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Economic Impact of Spending <br />by Nonprofit Arts and Cultural AUDIENCES <br />in Indian River County <br />The nonprofit arts and culture industry, unlike most industries, leverages a significant amount of event -related <br />spending by its audiences. For example, when patrons attend a cultural event, they may pay to park their car, <br />purchase dinner at a restaurant, shop in nearby stores, eat dessert after the show, and pay a babysitter upon their <br />return home. Attendees from out of town often spend the night in a hotel. This spending generates related <br />commerce for local businesses such as restaurants, parking garages, retail stores, and hotels. Local businesses that <br />cater to arts and culture audiences reap the rewards of this economic activity. <br />To measure the impact of spending by cultural audiences in Indian River County, data were collected from 768 <br />event attendees during 2016. Researchers used an audience -intercept methodology, a standard technique in which <br />patrons are asked to complete a short survey about their event -related spending (while they are attending the <br />event). In Indian River County, cultural attendees spent an average of $25.56 per person, per event as a direct <br />result of their attendance at the event. <br />The 10 participating nonprofit arts and cultural organizations reported that the aggregate attendance to their events <br />was 346,697 during 2015. Event -related spending by these attendees totaled $8.9 million in Indian River <br />County during fiscal year 2015, excluding the cost of event admission. The following table demonstrates the <br />total economic impact of this spending. <br />Why exclude the cost of admission? The admissions paid by attendees are excluded from the audience analysis because those <br />dollars are captured in the operating budgets of the participating nonprofit arts and cultural organizations and, in turn, are spent by <br />the organizations. This methodology avoids "double -counting' those dollars in the study analysis. <br />AMERICANS FOR THE ARTS I Arts R Economic Prosperity 5 <br />