Like most states with thriving arts and culture communities, Texas not only benefits from a positive economic impact from the arts, but that impact is highly significant. Its 42 art and culture industries generated $5.1 billion in sales for the state and nearly $320 million in annual state sales tax in 2013. Plus, those numbers are only showing signs of growing as art and culture sales are up 24.6% from 2003, when the state saw $4.1 billion in sales.
When you look at the thriving arts and culture industries within specific cities, the picture is equally as clear. Texas’s Dallas-Plano-Irving area arts industries were the largest contributor in the state in 2013, with $1.18 billion in taxable sales. Fort Worth-Arlington generated more than $326 million. Film is a notable contributor to these dollars. In fact, in 2011 the City of Austin commissioned an economic impact study, which estimates the total economic impact of just film and visual media, totaling over $280 million annually.
This is a significant reason why you see so many corporate and private patrons of the arts and culture as they understand that investing in the creative endeavors of their community has a direct impact on its economy. A growing cultural investment are film festivals, highlighting independent film productions that serve as a draw for locals and out-of-towners alike. Film festivals impact the local economy in three specific ways”
- Visitor Spending: This means factoring in overnight spending among people who have travelled from out of town and have rented cars, are booking nights in local hotels and eating in local restaurants, purchasing other local goods and services and visiting other destination attractions.
- Day Spending: This has a positive impact on the local economy, which includes people from local towns, within driving distance to the events, who have come for the day and are paying for parking and filling restaurants.
- Local Spending: This includes activities from participants who reside in the immediate city who are more likely to eat out during the days of the events and purchase featured products and merchandise, because they are away from home and immersed in an activity.
Texas’ Arts and Culture Industry also plays a major role creating and sustaining jobs. Directly, the industry creates, distributes, and sells products and services to national and international markets. This creates a demand for nearly 10,000 Arts and Culture Industry businesses located throughout Texas, employing over 110,000 workers. Additionally, supporting a strong arts culture has a noted ripple effect in the jobs market, attracting innovation workers and luring cutting-edge companies to set up shop within cities who demonstrate a vibrant and thriving arts and culture scene.
Film festivals even help to merge art and technology through a variety of visual media that often include virtual reality, gaming and other motion art media in addition to traditional films. The significance of this is powerful in an area that is amplifying its technology markets, offering a powerful exhibition platform to showcase a variety of arts and technology projects to a broad audience in a fun and entertaining environment.
Texas is succeeding in all of these fronts, and proven by the numbers, is showing no signs of slowing down. An investment in the arts, culture and local film industry just makes good dollars and cents.
