Last year, at its 72nd edition, the San Sebastian Festival generated an economic impact of 47.9 million euros, according to the data of the study commissioned from Ikertalde, the consultancy group also responsible for drawing up the previous report for the 2012 edition.

As well as a meeting place for movie buffs, the specialised press and the industry, the San Sebastian Festival is so much more than a cultural get-together, added to the fact that it is an important economic motor for the city and its surrounding area, with an equally beneficial impact in terms of creating jobs, notoriety and outreach.

These are the findings of this study, which divides the total of 47.9 millions into three headings. On the one hand, 18.3 million correspond to the direct impact of the sums injected by the event organisation. This includes the contracting of both services and personnel (12 million), plus the income received from the stay and consumption in the Basque Country of people involved in delivering the Festival (6.3 million).

On the other hand, the indirect impact, estimated at almost 14 million euros, corresponds to audience mobilisation, i.e. to the amount spent and consumed by Festival attendees in general as well as on the purchase of tickets. The majority of this amount (10.7 million) can be attributed to visitors from outside the city who required overnight stays, while the remainder corresponds to the locals of San Sebastian (almost 2 million) and to visitors not requiring an overnight stay (1 million). 

Finally, the induced impact, amounting to almost 16 million euros, stems from the mobilisations and sums disbursed throughout the economic value chain.

Furthermore, this study enables us to assess the beneficial effect of public investment in culture, given that the Festival activity generated an economic return of 8.4 million euros for the local government in the shape of taxes and other amounts received.

In terms of employment, the San Sebastian Festival staff is made up of 40 people working in year-round jobs, who were joined in 2024 by the approximately 320 contracts (80% falling within the month of September) issued to cover the specific needs of delivering the event.  

If anything sets the San Sebastian Festival apart from other events of international scope it is the strength of its roots within the city. Thus, the 2024 edition recorded 172,301 screening attendees, 123,211 (71.5%) of whom were members of the general public.

To calculate the amount disbursed by attendees, the study takes as its key unit the active film day, defined as the day of active participation by a person in the Festival on watching at least one film; this means that a person generates as many active days as the different days on which they attended a film screening, independently of the number of films they viewed each day. According to the analysis of purchasing behaviour by the general public, each person watched an average of 1.3 films at the Festival, the equivalent of 95,966 active days with respect to the generation of expenditure. Of these, approximately half, 46,064 (48%), correspond to the people of San Sebastian, 15,462 to visitors who did not stay overnight (15%) and 34,440 to people who did spend the night in or around the city (36%).

The report also reveals insightful figures regarding the outreach provided by the Festival to San Sebastian with respect to positioning and notoriety, whether thanks to projecting the image of a city strongly dedicated to a culture of quality, or to the constant appearance of the event in all kinds of national and international media. In this respect, last year more than 162,000 news articles were published, with almost 144,000 million viewing opportunities, while the advertising exchange value came close to the 1,900 million euro mark.

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