AAA White Paper The political economy of informal events, 2030 | Page 47

2. GROSS VALUE ADDED, JOBS, PRODUCTIVITY
It is hard to put a definite figure on the Gross Value Added (GVA) to the
UK economy strictly by events. According to UK Music, an umbrella
group for commercial music, live music contributes a GVA of £1bn.
As Chart 12 shows overleaf, that’s a good 10 per cent of the DCMS
figure of about £10bn for the total value added by music, performing
and visual arts, whether by means of events or by other activities.
Chart 12 includes DCMS figures for the GVA by sport. Interestingly,
the Gross Value Added to the UK by sport is very comparable with
that added by music, performing arts and visual arts.
Totting up, in Chart 12, the 2017 GVA of music, performing arts
and visual arts, as well as sport, shows that, in total, they contribute
more than one per cent of the UK’s GVA. Better still, the GVA of
these sectors has risen much faster, since 2010, than total UK GVA.
How much of that above-average record is based upon the value
added specifically by events? That’s difficult to answer. What we can
say, comparing Chart 12’s evidence on GVA with that given by Chart
13, overleaf, on jobs, is that in music, performing arts and visual
arts, and sport, GVA growth has been double jobs growth. At the
same time, jobs in these sectors have multiplied faster than jobs in
the UK as a whole: at triple that rate (the arts), or double it (sport).
Admittedly DCMS statistics for GVA cover 2010-17, while those that
the DCMS has for jobs growth cover 2011-7 – a shorter period. Still, the
point holds good: in music, performing arts and visual arts, GVA rose
by 68.6 per cent, 2010-17; jobs, by 32.5 per cent, 2011-7. In sport, the
figures are 40 and 18.3 per cent. Music, performing arts and visual
arts, together with sport, have added a significant number of posts
to their payroll, but even more value to the UK economy.
Given the UK’s perennial problem of low productivity, this is a great
achievement. The arts and sport have been recruiting, but have
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or bread and circuses. Juvenal lampooned voters for neglecting their
political power and civic duties in their dash to ‘escape all cares’.
His successors poked fun at the authorities for using cheap events
to placate, distract and buy off the broad masses – and this kind of
critique is still made, rightly or wrongly, today.
Viewed this way, informal events won’t necessarily always get
dearer. Indeed, recessionary trends and greater competition might
cheapen the events market just as much as they broaden it.
Is, then, Britain’s market for informal events likely to grow
coarser, and not simply more refined, by 2030? That’s possible, but
the authorities should not overreact.
Like many other pastimes, the desire to escape the humdrum
through events, and thus gain a sense of belonging mixed with
personal abandon – this is only human. For the people to act
responsibly around the informal events of 2030, then, the relevant
authorities need themselves also to act responsibly.
They should trust the people.