Festivals and Rotterdam

This research presents a view on the public event sector in Rotterdam. This view provides the scope, economic characteristics and structure of the event sector in Rotterdam. It sets out general aggregated information on the organizations behind the public events held in the city of Rotterdam. The organizations included in this research have been selected on yearly- or two yearly recurring events with more than 5000 visitors, according to the IFEA application list 2009-2010, and have a department in the region of Rotterdam Rijnmond. The sector’s revenue is estimated on 37,4 million euro, there are 242 people working full-time is this sector and expands with 4400 during the event season. About the same amount of volunteers are working in this sector, close to 4250. The estimated number of visitors is 3,7 million a year, who spent an estimated 190 million euro (visitors expenditure). The sector is mainly local orientated, on average about 60% of the suppliers is from the region of Rotterdam and most of the organizations have no profit maximizing goal (84%). The events are primarily financed with private money (75%) and most of the budget goes to the content of events (64%). This research shows that besides the social, cultural and life enhancing characteristics of events, the sector provides economic benefits to the city, stimulating the economy locally.