BENTONVILLE -- The screenings are over. The forums are done. The stars have gone home.
The six-day Bentonville Film Festival wrapped up its second year Sunday, and officials predict the final tally will show more people visited this year's event and spent more money.
Centrally located
The second annual Bentonville Film Festival was more centrally located around the downtown Bentonville square than the inaugural event. Three cinetransformers — 91-seat mobile theaters — were used to show films close to downtown. The Meteor Guitar Gallery on West Central Avenue held concerts each night.
Source: Staff report
The regional economic impact of last year's festival was $1.3 million, according to Trevor Drinkwater, co-founder of the festival. He said Friday he knew this year would be higher, but he said wouldn't know by how much until the festival was over.
Drinkwater said he knows the number will be larger based on how much money the festival spent locally, that ticket sales have "quadrupled" and all the other activities from the week haven't been calculated yet.
The Darius Rucker concert Wednesday at the Walmart AMP was a huge win and had a crowd of 7,000, Drinkwater added.
"The numbers have been great," he said. "I can't wait to add them up and share them because it's going to be a much bigger number than last year."
Regional draw
Visit Bentonville partnered with the Bentonville Film Festival this year to advertise to draw attendees from markets within driving distance.
Visit Bentonville didn't spend any money on advertising last year's festival but created materials, like a location map, for the event, said Blair Cromwell, vice president of communications.
This year the tourism bureau wanted to target the "low-hanging fruit," or areas within driving distance such as Kansas City, Mo.; Tulsa, Okla.; and Oklahoma City, she said.
"We knew we were going to do it (advertise) anyway, but we knew that putting our dollars together we could make bigger buys," Cromwell said of partnering with the festival.
The partnership bought four contracts for about $21,000. They included a video that played on screens at the Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport for six weeks for $6,000, a billboard at exit 88 on Interstate 49 for $5,700, advertisements in Currentland and NWA Entertainment Magazine for $3,360, and advertisements and a contest through the McClatchy Company's media outlets in Kansas City.
Visit Bentonville and the film festival evenly split the cost for each contract except for the billboard in which the festival paid the $1,062 installation cost, and Visit Bentonville paid $4,500 for three months of advertising space, according to a cost breakdown provided by Visit Bentonville.
The Kansas City Star, a McClatchy-owned newspaper, ran a contest that included passes to festival films and panels, tickets to Sunday's A League of Their Own softball game, a four-night stay at the Hilton Garden Inn and a gas card provided by the Walmart Museum.
There were 997 readers in the Kansas City area who entered the contest, Cromwell said.
David Martin of Olathe, Kan., won the contest and brought his wife. He said the newspaper has contests periodically, but this one interested him because he used to live in Northwest Arkansas and his wife has family in Bentonville.
"I was a little skeptical initially, thinking they just have tickets to these things that they're giving to a bunch of people," he said in a phone interview Thursday. "But as I learned more about the package, I said, 'Oh. This isn't some generic thing here.'"
Martin and his wife arrived Wednesday in time for the Darius Rucker concert at The AMP. He said they were planning to watch some films Thursday afternoon.
Martin said they probably wouldn't have come to the festival had it not been for winning the contest.
The Hilton Garden Inn had an increase in room capacity -- especially Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday -- Tina Cope, director of sales and marketing, said Friday morning.
She didn't have specific numbers but said the hotel was sold out a few nights and there was an overall increase in revenue.
The Hilton Garden Inn put together room blocks for the festival, which will help officials identify where guests came from, Cope said. Guests who don't buy rooms in blocks are asked what they are in town for, which helps track who is here for the film festival, she said.
Vehicle and pedestrian traffic slowly increased downtown as the week progressed. Parking lots were often full. Most license plates were from Arkansas, but many had Missouri plates. There was the occasional distant state plate, such as Colorado.
Local impact
The square swelled with people Friday midday and afternoon as the regularly scheduled First Friday got underway on the square.
Business was steady at Onyx Coffee Lab, said Bear Soliven, barista.
There wasn't an increase in business, but more customers were getting coffee to go rather than staying in the shop, which was built for patrons to have an experience, he said.
"That's sort of our vision to come and enjoy, not just come and take," Soliven said. "But it's been a nice influx of people coming through."
Soliven, who also works at Oven and Tap on South Main Street, said the restaurant got a "huge boom" in business at night after festival activities were done.
Oven and Tap partnered with the festival to host a few private events for filmmakers, said Luke Wetzel, co-owner and chef.
The restaurant celebrated its one-year anniversary Thursday. It opened during the festival last year and was visited by Geena Davis, festival co-creator and Academy Award-winning actor.
This year's festival has had a positive effect on the restaurant, Wetzel said.
"People are out. We're getting to meet people who haven't necessarily come to Oven and Tap before," he said. "The attraction brings people to the square that we wouldn't necessarily see on a regular basis."
Three Dog Bakery at 113 W. Central Ave. is a "curiosity point" since it's across the street from the Film Festival office and the Meteor Guitar Gallery, which was a festival music venue, said Bobby Critselous, store owner.
He said business was typical Monday through Wednesday and had a slight increase Thursday, with 60 percent of it in the evening hours from 5 to 8 p.m. He and his wife, Paula, who is also an owner, extended the shop's hours for the festival.
Bobby Critselous said the festival brings visitors, but it's up to local business owners to draw them inside their doors.
Even if a business doesn't see a large increase in revenue during the festival, "it's one you take for the team because it feeds the rest of the area around downtown Bentonville," he said.
NW News on 05/09/2016