Every April, thousands of residents and out-of-towners impact the area economy by attending the North Carolina Azalea Festival. 

The festival brings in plenty of business by holding numerous concerts, art shows and other family-oriented activities, adding up to about 35 events in total. Some of those already have started around the city this month for the 66th annual festival, while the largest crowds are expected this weekend with a street fair and parade in downtown Wilmington. 

Although the Azalea Festival is put on by a nonprofit organization – classified as a 501(c)4 civic organization – the money made off of the two-week event is significant. 

The festival resulted in an economic impact for the area of about $50 million in 2011, according to a study conducted by University of North Carolina Wilmington faculty members Stephen Meinhold, associate dean of research; William “Woody” Hall, professor of economics; and Jim Herstine and Nancy Hritz, associate professors in the School of Health and Applied Human Sciences.

Meinhold recently said the bump was expected to continue.

“We’re not going to have a $50 million figure change into a $100 million figure in a few years, but we will definitely have an increase,” Meinhold said. 

According to the 2011 study, 93 percent of the festival’s attendees were local residents, and 7 percent were out-of-town visitors who stayed overnight. The spending sum for a local family household averaged at $47, while the average sum for an overnight visitor averaged about $625. 

According to the study’s calculations, about 160,000 people attend the festival.

The festival estimates that 100,000 people turn up just to watch the parade.

And that translates into restaurant patrons, trinket shoppers and ticket purchasers for events such as the festival’s home tour, which benefits local nonprofit Historic Wilmington Foundation.

Meinhold said there was not going to be a similar economic study conducted this year due to the effort and time it takes to complete it, but there is hope for a future study in the next few years. 

Meanwhile, organizers are looking at ways to improve the annual festival’s draw.

Donna Cameron, president of the Azalea Festival, collaborated in June of last year with other board members on a six-year strategic plan to increase the amount of festival attendees by making the events more affordable and accessible.  

According to the 2011 study, 53 percent of the people surveyed said they attended one festival event while 47 percent attended two or more events. 

This year, the festival’s main concerts will be held at Cape Fear Community College property in downtown Wilmington. Having the concerts at CFCC will allow the audience capacity to increase due to the extra space, Cameron said.  

The CFCC lot where the concerts are being staged holds about 6,500 people. Cameron said she hoped to have the capacity level reach 10,000 people in the near future. 

“We are working hard to attract A-list artists to the festival, something we couldn’t do before because of limited space,” she said.

In previous years, the Azalea Festival concerts were held inside at University of North Carolina Wilmington’s Trask Coliseum.

“In the previous years, people would just go home after the show, but now that we are having events downtown they can have dinner and stay downtown for a while,” Meinhold said.

Other festival mainstays also take place downtown, and Cameron said organizers were “thrilled” to add another one with the concerts.

“We have certain attractions placed in specific spots, so people will be able to go and visit places like the Cotton Exchange [retail center],” Cameron said.

Organizers strategically coordinated the downtown events so that they would encourage attendees to roam the business district.

It’s an annual crush of people that some business owners are banking on to see a boost in sales.

“We get three times busier during the Azalea Festival,” said Athena Tillery, director of operations at The George on the Riverwalk restaurant. 

Area bed and breakfasts also get good business during the festival. 

“This is our seventh year in business, and we’ve always done really well,” said Bob Milton, innkeeper of the six-room Rosehill Inn Bed and Breakfast on South Third Street. “We are a word-of-mouth kind of place, but we’re normally completely booked during festival time.”

The French House, one of the smallest bed and breakfasts in downtown Wilmington and on South Fourth Street, also stays booked during the festival, said innkeeper Janice Thomas.  

“The Azalea Festival is a positive event for my business. I’m always booked up,” Thomas said.

The Azalea Festival is a cycle event, meaning the money that goes into the festival is used to help pay for the events and is then put back into the festival by attendees, only to fuel plans for the next year. 

“The festival works somewhat like an upside-down umbrella,” Meinhold said. “Money falls into it and multiplies, and then at the end, when it’s turned right-side up again, the money falls right back into the community.”  

Cameron said work would continue to gain even more attention for the event.

“We have been recognized as one of the top festivals in the Eastern U.S., and we want to expand that recognition to an even broader region,” Cameron said.