The arts audience is shrinking, according to the latest head count conducted by the National Endowment for the Arts.

But some of Pittsburgh's major arts groups are bucking that trend, and say that 2008 -- which was not a banner year in the NEA survey -- wasn't so bad here.

"Pittsburgh seems to be on a roll," said Pittsburgh Cultural Trust president and CEO Kevin McMahon. "We're fortunate to have all of these wonderful assets. Many cities are much less robust in their arts and cultural scene. That doesn't mean the job is done. We have a way to go."

The NEA's 2008 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts -- the fifth conducted since 1982 -- is a statistical snapshot of audiences for the performing and visual arts. Last year, the NEA surveyed 18,000 adults in partnership with the U.S. Census Bureau.

According to the survey, 1 in 3 (36.2 percent) adults went to an art museum or attended a performance in 2008.

The percentage of adults attending performing arts events declined for virtually all art forms in 2008, including music, theater and ballet, compared to the previous survey period in 2002.

Opera showed the steepest drop (34 percent), followed by jazz (28 percent). Musical theater suffered the least, with a 2 percent decline, although it dropped 10 percent compared to the initial 1982 survey period.

The visual arts didn't fare much better. The percentage of people going to art galleries and museums declined by 14 percent, compared to 2002 figures, and those attending craft and arts festivals was down 27 percent. The percentage of visitors to parks and historical buildings was down 21 percent.

Locally, the picture is a little brighter. In Downtown's Cultural District, attendance at the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust's wide array of arts events has held steady, with some growth, McMahon said. Recent years have seen 1.3 million to 1.5 million visitors in the Cultural District, with 2 million in 2008.

McMahon noted that musical theater was the one exception to the performing arts downturn cited in the NEA report. The Trust has brought several blockbuster musicals to town lately, including "Wicked" and "Jersey Boys." "Those can skew the results of our own attendance. But in general we have continued to see increases every year, despite the current economic issues and a population that is not growing rapidly."

McMahon said that he is "not completely surprised" at the NEA survey results. "For some of the traditional art forms, it continues to be a struggle to gain audiences. That's why it's very important that we continue to look at a variety of ways to attract and cultivate audiences."

That effort extends to building the younger audiences that the NEA survey finds so much erosion in. The Trust is doing that for both the visual arts, with its regular evening Gallery Crawl series, and the performing arts, with events like last fall's Festival of Firsts and the annual Pittsburgh International Children's Festival.

In 2008, the Carnegie Museum of Art and the Carnegie Museum of Natural History had a record year in admissions. Perhaps it was the presence of two blockbuster events -- the Carnegie International at the Museum of Art and the reopening of the dinosaur exhibits at the Museum of Natural History.

Last year, the two museums -- which sell combined admissions to both -- had 386,284 admissions, compared to 256,017 in 2002. And they're on track to meet their goal of 325,000 admissions in 2009, said Kitty Julian, director of marketing for the museums.

Local jazz performances seem to run against the national trend, too. Manchester Craftsmen's Guild's MCG Jazz presents an annual subscription series of concerts. In 2008, it trimmed the number of concerts per season but saw no decline at the box office.

"We changed the subscription and concert model dramatically to have more artists of a wider musical mix within jazz," said Marty Ashby, executive producer for MCG Jazz. "Our audience for the year was about 18 percent above what we had projected." Younger audiences are part of that mix, he said, noting that MCG uses tools like Twitter and Facebook to market its concerts to that age group.

Ashby said he also sees standing-room-only crowds at CJ's Thursday night jazz jams in the Strip and the Cultural District's weekly outdoor jazz concert series. "Maybe we're an anomaly in Pittsburgh. But the audience for live jazz is very strong."

The NEA survey also indicated that the arts audience is aging. Since the survey began in 1982, attendance rates among young people (ages 18-24) declined "significantly," according to the report. Among that age group, for example, attendance at jazz concerts declined 58 percent.

Attendance among ages 45 to 54 -- typically a strong arts audience -- also declined across the board for performances and art museums.

Arts attendance has traditionally been highest among people with college educations in these surveys. However, even attendance among this group declined in 2008.

The survey doesn't attempt to explain the decline but notes that it took place in middle of 2008, when the economic downturn was in full swing. It also pointed to high prices for gasoline and airline tickets as factors in hurting travel and tourism.

One thing has changed since the first survey in '82, and that's the presence of the Internet. Most of the respondents -- 70 percent -- said they went online daily. Among that group, 39.4 percent used the Web for arts-related activities, including downloading or listening to music, watching performances or posting their own art.