4 January 2009

Cui Bono? Summernats and the Local Economy

| Aurelius
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For years now, we’ve been told that Summernats brings economic benefit to Canberra. So I thought I’d ask the question – who benefits? Let’s try and avoid this thread falling into the pothole that all other Summernats threads fall into, and let’s not discuss the loutish behaviour and alcohol restrictions etc. I am hoping the hivemind, with its finger in many pies, might be able to answer a simple question – who benefits economically from the event?

Obviously EPIC benefits, and the food vendors that operate there. Shell Gateway benefits from having thousands of people next door who clean the place out of all types of fastfood. The servos in Dickson and Watson benefit from considerably increased sales. Presumably the takeaways in Dickson as well. And the cheapo accommodation options in Watson. My partner’s store, which sells car-related product sees some, but very little benefit, but it’s not in North Canberra so that’s understandable.

But I spoke to someone who runs a takeaway in Mitchell – he sees no benefit. Restaurants in Lyneham, zip.

So who benefits? Is your work directly affected, and in a positive or negative way?

[ED – A story in today’s CT suggests even Chic Henry isn’t doing so flash this year]

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summernats cruiser10:26 am 28 Jan 09

just thought id add a perspective of a entrant of summernats and a employee of a sponsor.

ive attended summernats for the full 23 years of the event, i take my friends, employees ans family.

i have had and am still working on numerous show cars and our only aim is to come to summernats and compete. For the last 5 years i have come as not just an entrant, but as a sponsor to the event, i spent in excess of 23,000 on accomidation, over 10k on food from your local resturants and grocers, use your local hire company to put up our marquees and spend plenty around your beautiful city.

what you people fail to see is the great publicity this event has world wide, you just think of yobbos doing purnouts and perving, there is a majority of people that go there for the car festival, and because one servo is quiet doesnt mean it brings no good to your economy, im my case you prob have 50 or 60k of my money and that is from one sposor and entrant, as far as i see it, it is a great event, with great exposure for my business and good exposure for canberra. my company is japanese based and loves what it sees in summernats. this year was the best behaved ive seen it and yet canberrians still whinge, i thik chic does a great job at containing a majority of it inside epic.

as for the tool who whinged about the entry price, you would pay 50 dollars to see 80 mins of football at canberra stadium, do you want to shut that down too?? at least you got hours of entertainment at the summernats!!!

you do get a huge financial benefit our of the summernats, i will continue to support it if it remains in canberra, i love putting my money into your great city, and i get really upset when i read these blogs on here posted by people who have no interest in the event and have prob never been, and for the record, chic is not looking for free rent, and you all may get your wish, i hope for all motoring enthiausts sake you dont!!!

BerraBoy68 said :

So much!

wasn’t chic from flynn or fraser? his daughter was jane, wasn’t she?

So much!

BerraBoy68 said :

There once was a bloke named Chic Henry
Who wanted to use EPIC for free
But the event that he run
Vanished up it own bum
And the people of Canberra went Yippee!

(Note: No offence is intended to two of you that like SummerNats,this is a bit of fun. no correspondece will be entered into:)

you just miss the old neighborhood, don’t you?

There once was a bloke named Chic Henry
Who wanted to use EPIC for free
But the event that he run
Vanished up it own bum
And the people of Canberra went Yippee!

(Note: No offence is intended to two of you that like SummerNats,this is a bit of fun. no correspondece will be entered into:)

5 years free rent LOL 0 Imagine the RNCAS or Folk Festival asking for that.
IMO these events are less hostile for locals than summerGnats

Pandy said :

Chic Henry on the radio this morning hinted very strongly that if he does not get 5 years of free rent he will shut-up shop in Canberra. He cannot raise ticket prices, raise more sponsorship, shorten the event by a day, get a better place to hold the event than EPIC. In fact if he has no changes for next year he (his company?) will go bust.

5 years of free rent?! Bye chick.

Yes sorry my post was late at night, and after a few wines.

3% of canberrans attend this performance engineering festival.

That local 3% represents (as by the maths above) 21% of the total attendees.

I believe more recent figures put local atendees at 33%

Mr Evil said :

Pandy said :

I wonder if it has ever occured to this moronic dinosaur that if he cleaned his event up somewhat, then more companies might be keen to have their name associated with Summernats through sponsorship.

I’d imagine there would be more than a few companies willing to pitch in several thousand dollars to have their company’s products and name associated with a true car show – but they won’t do the same to support a booze and tit fest!

Boganville. the new name for the nats.

Pandy said :

Chic Henry on the radio this morning hinted very strongly that if he does not get 5 years of free rent he will shut-up shop in Canberra. He cannot raise ticket prices, raise more sponsorship, shorten the event by a day, get a better place to hold the event than EPIC. In fact if he has no changes for next year he (his company?) will go bust.

I wonder if it has ever occured to this moronic dinosaur that if he cleaned his event up somewhat, then more companies might be keen to have their name associated with Summernats through sponsorship.

I’d imagine there would be more than a few companies willing to pitch in several thousand dollars to have their company’s products and name associated with a true car show – but they won’t do the same to support a booze and tit fest!

what colour was the camaro thumper?

And, by the way Cagehead, why do you think the AFP and Motor Registry make money over Summernats ?? The AFP members and Motor Registry employees people working Summernats are government employees who have to be paid by the Government – by taxpayers ie us.

Actually the AFP puts extra staff on during the summernats and charges EPIC for it. EPIC has n say in how many AFP staff are put on or how many hours they work but they get the bill for it and it comes out of EPIC’s profit, not from government grants.

Plus with all the people that get defects overthe period, that creates a flow-on effect when they spend money at their mechanics (all over canberra, not just dickson and mitchell) to get their vehiices fixed.

With the money made by EPIC at summernats they are able to hold the farmers markets every week and have other shows throughout the year such as the home and leisure show. Without the money made at summernats, these other shows would then have to be subsidised by the ACT government which is comes from your back pocket fabforty and mine as taxpayers.

Yes it is a week of hell for people that live near EPIC (and I am one of those people) but it does bring a lot of money into our little coty and puts us in the national spotlight for a week…

Hi Ant #46
The summernats relies on the old street machine crowd which is probably getting smaller. If Chic wants the event to continue he will need to attract more Generation X, Y & Z cars. Unfortunately the major sponsor “Rare Spares” isn’t as interested in this market because they cant produce parts for modern cars due to patent & copyright issues.

Sounds like summernats might be over and we will all have to get next years circle work fix in Goulburn.

I think this topic misses the main point which is “where is the best place in Australia to have a bogan car festival”. Canberra is within a days drive (with a car trailer) of most Australian cities, plus it has a huge showground that is perfect for the event and a suitably sized local police force. We need bogans to build houses and fight wars, think of the summernats as our christmas present to them.

Well, according to that highly paid executive, Chic Henry, the event is unsustainable and unviable. Such a pity, but if it goes, maybe a car enthusiast with organsiational skills will set up a new car show that does pay its way.

Klennex Thumper? Is this a new competitor for good old Kleenex? Anyway, lets hand the hat around for poor Chic Henry, particularly in Dickson and Watson.

Kleenex at the ready for Chic Henry.

Chic Henry on the radio this morning hinted very strongly that if he does not get 5 years of free rent he will shut-up shop in Canberra. He cannot raise ticket prices, raise more sponsorship, shorten the event by a day, get a better place to hold the event than EPIC. In fact if he has no changes for next year he (his company?) will go bust.

Just throwing this out there…

It could be that sometimes the point of such festivals as these is to draw national/international attention to Canberra in the hope that those interested in the area of a particular event make a spontaneous decision to come visit Canberra i.e. generate Tourism outside of the event? Or at least seed the idea that Canberra may be a potential holiday destination?

I digress, this is a pothole argument within the alcohol/sexual abuse-ness of Summernats pot hole argument.

Overheard your math is better than CoffinRX’s

CoffinRX2 said :

Ian said :

#23, its not 30,000 people (or 100,000). Summernats is very creative in counting attendances, so entrants, staff, campers and season pass holders count as 1 per day. According to ACT Treasury analysis of the 1995 event, of the 118k reported attendance this represented about 41k actual people, of who about 9k were locals.

9k out of 300k Canberrans is a very small percentage. 3% in fact.

ian, as mentioned, the vast majority of places cound like this, … even if it was 9,000 people, then thats still 9000 people who havent pissed off down the coast.

97% of people from interstate, including one entrant who shipped his car from NZ for the show is pretty damned impressive.

3% for such a specialised event for performance engineering festival is pretty damned good no matter what way you look at it. … The shows I used to be involved in down in adelaide if we got 5,000 over a couple days that was great out of over a million people

Sorry about the great block of quoted text but it’s possibly needed to illustrate, illuminate and amplificate the point.

Now I am absolutely crap at maths, but even this one seems to stick out like dogs’ balls. (I nearly wrote “gods’ balls” and I’m not even sure she has any.)

If 9k people are Canberrans that represents 3% of the potential ACT attendance.

But, if as claimed, there are a maximum of 41k people (when reality settles over the claims of who has attended) then 9k of Canberrans from a total of 41k of all attendees means that Canberrans represent 21.95% of attendees, meaning that the interstate contingent is 79.05%, rather than the 97% being trumpeted, is it not?

I could be wrong, and I do not discount that possibility for one minute. Right now I don’t credit myself with enough grey matter to confidently know my own name.

Overheadbutt in Paraguay, or possibly Parramatta

I just totally can’t believe nothing was happening at Kippax servo.

@Psydfx – true, although I think counting staff is a bit rich! Counting entrants is borderline too.

@coffinrx2 – at the end of the day, its a reasonably successful event with plenty of good things going for it. If only the bogan dickheads could be divorced from it, it would be very good I’m sure, even if I don’t care for it.

Ian said :

#23, its not 30,000 people (or 100,000). Summernats is very creative in counting attendances, so entrants, staff, campers and season pass holders count as 1 per day. According to ACT Treasury analysis of the 1995 event, of the 118k reported attendance this represented about 41k actual people, of who about 9k were locals.

9k out of 300k Canberrans is a very small percentage. 3% in fact.

ian, as mentioned, the vast majority of places cound like this, … even if it was 9,000 people, then thats still 9000 people who havent pissed off down the coast.

97% of people from interstate, including one entrant who shipped his car from NZ for the show is pretty damned impressive.

3% for such a specialised event for performance engineering festival is pretty damned good no matter what way you look at it. … The shows I used to be involved in down in adelaide if we got 5,000 over a couple days that was great out of over a million people

I went past Natex today on the federal highway, late lunch time, and there was all this smoke blowing over the road and blotting out the traffic lights. I thought that perhaps there was a fire, until I smelt the rubber.

Late arvo, heading back into Canberra from Murrumbateman, there was rather a lot of hotted up cars and even more hotted up cars on trailers, heading out of town. I took a short cut along a gravel road behind Natex, and it looked like a ghost town with a few cop cars wandering around.

One of the reasons the rent that summernats pays is much higher than, say the folk festival is to pay for the extra policing etc. Now aprart from those who live close and are directly effected, I doubt anyone can argue that the nats has an overall negative impact on Canberra, and certainly brings in more money then it costs to stage.

@fabforty – unlike Summernats, most of Canberra’s attractions are entirely funded by the taxpayer. It seems rather petty to mention the cost of police and ambulances when our galleries, museums, memorials and exhibits are all paid for by Joe Public and most charge no entry fee. Thankfully such narrow and elitist visions of Australian culture are not supported by the facts nor local government.

@Ian – was that supposed to be an anti-Summernats post? Any event that manages to pull in a 97% interstate crowd should be considered an overwhelming success for Tourism Canberra.

Ian said :

#23, its not 30,000 people (or 100,000). Summernats is very creative in counting attendances, so entrants, staff, campers and season pass holders count as 1 per day.

A lot of events are counted like this, Floriade for example.

Oh dear… All those other events have police,security,road safety,garbage clean up crews and special traffic conditions. Yes the show has had some problems with reduced profits(during the horse flu). Its just not spread all over the news as another event likes to do.
To be fair i would have no idea how long any interstaters would stay around after any of these events. Most stay on the grounds and pack and leave after it has finished.
You also will find after all the mountains of fines that are issued from the police and registry, that it would rake in a fair amount of money.

#23, its not 30,000 people (or 100,000). Summernats is very creative in counting attendances, so entrants, staff, campers and season pass holders count as 1 per day. According to ACT Treasury analysis of the 1995 event, of the 118k reported attendance this represented about 41k actual people, of who about 9k were locals.

9k out of 300k Canberrans is a very small percentage. 3% in fact.

Gassed said :

Well fabforty what event actually supports the ACT economy??
The Canberra show,floriade,folk festival,home and leisure show and so on all have interstate businesses that come to them aswell??
Lets just not have anything in Canberra. No wonder not many other things come here if this is the attitude of people.

Floriade, the Folk Festival and the Canberra Show all bring money into the ACT because they don’t cost the government a fortune in police, ambulance, road safety, garbage removal etc etc. I can’t remember when the Show Society last whinged for a rent reduction because their profits are down can you ? I also think you will find that people attending these events actually stay longer in town and DO spend money on sightseeing and shopping, rather than lobbing for a couple of days and then leaving without seeing anything other than the Carotel and the inside of EPIC. They also stay in a variety of locations and spread their money around to a variety of businesses all over Canberra – not just Dickson and Mitchell.

And, by the way Cagehead, why do you think the AFP and Motor Registry make money over Summernats ?? The AFP members and Motor Registry employees people working Summernats are government employees who have to be paid by the Government – by taxpayers ie us.

And frankly, Woolies Dickson does allright every other day of the year – why should we celebrate increased profits for them over these days ?

I made the mistake of going to the Braddon BP on friday night, forgetting about the nats. There were lots of people lining the street and all the cafes were open and busy. The BP was pretty busy with the extra passing trade but had two security guards on duty so I don’t know how thankful they were for it.

Having worked in a business in Mitchell I can definately say that business is better around summernats time.

Having said that surely all the motels/hotels would benefit from the summernats, as well as grog shops, wollies dickson. The AFP and ACT motor registry make a fair amount of money over the summernats period

I have just spent the weekend working at the nats and speaking to a lot of the people camping there they’ve spent a hell of a lot of money on foodstuffs. People working in the stalls throughout the epic ground and pavillions come from all over Australia, as they do for other shows like the Royal Canberra Show or the 4WD & Camping show

Dickson woollies grog shop does a roaring trade. There is a queue of people with a slab of beer on their shoulders, and women with basketfulls of jim beam and blue curucao. They also have the extra cost of a security guard for the grog shop entrance tho.

Woollies even seems to have some special Summernats brand cola this year.

Watson IGA supermarket is also very busy.

Not only is Canberra a ghost town at this time of year, so the injection of patrons to the northside of canberra is a great thing. All business’ offering accomodation which normally would be vacant all profit as well.

The business out in mitchell in the sex industry do have a booming increase of trade over the past 3 days too.

Another thing to remember as well, about 30,000 of the attendees of the summernats are local canberra people, … so thats 30,000 people that have decided to stay in town for the car festival rather than do the traditional south coast departure after xmas.

I think we should ban smoking in summernats cars.

LOL.

Perhaps we can lobby for Summernats to become an Unmanned Vehicle event, doing away with the need for the drivers and their passengers altogether!

Does anyone know if “Airservices Australia’s” new online sound measuring devices can hear the burnout comp or the fireworks?

Well the ACT government really should insist that all services at the EPIC site are sourced from Canberra companies before dropping any money on it. That, or they should get paid back before anyone else profits from the event.

Well fabforty what event actually supports the ACT economy??
The Canberra show,floriade,folk festival,home and leisure show and so on all have interstate businesses that come to them aswell??
Lets just not have anything in Canberra. No wonder not many other things come here if this is the attitude of people.

In answer to Aurelius question, I have just come home (too early it seems) from having to get out of town during Summernats. So do most of my neighbours. The excessive noise and air pollution from the burnouts makes me physically sick. At the moment I am sitting in my loungeroom with all the doors and windows shut (despite the temperature) and my house reeks of burning rubber. All I can hear is some idiot screaming into a PA and some other idiot revving his car incessantly. This will go on for hours yet.

Watson is the oldest suburb in Canberra, so before I get the “you knew about Summernats before you moved in” argument, spare a thought for the elderly people who have lived here all their lives and who don’t leave their homes (or sleep) for four days while Summernats is on because they are too stressed. Most residents of Watson, Hackett and Downer pre-date Summernats by decades.

Back onto topic, though. If I paid $60 to attend an event, I would be spending all my time and money at that event. Which is what I believe happens at Summernats. They come, go to the event (and maybe a stripclub or two) and other than buying petrol and cheap accommodation (centred within a small radius around EPIC) I doubt any other businesses see much income. It’s not as if they are then going to stay in Canberra, do some sightseeing and go shopping. As soon as the event is over they all pack up and go home.

I think it is time the ACT Government looked properly at this. Should taxpayers money be put towards an event that does nothing but provide profits for interstate businesses who are only here for the event, the adult industry and petrol companies ? I wont go into the whole social/environmental cost of the thing.

ChrisinTurner,
Perhaps it does. But I’m actually seeking real information, not claims.
I’ve never been a fan of Summernats, but I’ve been hearing arguments for and against for years. I’m trying to find some evidence for the various positions put thus far.
The claim that people leave is often heard. But it doesn’t take an economics degree to see that Canberrans would leave town at this time of year anyway. Sit on the Kings Highway watching them migrate and its obvious.
Does anybody really leave town solely because of Summernats? Personally, the only impact it’s had on me is that I chose to shop in Belconnen or Fyshwick for certain things the other day rather than somewhere in North Canberra.

By all accounts I’ve heard it’s a bumper time of year for the brothels & strip joints.

ChrisinTurner2:23 pm 04 Jan 09

Summernats drives people away from Canberra and many of us who are stuck here don’t venture out while the hoons are in town. Why not get a proper festival for this period.

Nexus6, Since you’re one of the few offering solid results, can you enlighten us as to what industry you’re in, that’s affected negatively?

as the owner of a small buisness in canberra, i can honestly say i hate summernats, its one of the quietest periods i experience.

restaurants in Braddon seem to do quite well. I know the mustang club has a dinner at one particular restaurant each year. When I was walking home on Friday along Lonsdale st all the restaurants that were open had extra tables out.

oh.. maccas…

IIRC they were certainly the highest grossing in the country for many years on the back of summernats.

Scottish restaurant in Dickson?

Clown Killer11:21 am 04 Jan 09

Years ago when the super-cruise used to be on Northbourne Ave on NYE the take-aways and liquor stores in Braddon used to do pretty well. I also hear once that the Scottish Restaurant in Dickson was one of the first in the country to turn over $1 million in 24 hours (although that could well be urban myth(. Now that it’s more contained to Exhibition Park there may be less economic flow on.

I’m sure cleaning companies get some extra work too.

Canberra is generally relatively quiet at this time of year, so Summernats helps in some small way to prop up the economy (although I’m still against the ridiculous amount of money we give to it).

It’s still not definitive data, but a cabbie mate of mine tells me that Mitchell is very busy during Summernats. I also understand a few of the Civic pubs get a bit more action than they’d normally get at this time of year.

Hotels and motels also benefit.

I’m sure some North Canberra businesses lose some income because the usual patrons don’t go there during Summernats.

It would be interesting to know, where those vendors at the show come from. Are they Canberra businesses, or do they travel here for the summernats? Anecdotally, it sounds like the sex businesses in Mitchell do well, but that’s not based on any real data. I can’t imagine why people would be busy buying car stuff while here… surely they’d have all that? Unless they need to do last minute repairs.

One might claim that Dickson woollies does well (but does that money stay in Canberra?), but at the same time, you hear that local stay away from it while ‘nats is on.

Golden-Alpine10:29 am 04 Jan 09

Who benefits:
Security companies
Adult stores
Adult entertainment
Car wash
The staff Summernats directly employ

Remember though that a lot of people head to the South Coast during this period so the money made by Dickson and Watson servos must be offset by that which they’re losing by people heading to the South Coast.

As for restaurants, I doubt if some of the summernats crowd have sat on chairs before (John Cleese always knew a great line when he wrote it).

Steady Eddie10:17 am 04 Jan 09

I’m not surprised attendaces are down. I went yesterday (Saturday) at 1:30PM and was charged $60.00 for the rest of the day (I left at 4PM). That’s in addition to the $5.00 fee to park. All in all a very expensive event.

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