Report: Artscape a nearly $26M boon to Baltimore 

Posted: 6:42 pm Mon, March 1, 2010
By Robbie Whelan
Daily Record Business Writer

Three new reports commissioned by the Baltimore Office for Promotion and the Arts have found that three major city-sponsored civic events — Artscape, the Baltimore Book Festival and Baltimore’s New Year’s Eve Spectacular — generated nearly $38 million in economic impact for the city.

Bill Gilmor, director of BOPA, said that his office decided in the early spring of 2009 to track the economic impact of the events in reaction to worries about the slow economy and fears that the events would lose the sponsorship of the city, foundation donors and private corporations.

“When you’re going into a tough economic time, you’ve got to have the right data to make decisions. At the same time you have to justify your existence,” Gilmor said.

The studies, conducted by Pittsburgh-based research firm market Forward Analytics Inc., found that Artscape, the three-day street festival that brings hundreds of visual artists and live performances to the area surrounding Mt. Royal Avenue in central Baltimore, generates $25.97 million in impact, including money spent on sales tax, hotel bookings, hotel taxes, gasoline expenditures, gas taxes and other considerations.

Festival-goers spent $9 million with Artscape vendors, with $3.5 million of that going toward purchasing art, and $4.3 million toward food and beverage, the report said.

The report is an important tool, Gilmor said, in attracting and retaining corporate sponsors for the festival, as well as maintaining the city’s support for the event.

Artscape is paid-for by three main revenue sources: city funds, corporate sponsorships, and fees paid by artisans and vendors who rent the booths. Last year, the festival lost Saturn, a major sponsor from 2008, but its main corporate flags were Target Corp. ($35,000), British Petroleum ($23,000), Zone Perfect protein bars ($20,000), Honey Bunches of Oats cereals ($18,000), Sensodyne toothpaste ($15,000), and the Maryland Lottery ($15,000). The city committed $140,000 last year.

This year, Gilmor said, only Target has renewed its sponsorship, and has actually upped its planned contribution to $50,000. The others remain in question.

The projected budget for Artscape 2010, which will take place on July 16, 17 and 18, is $796,000, with $274,000 expected to come from corporate sponsorships, $354,000 from earned revenue and $248,000 from grants and contributions.

Of that, music production at the festival is the biggest expenditure, expected to cost $323,000. Festival logistics are next, at $167,000, with non-musical performing arts ($99,000), administration ($57,000) and visual arts programming ($55,000) not far behind.

Gilmor said the size of the festival’s impact came as a pleasant surprise, and that the 2009 festival was the largest-ever, with an estimated 350,000 visitors.

“I’m thrilled. I never dreamed it was almost $26 million. That’s a lot of change for a three-day event,” he said.

Even more surprising, he said, were the results from the city’s New Year’s Eve celebration, an event paid for entirely by private sponsorships but which generated $6.9 million in economic impact, according to the Forward Analytics study.

The Baltimore Book Festival, according to another study by the same firm, had an economic impact of $4.51 million and a cost of $162,000.