A new report from Lochaven Consulting Ltd reveals that the Iron Throne Scavenger Hunt brought in between $871,000 and $1,054,000 million for businesses in town.
“Event Tourism is one of the fastest-growing forms of tourism in Canada and internationally,” they write in a report, commissioned by the District. “All too often communities fail to fully appreciate or are unable to appreciate/evaluate how events, no matter how short or sporadic, can, directly and indirectly, impact citizens, enterprises and the broader socio-economic well-being of the communities in which they are hosted. What makes matters more complicated is that in many cases the range of actual impacts far exceeds the visible evidence of the event in both magnitude, scope, and duration.”
The company analyzed the week of March 25–31, when the throne was in town. They admit that it’s hard to capture all the impacts, but they looked at things like: increases in hotel occupancy levels, increases in visitor centre guest numbers, increases in Geopark visitor numbers, increases in restaurant sales and increase in community awareness.
Community awareness is hard to measure, but they point out that the official Game of Thrones Instagram handle posted the particular image of the Tumbler Ridge throne, which had 369,597 likes, with 1,403 comments. There were over 740 posts on Instagram tagged with #ThroneOfIce and nearly a quarter of a million YouTube views of the#ThroneOfIce
In addition, the event was picked up by several local, provincial, national, and global networks that ran multiple stories on the event, including Global News, CNN, CBC, MSN News, Toronto Star, and more.
“Given how far reaching the event was and the impact it had globally, other recorded benefits of note included raising awareness and profile of Tumbler Ridge as a tourism destination/player; and improved community promotion, marketing, and brand image.”
Tracey Fitzpatrick, Former Owner of Action Play Café, says the Game of Thrones event was definitely a boost to sales. “We even capitalized of the opportunity and went out to the throne line-ups to sell pizza; which created additional awareness for our store, as people came into later. Our sales on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday were approximately 25 percent increased with the event going on in comparison to previous years. I believe this event was a great boost to the community’s enthusiasm.”
The report points out that Game of Throne fans are passionate about the show. “The ‘fandom culture’ created by the show was a major contributing factor to the event’s success in Tumbler Ridge when thousands of people arrived in the community seeking to catch even just a glimpse of the Iron Throne. This unique culture has created a recognizable transmedia phenomenon through such various and vast media platforms and formats from the show itself to Instagram, YouTube, Wikipedia, Cosplay events, music, art, and beyond.”
They admit that accurate data is hard to collect. “Given the spontaneity of the event itself, data collection in the aftermath…comes with its own unique set of challenges in terms of ensuring availability, relevance, and accuracy. It is uncertain within the total attendance recorded which attendees were “tourists” and which were “locals” and therefore it is difficult to estimate incremental spending….”
With that said, they predict that between 5200 and 6100 people visited town, with about 20–35 percent of them spending the night in the community.
While the majority of the visitors were regional (Dawson Creek, Grande Prairie and Fort St. John), some came from as far as Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, North West Territories and even Mexico.
“The Game of Thrones scavenger hunt had a huge impact on the town,” says Jessi Hurley, General Manager at Trend Mountain Hotel & Conference Centre. “The hotel saw a significant rise in occupancy during the duration of the hunt. The increased number of outdoor enthusiasts was very beneficial in promoting the many hiking trails and tourist attractions in and around Tumbler Ridge.”
