Although I am new to the community, I understand that the Performing Arts and Events Center has been hotly debated for over 10 years.
However, the mayor’s Blue Ribbon Panel findings indicate the arts and events can have a significant economic impact on the community for generations to come.
There are intrinsic benefits of the arts we can all appreciate. The arts bring people together from across generations and cultures. Yes, we actually put our cell phones down for 90 minutes and engage. Likewise, events, especially community events, spark community pride, and both create a more vibrant place to live and work.
The theater at the events center will become home to five community performing arts organizations that collectively have been operating in this community for over 100 years. Each of the organizations will bring their season of performances to the stage and provide 18 performances annually.
Likewise, the various community organizations that have had to host their annual galas outside of the community will welcome the opportunity to host their events in their hometown. Both of these distinct, yet complementary facets of the center spark community pride and creativity in the larger community.
The center will host its own presenting program, bringing in artists from far and wide to perform. Together we will provide Federal Way and the surrounding region a diverse program of entertainment geared toward numerous artistic passions, from music and dance to comedy and Broadway, culminating in a full season of entertainment.
Each one of these performances will be an opportunity for you, the patron to engage and intersect with the artist and one another. A critical component of the presenting season is the arts-education programming specifically designed for students K-12. The hour-long performances will connect students through the arts, while tying in to the Common Core Standards.
The performances not only teach students about the arts (music, theater and dance) but also use the arts as a dynamic tool for teaching and learning all core subjects, such as math, science, history and literature. The arts-education program will offer teachers lesson plans and study guides as part of the learning experience.
The economic benefits are equally as tantalizing. The arts, unlike many other industries, initiate a significant amount of spending beyond the participation as a patron. For example, a patron attending a performance may go out to dinner prior to the performance, purchase dessert after the show and pay the babysitter. This generates commerce in the surrounding community to the performing arts center.
According to Americans for the Arts, Arts and Economic Prosperity study, a local patron will spend on average $19.53 on ancillary spending while attending a performance. An out of county patron, on average will spend $40.19 — combined average is $27.79 per patron. For a community the size of Federal Way, the average is $22.65 in additional spending beyond the purchase of the ticket to the performance.
If we multiply this out for the center in Federal Way, at a conservative 60 percent in attendance at an event, 430 patrons times $22.65 equals $9,739.50 per performance that is infused into the local economy. At a conservative estimate of 95 total events on the stage annually that equals $925,252.50.
The study also concludes that arts and culture are proven magnets to travelers, extending the length of their stay in a community to attend an arts event. This study lays to rest a common misconception: that communities support arts and culture at the expense of local economic development. In fact, communities are investing in an industry that supports jobs, generates government revenue and is the cornerstone of tourism. The buzzword for describing the investments in the arts is “creative place-making” — connecting a community around the arts and cultural activities in your city.
For events the commerce is a slightly different formula. The average attendee at an out of county event spends $308.92 and on average is here multiple days, the day tripper $16.78. The pro-forma suggests that there would be a conservative estimate of 60 events in the first year of operations, not all of those would be multiple days.
So for sake of conversation and ease, let’s keep the events at single day events. If the average attendance at those events is a conservative estimate of 100 attendees and that 25 percent are from outside the county, we suggest that those visitors bring $463,380 of new sales to our city.
Using the same multipliers to the remaining 75 attendees at the day tripper rate suggest that those attending the events locally will result in an additional directs sales figure of $75,510 infused into our local economy. Therefore, the estimated regional impact for year one for events equates to $538,890 for a combined total for arts and events of $1,464,142.50 total indirect spending infused into the local economy.
The lesson is that communities that invest in the arts not only reap the benefits of an improved quality of life for its residents but a community that attracts new businesses, which in turn attracts the young and brightest professional workforce.
Recently, the Federal Way City Council voted unanimously to move the events center forward to the next phase. Cities all across America are rebuilding themselves by investing in arts and culture and Federal Way has recognized that arts and events will have a positive impact on its future.
Federal Way will soon host ground breaking on the center, not just a building of bricks and mortar, but breaking ground on an investment that will define Federal Way’s future, where we live, work and play.
Theresa Yvonne, PAEC executive director
