A Flexible Framework for Evaluating the Socio-cultural Impacts of a (small) Festival

The increasing popularity of festivals and events, coupled with their positive and negative impacts on host communities, has led to a growing body of research on the impacts of festivals and events. As a substantial amount of this research has focused on assessing the economic impacts of festivals, there is growing demand for the measurement of the socio-cultural impacts of these festivals and events. To address this issue a study was conducted that developed a framework for the social impact evaluation of festivals and piloted a tool that measured the community perceptions of socio-cultural impacts. This paper has four aims. First, it provides an overview of the importance of understanding community perceptions of socio-cultural impacts that may arise from the staging of festivals and events. Second, the paper outlines a Social Impact Evaluation (SIE) framework suitable for the holistic evaluation of socio-cultural impacts of festivals and events. Third the paper reports on the piloting of a tool, the Social Impact Perception (SIP) scale that was created to measure community perceptions of socio-cultural impacts that may arise from the staging of a small community festival. Fourth, the paper provides recommendations for the future application of the SIE framework and the SIP scale.