ABSTRACT
Increasingly, economic assessment is used by festival convenors to support access to public funding. Governments are often asked to provide financial support for festivals, including the allocation of substantial funds to provide or upgrade the facilities required to stage them. This chapter focuses on the economic contribution of festivals. It attempts to set down some elements of 'best practice' in festival evaluation. For many festivals, audience size and attendance are the principal means by which festivals evaluate their success. Accurate and robust measurement of attendance has emerged as a critical factor to ensuring the reliability of event monitoring and evaluation. A pragmatic approach to measuring economic activity linked to festivals is the Direct Expenditure Approach (DEA). Economic impact analysis (EIA) involves estimating the additional expenditure generated by a festival, and then using some form of economic model to estimate how this expenditure affects the destination economy.
