48,500 spectators. That is how many visitors there were at the six major concerts held at Tartu Laululava in June and July 2024. Those concerts were part of the main or additional programme of the European Capital of Culture Tartu 2024.

Such an audience is unusual in Tartu. 48,500 spectators are like 19 full houses in the city’s largest, Tartu University Sports Hall, or 30 full houses in the city’s largest, Tamme stadium, or 53 full houses in the city’s largest, Vanemuine concert hall.

Where did this year’s tens of thousands of spectators come from? Who are they? How much was consumed in connection with participation in these major events?

“Tartu 2024 põhi- ja lisaprogrammi Tartu laululava suurkontsertide kokkuvõte” (PDF, in Estonian), a new 14-page report co-authored by me answers these questions and attempts to provide material for a larger discussion on what the cumulative impact of major concerts is – or could be – on the city of Tartu, the rest of Southern Estonia, and Estonia as a whole.

The report is based on the input of 2,309 people from five concerts who completed and returned an audience feedback questionnaire.

My roles in this project: creating and conducting an audience feedback survey among more than 2000 respondents in cooperation with the Tartu 2024 team, concert organizers and ticket sales platforms; part of data processing; creating data visualizations and summary texts; project management