Evaluating the Economic Impact of Festivals and Special Events: Lessons From the 32st Annual Peter Anderson Arts and Crafts Festival in Ocean Springs, Mississippi Background: Festivals are an integral part of the economies of most communities in Mississippi. The economic benefits of festivals can be assigned a dollar value, but no amount of money will accurately reflect the personal and social benefits of these events. Festivals can increase tourism in the area. These events not only bring outside revenue to the community, but they allow even the smallest towns to celebrate and capitalize on the unique aspects of their area. As budgets tighten in small communities economic and community development entities are constantly working to improve their efficiency and evaluate their contributions. The Peter Anderson Arts and Crafts Festival is an established juried art festival held annually in Ocean Springs, Mississippi. MSU-ES was asked to measure the impact and evaluate the festival to help in maintaining community support for this event. MSU-ES met with MS Main Street and festival managers to determine how best to gather the needed data for the project. It was determined that attendance as well as spending profiles, and customer satisfaction and customer profiles would be needed to evaluate to determine and accurate snapshot of the event Objective The study had two purposes:1) to evaluate the general economic impact of the Peter Anderson Arts Festival in the local region; and 2) provide basic market information about the event by examining attendees’ travel distances, attendance frequency, satisfaction with the event, and purchases in the area and at the festival. Specific objectives of the study included: 1) What is the demographic profile of the Festival-goers?, 2) What is the economic impact of the festival, which includes only the spending of non-local state visitors, out-of-state visitors, and vendors?, and 3) What is the “overall” economic impact of the festival; including all local and non-local visitors and vendors on the Ocean Springs’ economy? Methods A survey was developed to determine characteristics of the event attendees such as geographic origin, spending projections, hotel stays, number of days attending the event, as well as consumer preferences, satisfaction, and facility evaluation. The study used intercept surveys to collect information from festival goers, needing only required a few minutes for respondents to complete. Two students were hired to administer the survey to attendees with the help of volunteers. Data used in the paper were based on a sample of 207 visitors to the 2-day Peter Anderson Festival held in Ocean Springs, Mississippi. From this sample, the analysts estimated total attendance at the festival Results This analysis of the Peter Anderson Festival demonstrates the potential for a range of estimates when examining attendees’ spending. For example, aggregating direct spending by all festival goers (in-state and out-of-state visitors) can overstate the impact of the special event. Thus, local attendees were included in the overall count of event attendance, but was not used in determine the economic impact of the festival. The results suggest that for each dollar of direct sales another 18 cents in secondary effects (mainly induced effects) occurred, yielding a total sales effect of $13.6 million. Although positive, these impacts did not create any full-time employments, only 102 part-time jobs.
