Franklin Theatre Drives $4.6M Economic Impact to Downtown Franklin

The Franklin Theatre contributes in a big way to the tourism of Downtown Franklin but now they have the numbers to prove it.

A recent economic impact study shows the theater sold 61,000 tickets over 18 months and saw a financial impact of $4.67 million.

"It's just really thrived since it's reopened after restoration," Bari Beasley, President and CEO of the Heritage Foundation, told the Williamson Scene. "We had been talking internally for a few months about the importance of understanding the economic impact the theater has on downtown. So we hired a company to work with us, and we were just blown away when we saw the numbers."

She said the Heritage Foundation decided to do an economic impact study after seeing the results from a study done on the festivals the organization puts on in Downtown Franklin. That study showed the financial impact of Dickens of a Christmas, Pumpkinfest and the Main Street Festival were around $10 million. Adding the Foundation's work with the Franklin Theatre to that number, the organization contributes nearly $15 million in economic impact directly to the downtown area.

The theater had 723 participants in a survey that showed an average number of 3.44 visits over the last year and a half. Nearly 80 percent of the crowds came for music.

"Artists love playing in our 300 seat intimate listening room," Eric Dilts, Franklin Theatre managing director, told the Williamson Scene. "It's just so cozy for them to play and the visitors get to get up close to the artists and hear them perform. We were honored this year that just this past March Sheryl Crow picked the Franklin Theatre to do her new album release party. And then, PBS came in and filmed it and televised it across the nation. So we get a lot of artists which love playing in our quaint little theater because it is so special."

The theater hosts 400 events a year, including over 100 live concerts. Movies bring in another 29 percent of visitors and live theater draws about 20 percent of people.

"We are the primary location for arts and culture in Franklin," Dilts said. "We still do movies. In fact, our Christmas movies that we do every year start selling out in July. They're so popular because everyone loves to see classic holiday movies in a classic beautiful theater. We do stand up comedy, we do live theater. We do a variety of different arts and cultural events."

The survey also showed 77 percent of people dined in a downtown restaurant before or after their event and 56 percent shopped at downtown stores. The average day-trip guest reported spending $54.50 and overnight guests spent  $370.75 on average.

"We are a destination," Dilts said. "We know that when people are coming to the Franklin theater. They're always going to have dinner first, or a drink afterwards, or they walk up and down the main street of Franklin to shop in this local shops. So, we do bring everyone down to Downtown Franklin to experience a great evening."

Beasley added: "Once the theater went through restoration and reopened in 2011 what we saw in the community is that restaurants stayed open longer. Downtown didn't necessarily close at 5 p.m. but people were going to restaurants and bars and they were staying in historic downtown because of making plans to see a show maybe at seven o'clock at night. So that has really helped the 16 block district, our local businesses in downtown."