Festival Statistics: Key Concepts and Current Practices

In any community, festivals are an important showcase of culture and creativity, and the cornerstone of economic development strategies to attract tourists. But governments often lack the tools necessary to measure the full impact of such multi-faceted events.

A new publication from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics aims to fill the gap. Festival Statistics: Key concepts and current practices, is the third in series of cultural statistics handbooks for policy-makers and practitioners. The handbook sets out major areas of research and practice in the measurement of festivals to help organisers and national authorities to evaluate the economic impacts of festivals.

Festival statistics can be cross-functional. They can be used to develop a macro-understanding of the role and impact of festivals on society, which can in turn inform policy on culture, development and diversity, as well as project management, tourism development and cultural industries commercially-driven or not-for-profit.
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