Arts Professionals Survey
In October 2023, Calgary Arts Development conducted a survey of arts professionals to better understand their living and working conditions in Calgary. The online survey was an update to the 2020 Calgary Arts Professionals Survey, building upon past survey questions and findings as well as asking new questions relevant to harassment in the workplace.
The survey asked 141 questions related to the following topics: individual’s careers, finances, health and well-being, housing, spaces and resources for artistic practice, perceptions and participation in community, training and professional development, experiences of workplace harassment, as well as basic demographics. Survey questions sought to better understand how income, gender, ethnicity and ability relate to their careers as arts professionals.
The survey sample comprised individuals who self-identified as professional artists, arts administrators, arts educators, technicians and/or other arts professionals. A total of 880 useable responses were submitted (a modest increase from 828 useable responses in 2020), resulting in a survey confidence level of 95 per cent.
Key Findings
COVID-19 has left a lasting impact.
The results of our 2020 survey illustrated just how destructive the pandemic was to the arts in Calgary. Many arts professionals experienced loss of employment and/or loss of income or found themselves unable to create or present their work as a result of the pandemic. Survey participants in 2020 had a much more negative perception of Calgary than in years prior.
In 2023, while the more immediate effects of the pandemic had eased, it was clear that Calgary’s arts community was still recovering. 45% of arts professionals reported experiencing ongoing financial stress due to COVID-19, and 43% reported ongoing health-related stress. Financial conditions had improved since the pandemic, with a rise in individual incomes and a 45% drop in dependence on income support. Despite this fact, 60% of respondents still described the compensation they received for their arts work as insufficient, a slight increase from 2020.
While long-term monitoring of pandemic effects is still needed, arts professionals are evidently in need of better funding, more employment opportunities, and improved professional and creative conditions to fully recover from the damage done to the sector.
Incomes are rising — but not fast enough.
Between 2020 and 2023, the number of arts professionals earning less than $35,000 per year dropped to 39% from 57%; this shift was associated with growth across all other income brackets. Consequently, the number of respondents who earned an individual income below the Calgary median of $65,500 dropped to 73% from 84%.
Although these figures represent notable growth, this still leaves almost three quarters of arts professionals in a less financially secure position than the average Calgarian. While individual incomes rose, the average household income among arts professionals did not change significantly, with 65% of households earning less than $100,000 per year (the Calgary median being $108,560) – this number remains essentially unchanged since 2017.
A growing number of arts professionals are having difficulty accumulating savings; only 43% reported being able to save over the year 2022. Among those who were not able to save, 83% cited the growing cost of living as a major barrier to doing so. 34% of respondents also reported that they were not saving for retirement, an increase of 12% since 2017.
Arts professionals are feeling disconnected from Calgary’s arts scene.
Survey respondents felt more positively about Calgary than they did during the pandemic, with 45% agreeing that Calgary is a good place to be an artist (30% in 2020). However, this reflects a lower regard for our city than arts professionals had in 2017, when 57% felt Calgary was a good place to be an artist. In 2023, 40% of artists felt that it was difficult to connect with their peers, and 54% found it difficult to receive knowledgeable, constructive feedback about their work. Community engagement has also declined, with a 10% drop in the number of arts professionals who reported volunteering in their community since 2017.
Fewer arts professionals want to leave Calgary, but they are increasingly working outside the arts sector.
In 2020, 24% of respondents anticipated moving away from Calgary, a figure that fell to 16% in 2023. Information isn’t available as to whether the number of respondents expressing an interest in leaving in 2020 actually left, which would account for a potential lower figure in 2023. In 2024 Calgary Arts Development began a five-year longitudinal survey to track if artists are leaving Calgary.
Even if arts professionals are not leaving Calgary, more are finding work outside the sector. Over three quarters (79%) reported engaging in non-arts labour, over twice as many as in 2020. Low incomes and rising disengagement may be causing arts professionals to seek more stable employment in other sectors.
Artists are struggling.
Just 9% of professional artists were able to rely entirely on their artistic practice to earn a living, compared to 19% in 2019 and 12% in 2020. Artists reported the lowest incomes of any arts-based profession (compared to arts administrators, arts educators, and arts technicians), with just under a quarter of professional artists earning close to or above the median Calgary individual income – despite this, they were also the least likely to report qualifying for income support.
Artists face unique difficulties due to their work structure. In 2023, 83% reported being self-employed and just 7% were employed full time as an artist. Due to their inability to access the kind of benefits provided by traditional full-time employment, as well as their reliance on the gig economy, there is no doubt that artists were hit hard by the pandemic and have yet to fully recover.
There is a lack of opportunity in Calgary.
Very few respondents were satisfied with the current number of available employment or funding opportunities. Among artists, 45% reported that they did not have many chances to present or showcase their work to the public. In addition to challenges finding basic information on available opportunities, many artists expressed that they felt the opportunities that do exist are becoming increasingly specific and are restricted based on theme, demographics, or other factors.
It is difficult to secure appropriate working and presenting space.
57% of arts professionals reported that they struggled to find an appropriate space for their practice. Many reported that even when they did have access to a space, this access had limited hours, the space was not equipped for their practice, or the space was simply not affordable.
Incidents of ableist, audist, gender, racial and sexual harassment in the workplace are extraordinarily high, with low rates of reporting these incidents within the organizations in which they take place.
The 2020 Arts Professionals Survey revealed high rates of harassment. Following the 2020 Arts Professionals Survey, Calgary Arts Development explored best practices and alternative methods to report incidents of harassment in the 2023 survey. The revised survey asked individuals if they have experienced or witnessed a specific set of harassing behaviours, revealing:
- 63% of non-white survey respondents reported experiencing harassment in the workplace, similar to 2020 results. 47% of all survey respondents reported witnessing harassment in the workplace.
- 23% of women and 74% of non-binary survey respondents reported experiencing gender-based harassment in the workplace. 39% of all survey respondents reported witnessing at least one of these types of gender-based harassments in the workplace.
- 42% of women and 57% of non-binary survey respondents reported experiencing sexual harassment in the workplace. 38% of all survey respondents reported witnessing sexual harassment in the workplace.
- 46% of those respondents who identify as Deaf/deaf or as having a disability reported experiencing harassment in the workplace, similar to the 2020 survey results. 32% of all survey respondents reported witnessing ableist or audist forms of harassment in the workplace.
In only 30% of cases where harassment was experienced or witnessed was there a human resources staff to report the incident to, which likely contributed to only 25% to 38% of these incidents being reported.
Thank You
Calgary Arts Development acknowledges and appreciates the participation of all the arts professionals who participated in this survey. While time-consuming, the responses help provide a better understanding of the conditions for arts professionals in Calgary and information on how best to serve them, enabling all Calgarians to live full and creative lives.
Open Data
Calgary Arts Development is committed to providing open data. Aggregated data and the full question list from this survey are available upon request at impact@calgaryartsdevelopment.com.
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