ACL Dollars Spent Generates Dollars for Austin
ACL Festival-goers are expected to generate $73 million for the Austin's economy. Photo by Erika Aguilar for KUT News. Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
The 75,000 people at ACL this weekend are expected to help the Austin economy by injecting $73 million. Only about half the crowd at ACL is from Austin.
Mike Summers lived in Austin for 10 years before moving back to Phoenix. But he’s back in Austin again for the festival. Summers says he understands what’s it’s like to be an Austinite without a wristband.
“If you wanted to come downtown at night on Friday or Saturday that could be frustrating other than that, you don’t really know,” Summers said.
Traffic downtown does get nightmarish. Runners are probably better off avoiding the trail. Homeowners have trouble getting into driveways in the area. But Music Marketing Director Rose Reyes from the Austin Convention and Visitors Bureau tells Austinites it’s just one weekend.
“I think it’s such as gift and I would hope that citizens would put up with it for a short period of time,” Reyes said. “What it really does to our businesses, our cab drivers, our hotels our industry as a whole – it’s really…it’s Christmas.”
C3 Presents, the organizers of the festival, pays $29,560 to the City in park fees including a $30 sound permit and a $30 alcohol permit.
“The City of Austin’s special events manager reports that there are no waivers granted to ACL and that pretty everything is outlined in the contract,” said Victor Ovalle, public information officer for the City of Austin’s Parks and Recreation Department.
The contract requires C3 Presents to hire and pay for police and emergency personnel for the event. The crowds downtown after ACL are still the city’s responsibility. Austin Police and other city officials say the full cost to the City of Austin for hosting ACL won’t be known till after the event.
eaguilar@kut.org
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