GREENFIELD – Sunny blue skies brought a potential record-breaking crowd to this year’s Riley Festival, and the bourbon chicken didn’t hurt either.
The 56th annual festival was by all counts a smashing success, with huge crowds strolling more than 460 vendor booths, which were at capacity this year.
“The vendors were all very happy because they all did well because of the big crowd,” said Nancy Alldredge, a longtime Riley Festival board member who has been helping coordinate the popular fall festival for years.
She’s guessing this might have been a record year for attendance at the festival, which takes over downtown Greenfield for four full days starting the first Thursday in October.
“We couldn’t have asked for better weather,” said Alldredge, who knows all too well that rain and cold weather can make a huge impact on the number of people who attend the festival each year.
Hancock County Tourism director Brigette Cook Jones said the festival makes a huge economic impact each year.
“We just did an economic impact study and found that the average amount of direct expenditure impact by visitors who come to Hancock County is around $209 per person,” she said.
While a lot of that may be spent on out-of-town merchants, Jones said it also makes a positive impact on Greenfield.
“The Riley Festival has a huge financial impact especially on downtown businesses because they consider the festival weekend their ‘13th month’ in that they get a month’s worth of income in one weekend,” she said.
Jones points out that the Riley Festival was first created with the sole purpose of benefiting downtown businesses.
“It started out as a sidewalk sale and morphed into what it is today,” she said. “Many businesses take advantage of the festival presence by hosting their own booth in front of their business, or having an open space in front of their door to encourage visitation.”
Yet Jones said the financial impact on Greenfield isn’t just through direct expenditures, but increased tax dollars.
“Events like this flood the county coffers with revenue from out-of-county pockets in the form of sales tax, gas tax, food and beverage tax, and innkeeper’s tax. This means local citizens are not having to pay as much money because tourism is a huge economic driver, and this goes for any tourism event or attraction,” she said.
Flooding the city with an estimated 40,000 to 60,000 visitors within a four-day span also puts Hancock County on a pedestal, she said, allowing out-of-town guests to get a glimpse at the county seat’s vibrant, historic charm.
A community’s “quality of life” factor can play an even bigger role in recruiting new business than tax cuts, said Jones, when it comes to businesses determining where they want to call home.
“Most anyone in economic development…will tell you that things for employees to see and do are significant factors,” she said. “This is why attractions, retail shopping, cultural amenities like libraries and museums, parks and recreation and events are very important to prospective businesses. If you lack those things that can engage employees – especially those in white collar and professional jobs – they will go elsewhere.”
The Riley Festival is a great opportunity for downtown Greenfield and the county as a whole to put its best face forward each year, she said.
Jones said the Hancock County Tourism and Visitor Center uses special software to track the number of guests 18 and older who attend the Riley Festival each year, but this year’s numbers would not be immediately available.
