Some Notes on Measuring Festival Impact in an Emerging Market: The Case of the Serbian EXIT Festival

Abstract

A recent impact assessment for a major Eastern European music festival presented some methodological challenges, as well as the chance to test some assumptions that are often taken for granted in impact analyses. Lacking an input-output (I/O) model, the authors used a modified survey based methodology. The methodology uncovered some nuances in the data, while exhibiting final results that are similar to what would be expected from an I/O model. Among the findings, the authors discovered minimal employment and capacity impact from a one-off event, despite the event’s being of significant size relative to the region. The authors also discovered that festival providers exhibited both different sales and “windfall” expenditure patterns during the festival than they did during the rest of the year, influencing final impact. The findings potentially call some of the results of a standard I/O based impact analysis into question.