The data used to prepare the report are those gathered by the website www.agendavenezia.org, (a product of the Venice Foundation) that since 2002 documents day by day the agenda of recreational and cultural activities in the Venice area, and that allowed the census of all events which took place, showing who produced them and where the different events where hosted.

Goal of this research is to report in detail all events, producers and places, in order to measure the productive capacity of the city in cultural terms, which also creates an important employment source, at the same time being vehicle of development of Venice’s cultural role in the international landscape.

Particularly, during 2004 in the Venice City Council 1838 cultural, religious and sport events were produced (a sharp growth as to the 1500 of 2003 and 1222 of 2002), organized by over 80 bodies and subjects.

The fact that most of organizers are concentrated in the historical city centre influences the territorial distribution of events, with a concentration of 76,3% of events in Venice, while only 20,7% is in Mestre and Marghera, 1,8% at the Lido and 1,2% in the lagoon islands.

But the main classification regards the division of events between cultural, religious, sport and generic entertainment sectors: conferences and meetings (729 events) cover 39,7% of the total offer, music (398 events) 21,7%, film reviews (233 events) 12,7%, theatre (210 events) 11,4%, dance (45 events) 2,4%, visual arts (164 events) 8,9%, sport (38 events) 2,1%, Venetian traditions and religious events (18 events) 1% and fairs and markets (3 events) 0,2%.

In particular, in the centre of Venice prevail, as to number of organized events, the meeting activity (47,1%) and music (20,8%), whereas in the mainland events concentrate on theatre (33,4%), music (23,4%) and film reviews (19,7%). At the Lido prevail film activities (44,1%) and music in the islands (45,5%).
As to the division of events into the months of the year, the distribution is quite fair, with some peaks in the months of May (252 events) and February (224 events) and marked drops of activity in the months of August (35) and January (77).

A really interesting data regards the distribution of the 1838 registered events between events produced inside the lagoon basin and events produced elsewhere, showing the image of a lively and brisk city: 95,9% of “Conferences and meetings”, 72,8% of “Visual Arts” and 52,6% of “Music Events” which took place in Venice have been produced there, with the only exception of “Theatre and Dance” that invert this trend, with 67,8% of events produced elsewhere.

The second Report on cultural production in Venice strenghtens the moment of research and reflection towards an important sector, as it is able to interpret the role of Venice both towards its stable citizens (residents and city users) and role of international city of culture (production and show of events), and reminds the aim of the Venice Foundation to ensure a continuity in the gathering and analysis of these data, in order to give the city and operators an useful instrument to understand and manage this system.