Your cultural life in London

London is home to thousands of creative businesses – one in five jobs in the capital are in creative industries. For tourists, London is a world leading cultural destination where they spend around £7.3 billion on culture every year.

Londoners, however, are less likely than elsewhere in the country to have engaged with arts and culture in the last 12 months. Outer Londoners are the least engaged compared to any other English region. 

City Hall’s Culture team want to better understand what motivates Londoners to take part in cultural activities, and what prevents them from doing so.  They’d like to find out: 

• What kind of cultural experiences are Londoners most and least likely to do? 
• What are the barriers (e.g. financial, geographical, perceptual) that prevent people from having more cultural experiences?   
• How important are arts and culture to people’s lives? 

These insights are incredibly valuable and can help inform future cultural policies and programmes to help make London a place of cultural experiences for all Londoners.  

City Hall has commissioned Centre for London – an independent think tank – to deliver this research.  

Centre for London will gather feedback from several sources, including: 

• Desk research  
• Polling with a representative sample of 1,000 Londoners 
• Focus groups with Londoners from underrepresented communities 
• A survey and discussion here on Talk London 

We will share the anonymous results of our survey and discussion with Centre for London. 

They will analyse this alongside other research and make recommendations to City Hall’s policy makers. 

Our survey and discussion focus on cultural events and activities that you go to in person, in your spare time in London, rather than things you do at home or online. Examples include: 

• an exhibition of art, photography or sculptures 
• a play, drama, musical, pantomime, ballet, opera 
• an event connected with books, reading, or writing 
• a creative workshop or class (e.g. a choir, drawing, writing, pottery, or other participatory class) 
• a live music event 
• going to a cinema 
• going to a Games / eSports event or venue 
• an outdoor festival and or carnival (music, food, culture) 
• a walking tour (street art walk, history trail, etc.) 
• a live dance event 
• a comedy event 
• visiting a public or mobile library 
• visiting a museum or gallery in person 
• visiting a site of historic importance (stately house, castle)

City Hall’s Culture team deliver the Mayor’s vision for culture. 

They:  

• Actively support the 24-hour economy and creative industries, helping them grow and flourish. 
• Promote culture and support the development of future talent to help London’s thriving creative industries. 
• Create, commission and foster partnerships to bring to life ambitious events and contemporary culture for all to enjoy.