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. As a consequence, governments will generally require credible forecasts of the festival impacts and their comprehensive evaluations. Besides the economic impacts, festivals usually generate a range of other benefits such as enhancing the image of a city or region, facilitating cultural awareness, helping to forge community identity and sense of place, enhancing resident recreational opportunities, social networking and civic pride. On the other hand, festivals and events are recognised as potentially generating adverse social impacts such as disruption to local business and community backlash and adverse environmental impacts such as various forms of pollution (Robertson 2013).
