by applying the appropriate WELLBY values.
Consider what frequencies of attendance at cultural events you might shift people from and to. Therefore you can calculate an estimate of the overall shift, by applying the appropriate WELLBY values.
Example
You run a programme that promotes cultural events such as art exhibitions, music concerts, and theatre performances. Realistically not all participants are completely inactive to start with. You estimate half your participants are never attend at cultural events, but half are attend once/twice per year. You anticipate 25 people will take part, and you anticipate some will continue taking part every week for a reasonable amount of time. The rest will come intermittently, and some might not continue at all. You’re not sure of this split, so you estimate half in the remaining two groups. Let’s assume
20% (5 people) of the participants move from “Never” to “once per week or more”, (value: 5*£4,100)
20% (5 people) of the participants move from “Never” to “once/twice per year” (value= 5*£3,100)
20% (5 people) of participants move from “once/twice per year” to “once per week or more”. (value=5*£1000)
| Pre-intervention
(Estimated %) |
Post-intervention
(Estimated %) |
Change
(I-C) |
Value (to be applied) | Value of change | ||
| Never/almost never / once a year or less | 50% | 10% | -40% | 0 | £0 | |
| Once/twice per year | 50% | 50% | 0 | £3,100 | £0 | |
| Once per week or more | 0% | 40% | 40% | £4,100 | £41,000 | |
| Total value of programme: | £41,000 | |||||
Gold
Effort
Accuracy
Monetised value:
Monetised social value: Measure actual amounts of difference that the attendance at cultural events makes to people’s lives.
To apply these WELLBY values you should use the same question and ask it in the same way as was asked in the original research. The question should be asked in exactly this way:
“In the last 12 months, have you been to any of these events?”
A film at a cinema or other venue, Exhibition or collection of art, photography, sculpture or a craft exhibition, Event which included video or electronic art, Event connected with books or writing, Street arts or a public art display or installation, Carnival or cultural specific festival, Circus, Play/drama, pantomime or musical, an opera/operetta, Classical music performance, Rock, pop or jazz performance, Ballet, Contemporary dance performance, or African people’s dance or South Asian and Chinese dance, None of these.
“Thinking about this event {if one event mentioned at previous question} / all these events {if more than one event mentioned at previous question}, how often in the last 12 months have you been to events such as this? Remember only include events attended in your own time or for the purposes of voluntary work.” [Never, once/twice per year, once per month, at least once a week]
For more information please visit Gold: Surveys and measurements of actual results.
Support in developing your Gold survey approach is available through the Measure Up partners, so please do reach out to Impact, State of Life or PRD.
Gold+
Effort
Accuracy
Monetised value:
Monetised social value: Adjust your measurement based on comparison to your control group, and discounting any other causality factors that may have had an impact on their overall wellbeing
At the Gold+ level, you are building on your Gold value calculation by assessing the value against the counterfactual, or ‘what would have happened anyway’.
To do this you should identify a control group suitable to assess in line with your intervention, in order to more accurately attribute any changes to your intervention.
You could also consider any other discount or causality elements linked to your job creation activity.
Support in developing your Gold+ counterfactual, causality and discount approach is available through the Measure Up partners, so please do reach out to Impact, State of Life or PRD.
| Value Type: | Activity |
What's this?
This is the type of value. Some values are outcomes, which means many different interventions might lead to them, others are specific interventions that have a set value. |
|---|---|---|
| UN SDG Categories: |
|
What's this?
The UN Sustainable Development Goals are global goals adopted in 2015 for all signed up nations to achieve for us to have a sustainable global future by 2030. There are 17 Goals that address the global challenges we face, including those related to poverty, inequality, climate change, environmental degradation, peace and justice. The Goals are all interconnected, and in order to leave no one behind, it is important that we achieve them all by 2030. |
| PN06/20 Categories: |
|
What's this?
PPN 06/20 Taking account of social value in the award of central government contracts introduced the Central Government Social Value Model in 2020 which all Central Government contracting authorities must use in their in scope procurements. It consists of 5 themes, 8 policy outcomes, and 24 Model Award Criteria which outline key priority areas to achieve more social value. |
Evidence
Measure Up focuses on empowering you to numerically measure the impact you’re having. We recommend that numeric reports are backed up with stories and other types of evidence to help illustrate, in human terms, the impact that’s being made on individuals.
We recommend seeking consent from one or more participants in your intervention to collect and tell their story. This should include a little background on the participant, a summing up of life before the intervention, the human impact of the intervention, and the longer term (if known) impact on the person’s life outside of, and after, the intervention.
Providing photographs, audio recordings, video interviews or even artifacts from the intervention (for example, writing, paintings, music, etc from creative interventions) can add more colour, and convey the emotional impact of interventions more directly.
In some cases it’s appropriate to anonymise or abbreviate the personal information of case study participants. No story should be published or shared without the recorded consent of the individual(s) it concerns. Individuals continue to own the rights to their stories and if they request you stop sharing the story or making it available online you should do so promptly and without need for justification.
Feedback
Measure Up is an open, collaborative and transparent. If you have any suggestions or feedback on our pragmatic, recommended approach to measuring Life Satisfaction please get in touch so we can share and discuss this at our next Advisory Group meeting.
More help
We want to empower anyone to perform and improve their impact measurement – without needing a degree in economics.
If you need any more help, or just someone to do the legwork for you we can help signpost you to software, training and consultancy to help you get to grips with the impact you’re having.
