How the Games Are Boosting Britain's Arts Scene

With £12 billion spent so far, talk of London’s upcoming summer games as the Recession Olympics has largely died away. There is, however, one area where belt tightening has seen dreams of sky-high budgets shot down: the Cultural Olympiad. A massive arts festival intended to outshine any previous Olympic cultural dabblings, the Cultural Olympiad was created to assert Britain’s cultural richness with a program both diverse and lavish.

Imagining a tickertape parade of falling cash after its announcement in 2005, Britain’s art scene started drooling collectively. Then the recession hit. When the government had sobered up, just under £50 million extra cash was set aside for the Cultural Olympiad, not princely given its plans for over 1,000 events and 10 million free tickets. For many institutions, limited additional funding meant they just provided something like their usual fare with a light coating of Olympic branding.