Demonstrable effects of light festivals and events

Why measure impacts of light festivals and events?

1. You can demonstrate your city is worth investing in

Assessing the economic impacts of light festivals and events allows organisers to demonstrate that such events are worth investing in.

Benefits can include:

• an increased income in the form of visitor spending
• job creation or increased tax revenue
• increased visibility through event publicity
• changes in brand awareness or image of sponsors or host city

 

The results from impact research of LUCI cities highlighted the significance of investment from public sources, most often from the host city, although private sector investment has been considerable in a minority of light events (e.g. Eindhoven and Lyon).

Private contributors in particular are keen to know whether their investment will be value for money. The LUCI cities have used a range of channels for private sector investment including:

• in-kind support (e.g. Chartres has developed a partnership with a national radio that provides marketing at a heavily subsidised cost and Helsinki Season of Light partners with the local electricity company for a similar purpose)
• sponsorship and advertising (e.g. Sky Arts in Durham)
• donations and grants
• a small number of events received income from ticket sales (but this represented only a small amount of the total operational budget available

 

The total costs of light festivals and events vary greatly, depending on the scale of the event (in terms of duration and visitor numbers). This makes comparison of light events on cost figures more difficult. However, the limited evidence based on information of the 10 case study cities that participated in the LUCI research suggests that the difference in cost of operations was smaller between mid- and longer duration events (average costs of 2,106,000 EUR and 2,509,000 EUR), indicating the longer the duration of the event, lower the cost per day/visitor.

The table below provides a break-down of the costs of hosting light events by size of the event.

 

Costs of Hosting Light Events

City	Total operational cost (EUR)	Total visitors	Cost per day (EUR)	Cost by number of visitors (EUR)
Short duration (2-4 days)
Lyon	1,900,000	350,000	475,000	5.4
Leipzig	900,000	40,000	900,000	22.5
Durham	720,000	71,250	180,000	10.1
Riga	495,600	200,000	124,000	2.5
Glasgow	420,000	55,560	140,000	7.6
Average	887,000	143,000	364,000	9.6
Mid-duration (1 to 2 weeks)
Montreal	6,000,000	588,000	–	–
Osaka	1,650,000	2,900,000	118,000	0.6
Jerusalem	1,400,000	250,000	200,000	5.6
Helsinki	680,000	20,000	97,000	34
Eindhoven (GLOW)	800,000	250,000	100,000	3.2
Average	2,106,000	801,600	103,000	8.68
Long duration (2 weeks+)
Medellin	8,000,000	4,274,000	267,000	1.9
Gothenburg	1,300,000	896,000	31,000	1.5
Chartres	950,000	1,000,000	4,000	0.6
Eindhoven (Lichesroute)	144,000	250,000	8,000	0.6
Average	2,599,000	1,605,000	78,000	1.15
Average	1,811,000	806,200	233,764	8.1

Source: CPC Survey on LUCI partners (November 2010)

Note: Currency conversion rate is calculated as an average rate on the time the event took place as recorded in oanda.com. The costs are rounded to the nearest thousand.

Due to reduced funding and increasingly tight budgets, it will be essential for cities to demonstrate benefit and competitive options for investment of funding for public money – in particular, event organisers need to demonstrate that their events have real, effective and lasting benefits/changes to the community.

Go to: Measuring economic impacts

2. You can demonstrate that your event contributes positively to the city image

It is only possible to know for sure that the event has been able to attract visitors to your city through research, be it data from your local tourist office, feedback from local vendors and businesses, or from undertaking a robust visitor survey.

Go to: Measuring cultural and image impacts

3. You can demonstrate your event aims to be energy sufficient and sustainable

Hosting light events can typically use increased energy consumption and in turn attending events can release greenhouse gasses connected to climate change. The support for event hosting from policy makers is likely to be increasingly conditional on these events having developed approaches to environmental monitoring and management.

By measuring and monitoring their energy consumption, organisers of light events can demonstrate how they are minimizing any environmental costs and the overall event carbon footprint e.g. by measuring reduced energy consumption through usage of LED lighting or promoting sustainable transport options.

Go to: Measuring environmental impacts

4. You can demonstrate that it is good for the communities

By monitoring and assessing event activity, organisers are able to demonstrate the positive impact of light events on the local community, for example by providing and supporting local jobs, improving local infrastructure and by tackling any adverse issues highlighted (e.g. noise and litter or crowd management) to ensure that the local community welcome the event and are proud of their city.

Go to: Measuring Social Impacts

5. You can better plan and develop your future event

Evaluations can guide business or strategic development of events and wider city strategies for future years. For example, event organisers may monitor and assess attendance flows to inform on future resource needs, crowd management practices and the related event organisation and planning. Similarly, analysis of information collated through a visitor survey can provide information on the extent to which different elements of event strategy, such as marketing, crowd management or promotion of sustainable transport options, have worked and where to focus emphasis in the following years.

It is essential for event organisers to be able to articulate, evidence and measure outcomes, and crucially be able to relate the outcomes of festivals and events to the higher level outcomes of commissioners, funders and internal stakeholders. If, for example, the wider city strategy is to improve economic activity of local residents, enhance city image as a place to live and work or to reduce a cities carbon footprint, the Light event organisers should consider how their activities and plans are able to support these wider strategies.

When measuring the changes in audience numbers of operational investments over time, the cities can monitor success of their marketing for example, or have a better understanding of the event life cycle, i.e. whether an event is growing year by year or has achieved it’s plateau stage.

It is also important to recognise what has not worked or where improvements could be made, in particular if the event has failed in its objectives (e.g. in attracting an anticipated number of visitors) as there could be several reasons for failure or poor return on investment (e.g. weather, lack of corporate sponsorship or over-reliance on one source of income, inadequate marketing & promotion, or lack of advance/strategic planning).