Special events have grown massively and contribute a lot of benefits to the host community. They provide a lot of recreational opportunities for local residents as well as assist in forming the tourism’s destination. As such potential contributions, government now involves in many festivals and special events to support and promote events as part of their strategies for economic development, infrastructure, and destination marketing. There are many types of special events but can be classify in categories: mega event, hallmark event, major event, and minor event. The duration of these events ranges from a single day up to many months in the case of World Expos. Special event produces a wide range of economic and social benefits for communities and regions. This economic and social impact will be assessed in this essay which focused on Wagner’s Ring Cycle held in Adelaide – South Australia in 1998.
The Wagner’s Ring Cycle has economic impact as well as social impact to the host community. These impacts, which can be positive and negative, will be discussed particularly through the staging event that made a successful Australia's first original Ring Cycle.
First of all, the economic impact is assessed by the information of the expenditure of the attendees and participants (spend how much and on what). The information is also obtained on “switching” for attendees and non-attendees in how much they would spend if the event had not been held in that area. The Wagner’s Ring Cycle event is a three complete cycles performed and each cycle is completed in seven – eight days period. The cost of the ticket range from $450 to $950 for the full cycle included food, drink and accommodation. It covers 8.6 days in average for interstate visitors and 10.7 days for international visitors which including transportation to Adelaide mainly by air. The target audience is narrower than normal event, not only because of high cost in tickets but also because of its small population in the art world. Despite the mentioned above, there is still a significant expenditure in tickets by out-of-State visitors which was 2.25 million dollars and local visitors was 0.25 million dollars. In addition, these visitors stated that they would also travel out of the State for “The Ring” if it hadn’t been performed in Adelaide. This remarkable expenditure from the local was retained within the host community rather than lost to other places which would consider a loss to their community. This is the case that the expenditure has been taken into account “destination switching” (Jones, 2001).
Furthermore, the non-ticket expenditure also took place in the successful of the event where most of the revenue came from. A number of ancillary events were presented during the opera season in Adelaide. These events were economic strategies for the visitors to spend more during their stay. These events are pre-performance lectures, exhibitions of set design, costumes, photographs, and various other exhibitions and events. Some of those were free but others were generally not cheap, for example the cost of the series of pre-performance lectures was $60. The event was quite successful in term of ticket expenditure but it has also generated significant amount. The total non-ticket expenditure was 6.6 million dollars. The Gross State Product (GSP) was generated around 10 million dollars which is equal to create two hundred full-time jobs sustained over one year. The per-visitor contributes $2,780 to the GSP which exceeded the usual contribution of other major events (around $1,500). These figures show the evaluation of the event impacts was positive, which played a huge contribution of Adelaide community.
Beside above economic impacts, this event also affected the host community in term of social impact which will be assessed below whether positively or negatively.
One of the positive social impacts of Wagner’s Ring Cycle was attracting more international visitors to South Australia which was a county town in 1998. There were approximately 3500 event-specific visitors attended in the series opera: 44% of attendees were South Australians, 44% were from interstate, and 12% were from overseas – so, 56% came from outside the State. Over 80 per cent of all visitors were aged 50 and above. These people were the key element in making decision to spend more money in other activities during their stay in Adelaide. It leads to a “showcasing” effect to Adelaide region which raised its profile on the map of the world as well as making locals feel very much proud to their community. "Adelaide I see as a big country town" says Noel Staunton, who was joined by Luhrmann and wife, costume designer Cathy Martin, in the Adelaide audience for Gotterdammerung. "It doesn't have the great opera base that Melbourne and Sydney has, so doing the Wagner repertoire is a very interesting idea”. This event was the first time that the performance completed all its three cycles in Australia; result in the success of the same event held in Adelaide in 2004. It brings the pride to the local community after the event end and creates opportunities for other art event take place in Adelaide Festival Theatre. This Ring Cycle made a remarkable event in the world of Orchestra, which was the first complete performance of this opera series in Australia - the first fully staged Ring since Quinlan’s in 1913. It also contributed a long term impact which was re-staged the same event in Adelaide 2004; and the event is being expected in Melbourne 2013. According to ad hoc manner, which provides evidence for a successful event, the Ring Cycle did not produce sizable economic benefits to the region but were of value for the social benefits.
On the other hand, Adelaide’s Ring Cycle had a negative impact to the reputation of the event due to its inflexibility of travel packages offered for “The Ring”. While the audience survey indicates that interstate visitors would spend 15 nights while the actual average length of stay was 10.3. For interstate visitors it was 8.5 nights compared to the estimation of the pre-event 10. The biggest reason of this negative impact was the cost for ticket was not clear that packages included adequate opportunities to visit to other regions of the State. Some of other reports showed the audiences had only one option to purchase tickets as part of a complete package including travel, which limited their decision making of their own arrangements. Many visitors was still budget conscious and chose cheaper accommodation and tried to limit their expenditure during the stay. There should be a survey conducting to assess the reason for attending the event or not to study into visitor motivation. Result in there was a difference between the scenario estimate and actual spending of visitors. For international visitors, the average daily expenditure was $183 while the estimate was $333, and for the interstate visitors, the scenario estimate of $183 compared with the actual spending was $165. These numbers had shown that inflexible ticket packages influenced quite badly to the visitor’s motivation; result in creating dissatisfaction of the attendees made them spend less and shorten their vacation duration.
In conclusion, to assess the economic impact of an event in a particular region, variety types of survey should be taken into account in the first place. This information will be compared with the estimation or scenario to define the difference which reflects the impact of this event positively or negatively. In some special event, the economic impact would be negative or break-even in short term, however it can still be considered as a successful event even though it brought a low amount of income to the host community by leading to a long term benefit that contributed a lot in financial term as well as having a spilling over effect to other allied industry. Besides that, the social impact of a festival and special event play an important role in its success. There would be opposition as well as protest against the operating event if the local community does not support nor give a positive attitude towards it. In some events, the survey of local community attitude toward it should be taken seriously in first play to decide it is possible to hold an event. If the result is positive, it will then raise the local spirit to its government along with increasing their pride within the community. Eventually, a special event or festival has impact in different perspective such as economic, social, culture, etc; particular survey would be necessary to be conducted before or after the event to measure the impacts in the host community. In the case of Wagner’s Ring Cycle, it was a good example of the economic measurement. The event was not only successful in contributing a huge amount income to the South Australia. But it also brings opportunities in long term to the local community in the future. This is proved by re-staging the same event in Adelaide in 2004, and even being expected in Melbourne next time.

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