The Daily Swarm

KLBJ:

South by Southwest continues to grow, with a city-commissioned study showing it making a huge economic impact on Austin.

Economist Angelos Angelou says last year’s South-by-Southwest poured at least 110-million dollars into Austin’s economy, and that is a conservative estimate.

“The event last year was attended by more than 125,000 people,” Angelou tells a morning news conference at Austin City Hall.

Angelou says tens of thousands of those were industry insiders and artists who view the March trip to Austin as a necessity to boost new music, films and technology. He says knows of no other festival that brands a city as well as SXSW boosts Austin’s title as “Live Music Capital of the World.” He also can’t think of a similar festival that accomplishes that and contributes so strongly to the economy.

Austin Business Journal:

Roughly $18 million will come from the operational impact of permanent staff and operational expenses of SXSW, and the balance of roughly $77 million will come from all the attendees and the money they spend in the local economy, says Angelou. Another $13 million is the value of the media coverage that Austin receives around the U.S., he says. “I must emphasize this is a global event and we have not attempted to measure the benefit Austin derives from the international coverage, which is huge,” says Angelou.

SXSW will also contribute about $18 million to local food and drink establishments, $12 million in hotel expenditures and $7 million in the transportation and automobile sector, says Angelou.

According to a report released by AngelouEconomics, SXSW last year was directly and indirectly responsible for infusing approximately $95 million into the Austin economy.

“SXSW is an event that is branded with Austin, and Austin is a lucky city to have been home to SXSW for so many years,” says Angelou. “An event of this nature is very, very important to Austin not just because it is a music festival, but it is more than that, it is [also] a film and interactive media event, and it brings a lot of professional people to Austin with a lot of money and obviously that money will be spent in the local economy.”

Austin American Statesman:

Economist John Rees, who prepared the report, said his findings were conservative.

More than 1,700 bands are expected at this year’s SXSW music festival compared with about 1,500 in 2007.

Rees noted the difficulty of factoring in a wide range of economic behaviors among attendees.

“SXSW is targeting both an affluent demographic and people with expense accounts,” Rees said. “You may have a band sleeping eight to a room, but you may have an executive spending 20 times the amount over the course of the festival that that band is spending,” he said.