Britain was the last major economy officially to come out of the recession although commentators predict that it will take years for the economy to recover its strength. Public sector funding and support for the cultural sector from businesses and foundations will be tight.
Former Prime Minster, Tony Blair, claimed that his New Labour government presided over a Golden Age in the arts in the UK. Cultural Trends, the journal that champions the need for better evidence-based analyses of the cultural sector, is delighted to provide a major opportunity for researchers to consider whether that Golden Age actually existed; if it is now over; what it achieved; what the effects of the recession on the cultural sector might be in terms of changes in audiences and audience profiles, the economics of the sector and its financial impacts, and how government policy, and the sector itself albeit in the UK, Europe and elsewhere might assess its legacy and learn the lessons that should inform a post-recession economy. All of this will be discussed at the Cultural Trends third one-day international conference, A "Golden Age"? planned for November 2010.