The Salzburg Festival is a boon to the local economy

By E.B. | SALZBURG

THE fine arts and classical music are often assailed for consuming public money. They’re niche and unpopular, so the logic goes, and subsidising them only benefits a particular echelon of society. Tucker Carlson, a right-wing American political commentator, recently attacked the National Endowment for the Arts, a government-funded body that provides grants to American arts organisations, as “welfare for rich, liberal elites”. Others may well share this sentiment.

Data from the Salzburg Festival, the 97th edition of which ended on August 30th, tell a different story. The performances of classical music, opera and theatre reached 97% capacity—a very impressive figure. More than 250,000 tickets, ranging in price from €5 to €450, were sold. Nearly 50,000 people attended free events.

This popularity has a tangible impact on the local economy. Though the festival itself reports profits of around €30m, Salzburg itself enjoys a cash injection of €183m each year. “The festival’s effect on the region is enormous,” says Helga Rabl-Stadler, the festival’s president. “I want to encourage every town to do something like this.” Yet few towns and cities hoping to improve their financial fortunes would consider classical music to be the answer.

Launched by Max Reinhardt, a theatre director, in 1920, the Salzburg Festival draws people and money to the western Austrian city that once made its living trading salt (Salzburg means “salt castle”). Only 153,000 people call it home; nearly twice that number attends the festival. The city is prosperous—featuring upscale restaurants and plenty of designer boutiques—as are its citizens: Salzburg has a GDP per capita of €46,100, higher than Austria’s average and indeed higher than any European country except Luxembourg, Norway, Switzerland and Ireland. That is remarkable for a city that is known mostly for being the birthplace of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Yet the festival’s benefits are not limited to a month in the summer. According to a study conducted by the Salzburg Economic Chamber, the festival accounts for 2,800 full-time jobs in the city, and another 600 across Austria. It brings in €77m in tax revenues. The study also argues that the festival has helped to raise the city’s culinary standards; bringing haute cuisine establishments as well as kitsch Mozart-themed cafés. The study even credits the festival with “knowledge spillovers” into fields including life sciences.

The festival’s attendees are, of course, the drivers of this; they spend €319 per day on average. Four in five visitors return year after year, and they stay for an average of six days (the typical visitor to Salzsburg stays for only 1.7 days). “Yes, you can see and hear the same concerts, operas and theatre performances in Paris, London or New York, but then you go after work and you’re exhausted,” argues Ms Rabl-Stadler. “In Salzburg you make up your mind to go here, and if you’re going it makes sense to spend a week here.” Apart from the festival, which also has a Whitsun sister, Salzburg is much like any other medium-sized city: there’s not an over-abundance of entertainment. The festival is the destination.

The Salzburg Festival does receive government support. There’s no way ticket sales alone could ever finance the operation, as Ms Rabl-Stadler explains. But the festival also receives major sponsorship from corporations including Nestlé, Audi, Siemens and Rolex.

All this raises the question: can other cities improve their financial standing by means of classical music? Ms Rabl-Stadler believes that they can, and that it doesn’t require a “dumbing down” of the material: as long as people have decided they’re going to spend a week at a far-away festival, she says, they’re also more willing to try out new musical fare than at home, where they’d rather spend their evening at the opera listening to Verdi than a newly-commissioned opus. This summer’s Salzburg programme featured new productions of Verdi’s “Aida” (1871) and “Lear” (1978), an opera composed by Aribert Reimann.

It helps, of course, that Salzburg is beautiful, as well as being small and easy to navigate on foot. It enjoys worldwide fame thanks to Mozart and “The Sound of Music” (1965); location tours for the film attract a hefty share of visitors too. But the Salzburg Festival has managed to attract well-heeled visitors who are often not die-hard classical music fans. They travel there and spend freely because of the all-round experience, not just because of the programming. Several more recent classical music festivals also attract international audiences for similar reasons. Cities will do well to measure the festivals’ financial impact.

Could, say, Milton Keynes—a town built in the south of England in the 1960s, known mostly for its drabness—start a festival where culture fans from around the world might spend six days? It may be a harder sell than Salzburg. But classical music festivals clearly can be a compelling tourist attraction with ample benefits for the local economy. All Salzburg’s residents, not just the “rich, liberal elites”, can testify to that.