The Business Case for Using the Arts in Business Improvement Districts
Arts & Business, Arts Council England and the Association of Town Centre Managers commissioned a piece of research to find out how Business Improvement Districts are using the arts to meet business objectives. This page sets out the summary of findings wth the full report available to download.

Executive Summary
This report seeks to answer three questions:

• What kind of involvement do Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) or similar town centre initiatives (TCIs) have with the arts and arts activities both here in the UK and overseas?
• How can arts and culture contribute to economic business objectives in area-based improvement initiatives such as BIDs?
• What factors produce successful involvement of artists and the arts in town centre initiatives and how can that good practice be replicated elsewhere?

What are the major priorities of BIDs?
As a starting point for viewing the potential role of the arts within BIDs and wider town centre initiatives, the report examines the business objectives of UK BIDs as well as experience in several overseas countries. These demonstrate a consistent emphasis on four themes or objectives:

• Safety/crime reduction (increasing both perceived and actual safety levels)
• Increase in footfall (creating festivals and events and better transport facilities to encourage people into the area)
• Enhancement of environment (making the place cleaner, greener and visually appealing)
• Marketing, Promotion, and Differentiation (improving the image, the brand, as well as leveraging visitor and tourism benefits)

How are BIDs and Town Centres using the arts?
A survey of 101 BIDs and Town Centre Initiatives showed that 82% had made use of arts activities of some kind. Woven together, the messages coming out of the survey were generally more upbeat and give cause for optimism. The survey showed that:

• a high proportion of town centre initiatives have used the arts
• a wide range of arts activities have been used
• performance events were judged to be most successful
• this high level of use of arts and related activities took place despite relatively low budgets
• direct budgetary provision for arts activities or programmes is very limited
• use of the arts is not dependent on budget size suggesting creative use of minimal budgets and working in partnership with other agencies
• a substantial proportion of respondents using arts activities report positive impacts of various kinds
• most town centre initiatives had contact with their local authority arts officers but far fewer had contact with Arts Council England
• financial resources are the key barrier to further arts activities
• lack of specialist knowledge and a low priority in strategic objectives were not seen as major barriers to further use of the arts.

Within all of these urban development settings a wide range of arts activities is present within BIDs programming and these essentially distil down to the following categories:

• Performances and Events (Concerts, Festivals, Street Entertainment)
• Streetscaping
• Walks/Talks (Artwalks)
• Space/Buildings (Venues, Artists Lofts and Studios)
• Visual Arts (Public Art, Galleries, Open Studios, Phantom Galleries, Artists in Residence)
• Other (Creative Strategies, Business Support for artists, Group Marketing Initiatives).

How to encourage greater use of the arts
Interviews with a number of BIDs and with a range of well-established TCIs provided a number of insights into the process of using arts activities. These were:

• town centre arts projects are initiated by a variety of people or bodies associated with the TCI
• getting financial and in-kind support from a range of partners is important
• projects must ‘hit the spot’ in terms of their objectives
• planning and communication are essential
• arts involvement must not be sought too cheaply
• the challenges or barriers are not just financial
• the impacts of arts activities are diverse – as are the approaches for measuring them
• positive outcomes may take place for artists as well.

Analysis of the experience of BIDs and other TCIs in both the UK and overseas identified success factors in the use of arts, these are:

• appreciating how the arts contribute to local quality of life
• working productively and creatively with cultural organisations
• making the most of a wide range of funding sources
• thinking and planning longer-term
• being good at evaluating and demonstrating success.

Conclusions
Although the major strategic objectives (cleanliness, safety, environmental improvements) of BIDs and TCIs take precedence, many schemes in the UK and overseas are using the arts. They are always, with rare exceptions, perceived to be successful to some degree in impacting on footfall, sales, profile-raising and other ‘bottom line’ concerns of businesses.

Even the poor performance of the retail sector should not be allowed to undermine the development of arts activities as it is at such times that innovative initiatives can create interest, differentiation and a competitive edge.

Download full report here (Adobe Acrobat PDF format 193kb)