Fair’s economic assessment shows $23 million impact

PALMER — An economic survey released Tuesday estimates the impact of Valley’s premier summer event at $23 million in 2014.

The report, conducted by Anchorage consultancy the McDowell Group, is the first quantitative look at the Alaska State Fair’s impact since 2005, when McDowell last used surveys to examine economic effects. The results of the survey have been known for about two weeks, though the final public version of the report was made available on the Internet Tuesday. The report does not explicitly compare figures between those periods, said Garrett Everidge, with McDowell. Some measures have changed, said Dean Phipps, director of marketing and communication with the Alaska State Fair non-profit organization.

Such comparisons can prove tough: a global economic recession and parts of three presidential terms have occurred since 2005, officials point out.

The report also doesn’t include the nearly $3 million in public fund expenditures accumulated during the same period, or the annual costs associated with traffic management and law enforcement during the fair, Phipps said.

Despite an apparent downtick in per-capita spending, some of which may be attributable to more accurate measures of some expenses, fair revenues are up over recent years, Phipps said. They attribute those increases to several factors, Phipps said.

“One of the things that’s different that results in more payroll is that we have a pretty ambitious concert series now,” he said. “That’s a game-changer.”

The report makes no attempt to compare the 2005 figures with last year’s numbers, Everidge said.

Among the studies key findings:

• Fairgoers spent $14.2 million, an average of $55 per person at the fair in 2014. Adjusted for inflation and measured against the 2005 figures, that amounts to an almost $1-million decrease from the last time fair spending was assessed via survey, when fairgoers spent an inflation-adjusted estimated $58 per person. So while more people come to the fair, they spend less money than they did in 2005, even as the share of venders with a commercial focus at the fair increased about 5 percent in the intervening nine years.

While that may be accurate, the per-capita expenditure is intended primarily as an estimate, Everidge said.

•Attendance figures have increased by about 20,000 people since 2005. Everidge pointed out that attendance figures are relatively steady near the 300,000 mark. Weather is a big driver for attendance, Phipps said.

•The number of vendors at the fair has decreased by 45, though the 2014 figures record unique vendors while the 2005 numbers apparently did not make that distinction

• Counting vendors and other sources of jobs, the fair employed 2,600 people in 2014, Of these, well over half, or 1,670, were employed by vendors.

• Payroll spending as measured in dollars last year was almost six times the 2005 amount, before adjusting for inflation. After adjusting for inflation, fair payrolls have tripled, according to figures at the fair.

• While payroll is up, volunteering is down. The survey reported 2,400 volunteers in 2005, versus 2,000 in 2014.

• Attendance of events hosted at fair facilities other than the State fair has increased by about 52 percent since 2005, from 43,400 to 65,800.

• Payroll is also having more local impact: 48 percent of fair employees lived in the Mat-Su in 2005. In 2014, that number has jumped seven percent to 55 percent.

Contact Brian O’Connor at 352-2269 or brian.oconnor@frontiersman.com, or on Twitter @reporterbriano.