The overall economic impact of the Oregon Brewers Festival has declined for the second consecutive year.
The 2016 edition of the five-day festival, one of the oldest and most well-attended in the U.S, generated $29.3 million in economic impact, a three percent dip from the previous year.
Jeff Dense, a professor of political science and craft beer studies at Eastern Oregon University who has conducted the research since 2011, attributed the drop off in both 2015 and 2016 to weather conditions.
The Oregon Brewers Festival, which takes place the last full weekend in July each year, was “unseasonably hot for several days,” Dense said, and that may have played a part in this year’s decline.
Dense also believes that the festival’s peak of $32.6 million of economic impact in 2014 might have been “a little high.”
The Oregonian reported that 2015’s decline was the first in the five years that the study had been conducted. Festival organizers reportedly attributed that year’s drop in attendance, the smallest since 2009, to unseasonably rainy and cold weather on the Saturday and Sunday of that year’s festival.
Nevertheless, the Oregon Brewers Festival still sold 83,500 bracelets in 2016, 56,809 of which were “unique visitors,” Dense said. Those attendees spent $9.5 million on accommodations and $7.6 million on food and drinks. Per attendee spending dropped, however, from $583 in 2015 to $561 this year.
44.2 percent of Oregon Brewers Festival attendees were women, up from 31.9 percent in 2015. In 2014, 45 percent of the attendees were women.
“That’s the number I’d expect it to be at,” Dense said of the number of women attendees. He added that the increase in women attendees “indicates that there’s a lot of upside in regard to craft beer culture.”
About 44.5 percent of the attendees in 2016 came from out of town, with the fest drawing 12.1 percent of its crowd from Washington and 11.2 percent from California. Those out-of-towners are spending more money on vacation rentals (20.2 percent of attendees), eschewing hotel stays.
Still, Dense said the primary complaint his researchers hear from festival goers is the “cost of the hotels within walking distance of festival.”
Hotels located near the festival can average $300 per night, he said.
“Consumers are spending with their feet,” he said. “Unless commercial-room rates go down, I would expect that to continue into the future.”
The overall number of out-of-town visitors dipped in 2016 and, in order for the festival’s economic impact to grow, it needs to attract more out-of-town guests, Dense told Brewbound.
By comparison, the annual Great American Beer Festival generated an economic impact of $28.6 million in 2016, drawing 60,000 attendees to the city, according to the Brewers Association, citing stats from Denver’s convention and visitors bureau.
In 2015, the BA also reported $28.6 million in economic impact, saying money amounted to 2 percent of Denver’s gross domestic product for those three days.