Halifax arts venues needs assessment

Happy Cities led the Performing and Visual Arts Venues Study for Halifax Regional Municipality. The study equips the municipality to invest in spaces for the local arts scene to thrive, ensuring that everyone can be a part of arts and culture in Halifax.

Band performing on stage at a jazz festival with colorful stage lighting and a vibrant backdrop. — The Soul Rebels perform at the Halifax Jazz Festival. (A Disappearing Act / Flickr)

Arts and culture are crucial to quality of life. People feel greater life satisfaction when they have access to music, festivals, visual arts, and a wide variety of live shows. Culture also plays a crucial role in attracting a talented workforce and economic growth.

But for an arts scene to flourish, it needs venues: spaces for events, festivals, visual arts, and live performances. In 2023, Halifax hired Happy Cities to do a needs assessment of the region’s venues and galleries, and to ask: Do they meet the needs of artists? What is missing? And how can the municipality best fix those gaps?

Halifax is growing rapidly, and is home to a diverse creative community, including dance, theatre, circus, music, choir, visual arts, and more. However, several venues closed during the pandemic, and only one new venue has been built in the last decade. Young artists also struggle to find studio and gallery space. The municipality wanted to identify what venues to invest in quickly, to better support the growth of the local arts scene.

How to conduct a needs assessment of arts venues

Happy Cities took a multi-pronged approach to this needs assessment, working together with the Arts Firm. First, we created a map of all the region’s major venues, and surveyed these venues to identify the space and equipment available in each. Second, we conducted surveys, interviews, and focus groups with stakeholders across multiple art sectors, including performers, visual artists, venue operators, gallery owners, event promoters, and more. We also conducted a public-facing survey, to learn more about local residents’ priorities for arts venues in the region. Finally, we conducted focus groups and interviews specifically with African Nova Scotian and Indigenous stakeholders.

The Performing and Visual Arts Venues Study seeks to offer the municipality a clear picture of arts venues in the region—including what currently exists, and what is missing—to help Halifax prioritize the most urgent needs for investment. The study is informed first and foremost by local residents, venues, and artists themselves, to ensure that decision makers are equipped to address gaps and provide the physical spaces the arts scene needs to grow and flourish.

Visit Halifax’s Shape Your City page to learn more.