Parkes Elvis Festival Social Impacts

The Parkes Elvis Festival like any other event has significant social impacts.

The population of Parkes is approximately 12000 people, during the Parkes Elvis Festival; the town hosted about 26000 people for four days. The host community gives the participant an opportunity to socialise with family, members of the community and other visitors. To measure the social impacts of the event there are two key sections; the host community’s perceptions and the attendees’ perceptions. Throughout the years the local community has supported the event and encouraged the outsiders to participate in the event.

The event is known to be successful event by supporting locals. At the beginning, it started with hundreds of locals but by attracting tourists from all around the world, they started extending days and provided more entertainment due to the successful results

This community involvement helps the festival continue by providing a source of volunteer labour, the community helped alleviate the difficulty of accommodating such large numbers of tourists at the event. The community support provides a backbone to the festival, both in terms of providing a welcoming environment for the festivities to successfully take place as well as the practicality of running the event. The other dimension of social impacts is the improved entertainment and socialisation opportunities by attracting more visitors to the community, hosting family and friends in the town, which increases social interaction in the area through the introduction of different people. When the community meets new people they could adapt and interact with other people instead of isolating the town and themselves. The music and entertainment is one of the most popular features of the