On a summer day in Minnesota, a festival can transform a community — streets fill with visitors, restaurants bustle, and local business sales boom. But once the crowds leave, a question may linger for community leaders: What was the actual impact?
To help communities answer that question without the cost and time commitment of a traditional economic impact study, University of Minnesota Extension has introduced a new tool called a community impact snapshot.
Meeting community needs
For the past 15 years, Extension and University of Minnesota Duluth's Bureau of Business and Economic Research (BBER) have completed economic impact studies for a wide variety of festivals and events across the state.
But this opportunity is not feasible for all communities. “Oftentimes, communities do not have the resources or capacity to work with Extension to collect their own data, which means these communities’ needs are unmet,” says Tourism Center director Xinyi Qian, who is also an Extension specialist.
To meet this need, Extension created a new tool called the community impact snapshot, developed collaboratively with Duluth’s BBER. The snapshot is designed to estimate the economic impact of festivals and events using existing research. “All the data from our previous studies makes it possible to generate a synthetic secondary event attendee spending profile,” Qian says.
Making informed decisions
While traditional economic impact studies require detailed attendee surveys and significant on-the-ground data collection, a community impact snapshot allows communities to access credible economic estimates with considerably less effort and cost.
Festival attendance is estimated through tools like Placer.ai or, when that is not available, through simpler in-person counts conducted by event organizers. With an attendance estimate and the synthetic spending profile, Extension can generate a reasonable estimate of total economic impact.
“For many communities, this means they can still get meaningful insight into the size of their event and its economic contribution,” says Qian. “That kind of information helps leaders make informed decisions, such as continuing to support a festival or plans to solicit sponsorship.”
Piloting the new tool
One of the first communities to pilot the new tool was Worthington. Economic Development Coordinator Kris Hohensee says the motivation was straightforward—understanding what their events were truly contributing. “I was curious how much impact these festivals actually had on the area,” she says.
Worthington requested community impact snapshots for several local events. For organizers, the results provided clear, research-based estimates that can be shared with partners, sponsors, and residents.
Hohensee says the information will also help the town better promote itself as a destination and confirm the importance of hosting events. “The results validated what our festivals bring to the community, and it was nice to have actual numbers instead of relying on assumptions or guessing.”
Moving from guesswork to evidence
For Extension, the pilot in Worthington served as an important test case, and feedback from other communities will continue to help refine the tool.
Brigid Tuck, Extension applied research specialist and author of the Worthington snapshots, hopes the new report will continue to help communities move from guesswork to evidence, strengthening their ability to support local events and make informed decisions about experiences that drive local economies.
“We’re happy with how the product turned out,” Tuck says. “It’s exciting to offer a new tool that helps more communities meet their needs.”