Events are an important part of many municipalities’ identity and sense of community. They bring people together, offer things to do, and make life more enjoyable. Farmers’ markets, summer festivals, and cultural evenings are valuable moments in everyday life — experiences that can’t be measured in money. From an economic perspective, however, their impact is often limited: the money circulates locally, but no new income flows into the region.
Event tourism is a different story. It happens when an event attracts visitors from outside the local economy, bringing in new spending from elsewhere. Visitors use local services — lodging, restaurants, cafés, gas stations, and shops. Often it’s this secondary spending that creates the real economic impact of an event, rather than ticket sales themselves. A single large sports or cultural event can bring more revenue to a small town over one weekend than ordinary life does in a month. At the same time, it creates job opportunities, boosts commerce, enlivens the streets, and raises the town’s profile.
Ideally, an event covers its costs through its own income — ticket sales, food and beverage sales, merchandise, and commercial partnerships. In practice, that’s not always possible, especially for cultural and artistic events. These often require public support to ensure high quality and diverse content that isn’t driven purely by commercial interests. Public funding helps maintain a broad range of events and ensures that non-commercial organizers can also contribute to a vibrant cultural life.
Public support doesn’t always mean direct financial aid to event organizers. In many cases, a more effective and longer-lasting approach is for a municipality to invest shared funds in broader benefits — for example, regional event marketing outside the local area, or improving event facilities. When investments are made in visibility, accessibility, and infrastructure, multiple actors benefit at once. Public spending of this kind not only helps individual events succeed but also strengthens the region’s overall appeal.
Event tourism is a long-term investment. A well-organized event creates a positive image of the whole area, encourages visitors to return, and can even attract new residents and businesses. The effects aren’t always immediate, but they can last well into the future.
Not all events, however, are equally beneficial to the local economy. Some traveling events sell tickets, programs, and merchandise, but the profits flow elsewhere. If food, drinks, and side sales at the event are also managed by outside vendors, the town may be left with little more than a brief rush of activity. When such events attract mostly local residents — and still receive public funding — the cash flow can easily turn negative, draining money out of the local economy.
That’s why it’s important for municipalities and other public bodies to think carefully about what kinds of events they support and how that support is directed. Public funding is justified when an event strengthens local vitality, employment, and tourism — or builds community in ways that nothing else can. In other words: it’s worth distinguishing between events that bring only life to a place, and those that also bring livelihood.
In the best cases, these two come together. The most successful events combine local enthusiasm with outside interest — they’re both communal and attractive, both culturally and economically significant. They shape the municipality’s image, create new networks, and boost regional vitality far beyond what their budgets alone might suggest.
Events are like a living business card for a town: they show that something’s happening here, and that people enjoy being here. And when those events also attract visitors from afar, they send another message — that this is a place worth staying in, and worth spending a little money, too.