Stone Food and Drink Festival generated over half-a-million pounds of economic activity in the town at last year’s event.
A survey of visitors to the 2014 festival by Staffordshire University estimates that it generated a total net spend of around £567,000. This was money spent directly at the festival – at the farmers’ market and at Westbridge Park – but also in Stone pubs, restaurants, shops, hotels and more.
It’s the first real evidence of the huge economic benefits delivered for the town by the festival – and the power it has to bring people into Stone: 66% of visitors last year were from outside Stone.
Other findings include:
43% were first-time visitors and 57% returning
81% were visiting the event for one day only
47% were aged 16 to 45, with 27% aged 46 to 60 and 16% aged 61 or older
Over half arrived by sustainable transport (eg train, walking and some by narrowboat).
Festival chairman Richard Stevens said: “We were hugely excited to work with Staffordshire University on the survey as getting a real insight into visitor behaviour and opinion is something we’ve been keen to do for some time, but have simply lacked the manpower and expertise to carry out such a survey with our volunteer workforce.
“We’d like to say a huge thank you to Professor Jon Fairburn, to Greta and to all the students who volunteered their time over the ‘big weekend’ to approach visitors with the questionnaires as we’ve had some very interesting feedback.
“We’re delighted to say there are no nasty surprises and the overall the feedback is incredibly positive. The economic impact estimates are very satisfying as the main reason we run this event is to bring people – and money – into Stone to support local businesses. We have also received interesting constructive input in terms of how things can be improved, all of which we will aim to take on board when planning this year’s event.
“However, it’s also been very interesting as the results have challenged some long-held assumptions in terms of visitor profile – it appears we are attracting a far more youthful audience than we initially believed – all of which bodes very well for the future. We look forward to working with the University once again to run a survey at this year’s event to build a strong picture of the event and its impact over time.”
The report summarising the findings, based on 577 completed surveys, was collated by final-year BA Tourism Management student Greta Liaudanskiate, who undertook project as her dissertation. The majority of surveys were completed face-to-face with the help of fellow students over festival weekend, with the remaining 8% filled out online after the event.
The 2015 Stone Food & Drink Festival will take place on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th October – for more details, visit www.stonefooddrink.org.uk
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