När festen är slut - En fallstudie om en festivals ekonomiska inverkan på en mindre ort

Sammanfattning: Hultsfred is a small municipality in Småland, Sweden, that has faced the challenges of a shrinking population, factory closures and a stagnant economy. The Hultsfred Festival was a music festival arranged annually between 1986 – 2012 in Hultsfred by the nonprofit association Rockparty. The festival grew and became the biggest in Sweden and it got a lot of coverage from the Swedish media. In the backwaters of the festival it has grown up a university program in music and event management and a business park linked to the festival in a facility called Rock City. The aim of this thesis is to study how festivals can bring economic growth to small Swedish municipalities and to study how lasting this growth is or whether it vanishes with the festival. The analysis is based on Gunnar Myrdal’s model of circular cumulative causation and the concept of place marketing. The analysis show that the media coverage resulted in that many swedes now have heard about Hultsfred and that the place is associated with music. Many of the companies in the business park were owned by and closely linked to Rockparty which resulted in that they were pulled down with Rockparty in their bankruptcy. The education is still, after the disappearance of the festival, popular and the investment that has been most successful.