Local music scenes connect audiences, performers, venues, festivals, and community organizations. In 2022, 42% of U.S. adults attended a live music performance during the previous 12 months, while 30% created music. The figures below show how participation differs by geography, how people find events, which venues host them, and what the wider music economy looks like.
Contents
- Participation in live music
- Metro and non-metro differences
- Where local audiences encounter music
- How people discover events
- Repeat attendance and recent change
- Festivals and programming
- Local infrastructure and music careers
Participation in live music
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Survey of Public Participation in the Arts (SPPA) measured several music behaviors among U.S. adults in 2022. These measures cover the 12 months before the survey and provide a broad picture of the audience and creator base surrounding local scenes.
- 42% of U.S. adults attended a live music performance in the prior 12 months (NEA SPPA 2022).
- 30% of U.S. adults created music in the prior 12 months (NEA SPPA 2022).
- 3% of U.S. adults took a music class in 2022 (NEA SPPA 2022).
- 20% used electronic media to listen to jazz music (NEA SPPA 2022).
- 21% used electronic media to listen to classical music (NEA SPPA 2022).
- 19% used electronic media to listen to Latin, Spanish, or salsa music (NEA SPPA 2022).
- 9% attended a jazz performance in 2022 (NEA SPPA 2022).
- 9% attended a classical music performance (NEA SPPA 2022).
- 6% attended a Latin, Spanish, or salsa music performance (NEA SPPA 2022).
The contrast between the 42% live-performance attendance rate and the 30% music-creation rate is useful for understanding a scene as more than a ticketed market. Local ecosystems also include people who make music, learn music, and listen through electronic media. The genre-specific attendance figures are narrower than the overall live-music measure because they refer to particular performance types.
Metro and non-metro differences
The NEA’s U.S. Patterns of Arts Participation report separates adults in metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas. Its figures show a larger share of metro-area adults participating in each listed live-music category.
| Measure | Metro-area adults | Non-metro adults |
|---|---|---|
| Attended live music performances in the past year | 43% | 34% |
| Attended a jazz performance | 9% | 6% |
| Attended a Latin, Spanish, or salsa performance | 6% | 3% |
| Attended a classical music performance | 9% | 6% |
| Took music classes | 3% | 2% |
The metro/non-metro comparison is descriptive rather than a measure of any one city’s scene. It indicates a 9-percentage-point difference in overall live-music attendance between the two geography groups, alongside 3-point differences for jazz and classical performances and a 3-point difference for Latin, Spanish, or salsa performances. Music-class participation differed by 1 percentage point.
The same NEA report provides a 2017 reference point for national participation. In 2017, 42% of U.S. adults attended a live music performance, 30% created music, and 3% took a music class. Electronic listening reached 65% for other kinds of music such as rock, pop, country, folk, rap, or hip-hop; 21% for classical music; 20% for jazz; and 19% for Latin, Spanish, or salsa music. Attendance was 9% for jazz, 9% for classical music, and 6% for Latin, Spanish, or salsa performances.
Where local audiences encounter music
Among adults who attended a live performance in 2022, open-air facilities were the most commonly reported venue type in the NEA SPPA 2022. The percentages describe the share of attending adults who said each venue was one they attended, so they are not mutually exclusive venue shares.
- 54.9% attended at open-air facilities such as parks, pavilions, or amphitheaters.
- 32.7% attended at restaurants, bars, nightclubs, or coffee shops.
- 18.4% attended on college or university campuses.
- 15.7% attended at community centers or public libraries.
- 14.2% attended at elementary, middle, or high schools.
- 13.8% attended at churches, synagogues, or other places of worship.
These results place informal and community settings alongside conventional performance spaces. Outdoor facilities were reported by more than half of attending adults, while hospitality locations were reported by nearly one-third. Campuses, libraries, schools, and worship spaces each represented additional routes through which local audiences encountered live performance.
The venue figures also matter for scenes centered on soul music and vinyl. A local event may be presented in a club, café, outdoor setting, library, school, or community venue, with each setting reaching a somewhat different audience. The NEA data quantify the breadth of those settings but do not identify a specific genre’s share within each venue type.
How people discover events
The NEA SPPA 2022 asked adults who attended at least one live performance how they learned about the event. Online discovery led the reported channels, followed by personal recommendations and traditional media.
- 55.3% learned through social media, websites, or other online sources.
- 47.5% learned from friends, neighbors, or co-workers.
- 36.4% learned from print or broadcast media such as newspapers, magazines, television, or radio.
- 26.0% learned from family.
- 25.9% learned from a spouse or partner.
- 18.1% learned from a community center, arts organization, or public library.
- 8.4% learned from some other source.
Because respondents could report more than one discovery source, these percentages should not be added together. The figures show that digital visibility and word of mouth can operate together: online sources reached 55.3% of 2022 attendees, while friends, neighbors, or co-workers reached 47.5%. Community institutions were a less frequently reported discovery channel at 18.1%, but they remained part of the local information network.
Repeat attendance and recent change
Attendance frequency varied by performance type in the NEA SPPA 2022. Among jazz attendees, 11.5% attended six or more times during the year, the highest six-or-more share reported for any performance type. More than half of Latin-music attendees went two to five times, and 7.4% went six or more times. Most opera attendees attended only once.
The frequency figures suggest that local scenes can contain both occasional audiences and committed repeat attendees. They also caution against describing attendance with a single average: the pattern for jazz differed from the pattern for Latin music, and both differed from opera.
The NEA SPPA 2022 reported declines in several performance categories between 2017 and 2022. Attendance at jazz performances fell by 3.7 percentage points. Attendance at classical music or opera performances fell by 6.3 percentage points. Theater attendance fell by 5.2 percentage points, and dance-performance attendance fell by 4.2 percentage points. These are changes in percentage points across the stated survey years, not percentage declines in the number of attendees.
Festivals and programming
The NEA Outdoor Arts Festivals report identified 312 festivals that described themselves as music festivals. The programming percentages below describe the share of those music festivals offering each music type; categories can overlap.
- Jazz appeared at 51% of music festivals, the most common music type.
- Blues appeared at 48%.
- Folk or traditional music appeared at 43%.
- Bluegrass appeared at 42%.
- Rock and pop appeared at 33%.
- Country appeared at 30%.
- World music appeared at 29%.
- Latin, Spanish, or salsa music appeared at 28%.
- Rhythm and blues appeared at 28%.
- Contemporary or alternative rock appeared at 22%.
- Classical or chamber/symphonic music appeared at 19%.
- Hymns or gospel music appeared at 17%.
- Concert or marching band music appeared at 10%.
- Rap or hip-hop appeared at 8%.
- Broadway musicals or show tunes appeared at 7%.
- Lounge, DJ, or electronica appeared at 7%.
- Opera appeared at 5%.
- Polka appeared at 5%.
Blues and rhythm and blues are especially relevant to a soul-and-vinyl readership, but the report does not equate those categories with soul music. The figures instead show where adjacent traditions appeared in the programming of the surveyed festivals. Jazz led at 51%, blues followed at 48%, and rhythm and blues was listed by 28%.
The same report describes festival scale and finances. 16% of music festivals had audiences under 1,000, while 63% had audiences under 10,000. On the financial side, 53% generated under $50,000 in revenue, 47% incurred less than $50,000 in expenses, and 13% expected lower revenue the next season. Audience and financial categories are reported separately and should not be treated as a single festival-level profile.
Local infrastructure and music careers
Historical local-scene evidence in the NEA Research Report #26 illustrates how activity can spread across many organizations and venues. The report’s metropolitan Chicago example used a 1990 census population of 7.26 million across five counties. It recorded more than 200 nonprofit theater companies and more than 80 performing-arts facilities with fewer than 300 seats. The Chicago Music Alliance reported 872 classical music performances over one year ending in January 1992 across 132 Chicago-area venues. DePaul and Northwestern Universities added 165 performances, while libraries, churches, and other non-traditional venues hosted another 875 musical events.
The same historical report described metropolitan Chicago households as 34% above $50,000 in income and 31% under $25,000. Its area description reported 71% white residents, 20% African-American residents, 3.5% Asian residents, and almost 12% Hispanic/Latino residents. The sample demographic mix was 53% female and 47% male. These details belong to the report’s historical Chicago context and should not be read as current demographic estimates.
At the national support level, the NEA Local Arts Agencies Fact Sheet counted more than 4,500 local arts agencies operating in the United States, with combined budgets of more than $1.4 billion. Over the preceding 10 years, the NEA awarded more than $2.1 million to local arts agencies for professional-development services. Its pilot Locals Test Program used three-year grants of at least $150,000 and required a 2:1 match in new public dollars.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Occupational Outlook Handbook reported 169,800 musicians and singers employed in 2024. It projected 171,600 by 2034, a gain of 1,800 jobs and 1% growth over that period. The BLS projected about 19,400 openings per year on average.
For pay, the BLS reported a median hourly wage of $42.45 for musicians and singers in May 2024. The lowest 10% earned less than $18.68 per hour, while the highest 10% earned more than $105.44. Median hourly wages varied by industry: $48.52 in religious, grantmaking, civic, professional, and similar organizations; $45.74 in performing arts, spectator sports, and related industries; and $30.50 in educational services at state, local, and private institutions. These are national occupational figures, not estimates for a particular local scene.