Thursday, July 8, 2010

What is the Economic Impact of Pedalpalooza?


I just crunched a few numbers and, based on my bank statements and recollections of cash transactions I came up with a rough figure of $764.00 (detailed line-by-line report here) that I personally spent locally, specifically because of or for Pedalpalooza. This doesn't include income generated by my house guest who was visiting for PP, Items/services purchased by ride hosts (other than the rides I myself hosted), and other items (see below).

so...

If I spent $764.00 and attended 23 PP events, that's an average of $33.22 spent per ride.

This year's rides had anywhere from 3 to 13,000 attendees, so finding an average is hard but I'll give it a go. Let's first look at everything but WNBR, because if its unusually large draw. Based on my experience I'm going to estimate that your average PP ride had 25 attendees. I know that's completely arbitrary, but hey, my best guess is all I've got. With 297 events on the calender (298 -WNBR), if 25 people spent $33 at each of them, that's a total of $245,025. Add, possibly conservatively, another 10,000 riders for WNBR, spending, I can only guess, an average of $33 a piece and your total jumps to $575,025.

So, as best I can figure, a minimum of half a million dollars was dropped in Portland over the 2 and change weeks of bike fun (and if my tally is any indication, it was mostly spent on beer and tacos). My gut makes me think it's at least twice that, if anyone wants to have a go at calculating non-personal expenses like...

* Calender and poster printing and design
* Advertising revenue and increased profits based on them
* Lodging, meals, entertainment, and shopping dollars spend by out-of-towners visiting for PP
* WNBR site rental, porta-potties, entertainment, etc...
* MCBF porta-potties, complementary gifts with purchase, fireworks, etc...
* Bar tabs and other expenses spent during Shift/WNBR planning meetings
* Yadda, yadda, yadda...

...be my guest. Granted, this is very rough economics, so feedback on a more accurate total would be awesome.


-Deacon

1 comment:

  1. i hear the city is forming a task force to monitor the economics of naked bike rides, aka the bootydex

    ReplyDelete