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Strengthening the Nantucket Cultural District:Community Outr

时间:2023-03-13 来源:未知 编辑:-1 阅读:
Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Digital WPI
Interactive Qualifying Projects (All Years) Interactive Qualifying Projects
December 2016
Strengthening the Nantucket Cultural District:
Outreach and Data Collection
Christopher Mayforth
Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Jacob A. Moon
Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Jonathan R. Metzger
Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Joseph E. Berger
Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.wpi.edu/iqp-all
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Repository Citation
Mayforth, C., Moon, J. A., Metzger, J. R., & Berger, J. E. (2016). Strengthening the Nantucket Cultural District: Outreach and Data
Collection. Retrieved from https://digitalcommons.wpi.edu/iqp-all/1717
 
Strengthening the Nantucket Cultural District: 
Community Outreach and Data Collection 
 
 
 
16 December 2016 
 
Team Members: 
Joseph Berger 
Christopher Mayforth 
Jonathan Metzger 
Jacob Moon 
 
Report Submitted to:  
Janet Schulte 
Melissa Murphy 
Virna Gonzalez 
Nantucket Cultural District  
http://wp.wpi.edu/nantucket/projects/projects-2016/cultural-district/ 
 
Advisors: 
Professors Scott Jiusto & Fred Looft 
 
An Interactive Qualifying Project submitted to the faculty of 
WORCESTER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE 
in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Science 
 
 
This report represents work of WPI undergraduate students submitted to the faculty as evidence of a degree 
requirement. WPI routinely publishes these reports on its web site without editorial or peer review. For more 
information about the projects program at WPI, see http://www.wpi.edu/Academics/Projects 
ABSTRACT 
The Nantucket Cultural District (NCD) was officially designated in January 2016 with 
the goal to centralize, expand, and promote the island’s culture. This project’s goals were to 
assist the NCD by developing a community outreach plan and by creating a system to collect and 
evaluate metrics to measure the impacts of the district. To realize the first goal, we developed a 
website to centralize social and district media. To achieve our second goal, we utilized Google 
Forms and Google Sheets to develop a data collection and analysis tool. Finally, we made 
recommendations to the NCD to expand district membership, broaden web presence, increase 
metric tracking, and adopt a new sustainable financial model. 
 
 
 
 
    
ii 
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 
  Our team would like to thank the many members of the Nantucket community for helping 
us throughout the duration of the project. We would also like to thank our advisors, professors 
Fred Looft and Scott Jiusto for pushing us to challenge ourselves. Their guidance has greatly 
helped us develop our project and reach our goals. 
  We would like to thank our sponsor, the Nantucket Cultural District, including the 
Steering Committee and Executive Steering Committee. Specifically, Janet Schulte, Melissa 
Murphy, and Virna Gonzalez for working directly with us and taking time to meet with us on a 
regular basis. 
  Finally, we would like to thank every member of the community that took time out of our 
day to meet with us and offer their insight into our project and the Nantucket Cultural District. 
We would also like to thank Harvey Young and the staff members of Young’s Bicycle Shop for 
outfitting us with bicycles for our stay, and the Maria Mitchell Association, including Jascin 
Finger, for providing us with housing during the duration of the project. 
   
iii 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
Abstract ............................................................................................................................................ i 
Acknowledgements ..........................................................................................................................ii 
Table of Contents ............................................................................................................................ iii 
List of Figures .................................................................................................................................. v 
List of Tables .................................................................................................................................. vi 
1: Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 1 
2: Background ................................................................................................................................. 3 
2.1 What and Why of a Cultural District? ................................................................................... 3 
2.2 Advantages of a Designated Cultural District ....................................................................... 4 
2.3 Challenges of a Designated Cultural District ........................................................................ 6 
2.4 The Nantucket Cultural District ............................................................................................ 8 
2.5 Goals of the Nantucket Cultural District ............................................................................. 10 
2.6 Supporting and Oversight Agencies .................................................................................... 12 
2.7 What Data Do Cultural Districts Require? .......................................................................... 14 
2.8 What Data is Collected by Other Cultural Districts? ........................................................... 18 
2.9 What Data is Available to the Nantucket Cultural District? ................................................ 21 
3: Methodology ............................................................................................................................. 22 
3.1 Mission Statement ............................................................................................................... 22 
3.2 Objective 1: Determining the most appropriate metrics for calculating the economic impact 
of the NCD. ............................................................................................................................................ 22 
3.3 Objective 2: Determining a means to efficiently collect selected metric data ..................... 23 
3.4 Objective 3: Creating a system for analyzing and archiving the collected data. ................. 24 
4: Findings .................................................................................................................................... 25 
4.1 Background Research Findings ........................................................................................... 25 
4.2 Interview Findings ............................................................................................................... 26 
5: Results ....................................................................................................................................... 29 
5.1 Data Collection and Analysis Tool ...................................................................................... 29 
5.2 Website ................................................................................................................................ 33 
6: Recommendations ..................................................................................................................... 36 
7: Conclusion & Future Work....................................................................................................... 40 
7.1 Reflection ............................................................................................................................ 40 
References ..................................................................................................................................... 41 
APPENDIX A: District Member Information .............................................................................. 45 
APPENDIX B: List of Metrics ..................................................................................................... 47 
APPENDIX C: Tourist Brochure.................................................................................................. 49 
APPENDIX D: Calendar of 2016 Annual Events ........................................................................ 51  
iv 
APPENDIX E: Survey Questions; Tourists / Residents, & .......................................................... 52 
APPENDIX F: Cultural District Maps ......................................................................................... 53 
APPENDIX G: Verbal Informed Consent .................................................................................... 58 
APPENDIX H: Website ................................................................................................................ 59 
APPENDIX I: Data Collection Tool............................................................................................. 68 
  
LIST OF FIGURES 
 
Figure 1: Outline of Background Chapter...................................................................................... 2 
Figure 2: Current Map of the Nantucket Cultural District.. .......................................................... 9 
Figure 3: General Composition of the NCD Organized by Sector ............................................... 10 
Figure 4: Comparing the Money Received or Granted by the MCC ............................................ 14 
Figure 5: Required Metrics for Cultural Districts, by State ......................................................... 15 
Figure 6: Flowchart of Our Methods for how we Accomplished our Goal.................................. 22 
Figure 7: How Data is Collected and Input into the Google Spreadsheet Tool........................... 30 
Figure 8: Graph Displaying Trends in Attendance at Cultural Events. ....................................... 31 
Figure 9: Graph Displaying Trends in Gross Sales Before and After Events .............................. 32 
Figure 10: Portion of the Linkage Google Form used to Collect Data from Participants. ......... 33 
   
vi 
 
LIST OF TABLES 
Table 1: Comparing Four Districts in Massachusetts .................................................................. 18 
Table 2: Findings Discovered while Conducting our Background Research .............................. 26 
Table 3: The Features of our Data Collection Tool & the Reasons Behind their Necessity. ....... 29 
Table 4: Wanted features for our Website & Reasoning Behind their Necessity.  ....................... 34 
 
   
vii 
Executive Summary 
Introduction 
The Nantucket Cultural District (NCD) was officially designated in January 2016. The 
district was formed with the goal to centralize and expand the culture of the island and to 
advertise to residents and tourists the different aspects of the island culture. However, since the 
district is so new, many advancement strategies are still in the development stage. Central to 
these advancement strategies are the development of “linkages”, or strategic marketing 
partnerships between businesses and 
cultural organizations within the 
district. As such, certain metrics need 
to be developed, collected, and 
analyzed by the district in order to 
show the economic and other impacts 
of linkages as well as the overall 
success of the district.  
Figure 1: Map of the Nantucket 
Cultural District  
Background 
A cultural district can be 
defined as a walkable area comprised 
of businesses and cultural 
organizations. The development of 
cultural districts is often considered 
when vacant and unused infrastructure 
leads to low property values, crime, and a lack of a sense of community. Such areas can be 
repurposed by local government as “fertile grounds for redevelopment” (Cultural Districts, 
2012), which can then be expanded upon by the community to include business development 
zones, artist areas, and cultural districts, among many other redevelopment spaces.  
Cultural districts can either form naturally, or a municipality may choose to pursue a 
specific district type in order to adapt to a city’s needs and goals. Cities that seek the formation 
of cultural districts understand that community, diversity, and heritage are essential tools for the 
holistic and long-term development of an area. (Duxbury, et. al. 2016).  
Cultural districts have proven to increase out of town tourism, foot traffic, time, and 
money spent in a particular area. For example, a 2013 analysis of 99 different cultural districts 
throughout the United States showed that in general, there are notable positive effects of district  
viii 
formation on property values, employment levels, and income levels both within the districts, as 
well as areas within close proximity to the district (Noonan 2013).  
Cultural districts can also have a major role in organizing both small and large-scale 
events that involve collaborations between stakeholders in the district. Annual events such as 
food, art, and film festivals, concert series, and holiday celebrations are all proven to be much 
more effective at being economically successful when cultural organizations work together, as 
opposed to operating independently (Thornton, 2012) 
While cultural districts are known to have a wide range of advantages, there are 
additional notable considerations. In particular, when cultural districts are designed to be used as 
a public policy instrument for local economies or for urban revitalization reasons, there can be 
negative socioeconomic consequences (Thornton, 2012). These consequences can include 
gentrification, the “Disneyfication” of an area, and the unfortunate reality that some efforts will 
not achieve sustained success.  
Methodology 
Our goal was to assist the Nantucket Cultural District by developing a community 
outreach plan and creating a system to collect and evaluate metrics to measure the 
impacts of the district. 
Our sponsors suggested we start by communicating with specific stakeholders involved 
in the cultural district through interviews, focus groups, and surveys. Our first step then was to 
collect qualitative data from cultural organizations, businesses, and residents by interviewing key 
stakeholders. The goal of these interviews was to determine key stakeholder knowledge of the 
cultural district as well as their willingness to cooperate with the NCD.  
Our second step was to create an initial list of possible metrics based on our study of 
other cultural districts. We then created a set of criteria to determine if the proposed metrics 
would be applicable to the NCD and based our methods for selecting quantitative metrics on the 
following criteria: 
  Non-disclosure of sensitive business data 
  Data already collected or easily collected by member organizations 
  Metric representative of economic impacts 
  Realistic for the NCD to collect from member organization 
 
Results 
Interview Findings 
Listed below are the most important findings from our interviews. A complete list of 
findings can be found in our report. 
  Many community members do not know about the cultural district or its purpose.  
ix 
  Community members use social media for obtaining and relaying information about 
events that occur on the island and in the district. 
  Businesses generally only track inventory and sales data, while nonprofit organizations 
track attendance data. 
  Businesses were not likely to share their total gross sales, but they would likely share 
percentage changes in gross sales if they were asked and the data was kept anonymous. 
Website and Social Media Plan 
One of the Nantucket Cultural District’s primary goals was to increase awareness of the 
cultural district. We determined that since the Steering Committee had already developed 
physical media such as maps and brochures, the next logical step was to develop an increased 
internet presence. At the start of the project, the district’s web presence was limited to a single 
page on the Town of Nantucket Department of Culture and Tourism website. We proposed to the 
NCD Executive Steering Committee that we expand the current internet presence into a fully-
featured, independent website (URL: www.nantucketculturaldistrict.org). 
The website went through multiple drafts over the course of its development. This 
included the use of a focus group with the Steering Committee members providing feedback and 
discussion, which resulted in a variety of feature changes. While developing the website, we 
determined that the website should have a dual-role as an educational tool for visitors as well as 
a platform for businesses and cultural organizations to communicate and collaborate with one 
another, as well as access the data submittal tool that our team developed.  
Creating a Data Collection and Analysis Tool 
In order to develop our data collection and analysis tool we created a list of criteria of the 
necessary features that can be found in our full report.  A list of our most important criteria are 
included below: 
  An easy-use tool that required minimal training  
  Able to collect and consolidate confidential data from many different sources 
  Enable easy analysis of data, including economic changes in correlation with cultural 
district events 
  Track linkages and collaborations between organizations 
Based on these criteria, we chose to use Google Forms and Google Sheets for a data 
collection tool. Google Forms is a software program that allows the user to create a questionnaire 
that can be sent to multiple people and allows the answers to be automatically archived in 
Google Sheets. Google Sheets is a software application similar to Microsoft Excel that allows the 
user to archive and analyze information as well as create graphical representations of data. The 
data collection process is displayed in Figure 2. The process starts at the website, where cultural 
organizations and businesses can access the data collection forms. Using the Google Form 
interface, the data is submitted and automatically uploaded to Google Sheets where it is archived 
and analyzed.  
For businesses, the Google Form is structured to collect percentage change in gross sales 
from three days, each one exactly a week apart. For example, each participating business would 
be asked for their percentage change sales data from the Thursday prior to a selected event, the 
day of the event, and the Thursday after the event. Due to the potential ambiguity of the data we 
are trying to collect from businesses, we created a Percentage Change Calculator. This is a 
simple Excel formula sheet which takes in the date of the event, gross sales for three days, and 
returns a consistent percentage change. This ensures all data submitted using the data collection 
forms accurately reflects the data we are trying to collect.  
For the cultural organization members of the district, the NCD Steering Committee has 
requested that they submit data to the NCD on attendance numbers so that the NCD could, in 
turn, aggregate the attendance data and submit it to the Massachusetts Cultural Council as part of 
their state-required annual report. Prior to our arrival, the cultural organizations did not have a 
uniform way to submit attendance data. To address this issue, we developed another Google 
Form for that purpose. The cultural 
organizations are to select two events to 
report attendance data, one during the on-
season and one during the off-season for 
data collection, so we incorporated this 
requirement into the form. 
Finally, in addition to the 
Business Event Data and the Cultural 
Attendance Data, we also set up a Google 
Form to collect information regarding 
linkages (collaborations) between 
businesses and cultural organizations. 
This form collects information such as 
the name of the linkage, the date it 
occurred, general reception, the weather, 
and their change in gross sales before and 
after the event.  
 
Recommendations 
Our project resulted in six recommendations we identified as important that the NCD 
address. They are sorted by importance, starting with what we believe is the most important and 
immediate recommendation.    
 
Figure 2: This figure shows how the data collection and 
archiving process takes place. 
  
xi 
 
1.  The NCD should improve public knowledge and support of the NCD by inviting 
new members of the residential, business, and seasonal communities to join the 
district. 
Working with the NCD Executive Steering Committee, we assisted in the development of a short 
guide on how the NCD should approach new potential members of the district, as well as what 
specifically should qualify a new business or organization to be considered a member for the 
district. If more businesses and organizations participate in the data collection process, the data 
that is collected to assess the impact of the cultural district events will be more comprehensive 
and useful.  
2.  The NCD should collect data from for-profit businesses using our data collection 
system integrated into the new website.  
In order to demonstrate the economic impacts of events in the district the NCD should collect 
non-sensitive business sales data. Data collection should begin as soon as possible, as it gives 
more time for businesses and organizations to find time to compile and submit their data. This 
process should be facilitated between the owners of the member organizations and the Steering 
Committee members. By fulfilling this recommendation, the NCD will be able to develop a more 
comprehensive annual report for the Massachusetts Cultural Council. 
3.  The NCD should designate someone specifically to manage and update the 
cultural district website as needed to keep it current and useful.  
Our third recommendation is that the Nantucket Cultural District designate someone specifically 
to update the website as needed to keep it current and useful. This should be completed as soon 
as possible so that the website is ready-to-use before the spring shoulder season begins.  
4.  The NCD should expand their current social media presence to include more 
platforms as well as post more frequently to increase outreach and public 
knowledge of the district and cultural events. 
The most important social media for the NCD to utilize is Facebook. We recommend the NCD 
additionally create profiles on Instagram and Twitter, but refrain from using YouTube, Reddit, 
Pinterest, or other social media sites as they are not suitable for the NCDs purposes. The use of 
social media will increase the knowledge and interest in the district as well as develop a platform 
for advertising. This should be completed as soon as possible so that the district and district 
events receive a maximum amount of exposure before the shoulder season begins in the spring. 
5.  The NCD Steering Committee should adopt a sustainable financial model. 
The NCD currently utilizes a financial model based on seeking grants from outside organizations 
such as ReMain Nantucket and the Massachusetts Cultural Council. Grants are not always a  
xii 
sustainable financial model, so the Steering Committee should look into additional funding 
models to sustain the district in the long run.  
6.  The NCD should begin to track additional metrics pertinent to the district and 
grant applications. 
To assist the NCD in seeking additional financial support using additional cultural district 
metrics not necessarily required by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, we have compiled a list 
of potential metrics from a variety of sources (other districts, grant-giving organization, etc.) to 
give the NCD a foundation of metrics they should look into tracking in the future. 
 
Bibliography 
Duxbury, N., Hosagrahar, J., Pascual Jyoth., (2016). Why must culture be at the heart of 
sustainable urban development? UCLG. 
Thornton, S. (2012). Cultural districts and the potential for urban development. Advocate's 
Forum, (2012), 41-51. Retrieved September 08, 2016,  from 
http://ssa.uchicago.edu/sites/default/files/uploads/AdvocatesForum_2012_web_1.pdf 
Noonan, D. S. (2013). How US cultural districts reshape neighbourhoods. Cultural Trends, 22(3-
4), 203-212. Retrieved September 11, 2016, from 
https://www.arts.gov/sites/default/files/Research-Art-Works-GeorgiaTech.pdf 
1: INTRODUCTION 
Nantucket is a small island off the coast of Massachusetts, only about 14 miles long. 
Although small, it has a rich history. Originally occupied by the Wampanoag Native Americans, 
the island was colonized by English settlers in the 17th century. At the beginning of the 18th 
century, the potential of sperm whale oil was accidentally discovered. By 1715, this discovery 
had stimulated the Nantucket deep-sea whaling industry (History, 2016). Over time, the island 
developed a powerful whaling economy, which allowed the island to flourish for nearly 100 
years. By the mid-18th century, Nantucket would become the whaling capital of the world 
(History, 2016). By the 1860’s, diminishing whale populations coupled with the onset of the 
Civil War and the discovery of petroleum in the hills of Pennsylvania signaled the decline of the 
whaling industry and in turn, the economy of Nantucket (Philbrick, 2015). 
The economy would eventually re-flourish, but under the influence of a different 
stimulus; tourism. This time, tourism would provide the new foundation for Nantucket's 
economy. Tourists from around the world are now drawn to the island for the abundant beaches, 
exclusive real estate, and rich cultural history. With a population that swells from 10,000 to 
60,000 people in the summer season, Nantucket has developed into one of the most popular 
vacation and cultural destinations in the country (History, 2016). 
Cultural Districts 
All of the arts, customs, history, and beliefs that encourage the human mind and its 
abilities are a part of a community's culture. One way to consolidate a community culture and to 
ensure its sustainability and success, is to form a cultural district. These districts have defined 
geographical borders and their roles in a given community are adaptable to the specific needs of 
the area. Due to the inherent inconsistency between districts, the way to evaluate each district 
must also be different. 
Massachusetts encourages the growth of culture around the state through the 
Massachusetts Cultural Council (MCC). The MCC is the legislative body that designates and 
supports Massachusetts cultural districts at the state level. The MCC requires an annual report 
from the district to be submitted every fiscal year. The goal of the report is to show how the 
district affects the local economy. With over 30 different cultural districts designated since 2011, 
the MCC is constantly designating new districts. 
The Nantucket Cultural District (NCD) was officially designated in January 2016. The 
district was formed with the goal to centralize and expand the culture of the island, as well as to 
advertise the different aspects of the culture on the island to residents and tourists. However, 
since the district is so new, many ongoing strategies are still in the development stage. The 
district hopes to foster business cooperation and create collaborations called “linkages” between 
the many entities within the district. The district also needs measures of success to show that  
their current strategies are working as intended. As such, certain metrics need to be developed, 
collected, and analyzed by the district in order to show the impacts of events, linkages, and the 
overall success of the district. 
Project Statement 
Our goal was to assist the Nantucket Cultural District create a system to collect and 
evaluate metrics that measure the economic and cultural impact of the district. The selected 
metrics would then be used to form an annual report for the Massachusetts Cultural Council. In 
addition, we made recommendations to the NCD regarding their internet and social media 
presence in order to increase awareness and to educate the public of their existence and purpose. 
Project Summary 
Starting in chapter 2, we will review the background of cultural districts and the NCD in 
order to inform and prepare the reader for our results. In the following section, we will 
specifically cover what a cultural district is, specific advantages and challenges of a designated 
cultural district, what the Nantucket Cultural District is, as well as different methods other 
cultural districts are using to collect, analyze, and report their data. For a more detailed outline of 
the background section, refer to Figure 1 below.   
 
 
 
Figure 1: Outline of background chapter showing the general flow of topics discussed 
 
 In chapter 3 we will discuss how we determined which metrics are most appropriate to 
measure, how we intend to evaluate different collection methods for the selected metrics, and 
how we will evaluate presentation forms to represent the data that is collected. Finally, in chapter 
4, we will discuss how we built a system for the NCD to use to collect and analyze selected 
metrics from the district.   
2: BACKGROUND 
In this section, we will describe background material that is pertinent to understanding 
cultural districts. We will first discuss what a cultural district is and examine the advantages and 
challenges that are involved with creating and sustaining a cultural district. We will then look at 
how these districts are funded, supported, and organized, especially in Massachusetts. Then we 
will look into the types of information and data that the cultural districts must or can collect in 
order to examine the correlation between them and the economic impact they have on the 
surrounding community. In each section, we will end by narrowing our focus onto our sponsor, 
the Nantucket Cultural District, and explain how the background material and ideas presented 
affect the NCD specifically. 
2.1 What and Why of a Cultural District?  
A cultural district is an area of a city or town consisting of a group of cultural 
organizations and supporting businesses. The purpose of a cultural district is to boost the local 
economy, connect cultural organizations in a community, attract tourists, and foster a sense of 
cultural community among the stakeholders (Thornton, 2012). Cultural districts help encourage 
communications between its stakeholders, which enables those organizations to better 
collaborate and work towards common goals, rather than work in competition with each other. 
For example, a cultural district can help facilitate ticket packages or coupon deals between 
restaurants and theaters so that they can both benefit from the increased influx of customers. 
Restaurants attract customers to theaters and vice-versa, leading to a “synergetic surplus” 
between the two (Thornton, 2012). The collaboration also expands upon the sense of community 
and culture between institutions, customers, and residents, as well as creating meaningful and 
beneficial relationships between business owners. 
 The economic benefits of a cultural district are often the primary reason behind their 
formation. However, cultural districts also have a way of both preserving and revitalizing older 
communities that can be described as “cultural deserts”. These cultural deserts can be places 
where industry has diminished and has left empty buildings in an economically depressed 
community. Detroit, Michigan is an unfortunate example of a cultural desert. Once a powerful 
automobile manufacturing hub, the closure of many car factories and the housing mortgage crisis 
left the local economy devastated, and the culture of the city has suffered as a direct result (Lin, 
2014). Cultural districts are often considered when vacant and unused infrastructure leads to low 
property values, crime, and a lack of a sense of community. Areas like this can be repurposed by 
local government as “fertile grounds for redevelopment” (Thornton, 2012), which can then be 
expanded upon by the community.  
  
There are four central types of cultural district;  
●  industrial 
●  institutional  
●  museum  
●  metropolitan  
Industrial cultural districts are utilized to create a production center of culture by 
attracting both artists and businesses. Institutional cultural districts rely on a single establishment 
to centralize the cultural production in an area. Museum cultural districts consist of a set of 
closely related museums or historical galleries. The most common type of district, the 
metropolitan cultural district, consists of a mixed group of interconnected cultural institutions 
(Thornton, 2012). 
Cultural districts can either form naturally, or a municipality may choose to pursue a 
specific district type in order to adapt to a city’s needs and goals. Cities that seek the formation 
of cultural districts understand that community, diversity, and heritage are essential tools for the 
holistic and long-term development of an area. (Duxbury, et. al. 2016).  
2.2 Advantages of a Designated Cultural District  
Cultural district designations are commonly sought after for a multitude of different 
reasons. These can range anywhere from economic gains, to expanding an area’s existing 
culture, to fostering commercial and residential unity and revitalization within a community. In 
addition, it is understood that cities with a strong culture and sense of community are more 
resilient and have a better chance of thriving in the long term (How Your Community Can 
Thrive, 2006) (Thornton, 2012).  All of these reasons are desirable goals for a community to 
achieve, and a cultural district is often a worthwhile investment tool for a city (Noonan 2013). In 
this section, cultural district advantages will be discussed in a broad sense, then narrowed down 
to how these issues that directly impact the Nantucket Cultural District. 
2.2.1 Economic Advantages 
From an economic perspective, cultural districts offer opportunities to further develop 
local economic growth. The most important advantage to having cultural districts is simply the 
number of tourists that can be drawn into a specific area. Cultural districts have proven to 
increase out of town tourism, while increasing the amount of foot traffic, time, and money spent 
in a particular area. For example, a 2013 analysis of 99 different cultural districts throughout the 
United States showed that in general, there are notable positive effects of district formation on 
property values, employment levels, and income levels both within the districts, as well as areas 
within close proximity to the district (Noonan 2013).  
  A second economic advantage to a cultural district designation are the types of people 
that cultural districts attract. A vibrant arts and culture sector has been proven to provide an  
enticing draw for young workers, especially those in high-skilled, high-paying technology jobs to 
move to a specific area. (Lutz, 2012) Talented artists, especially those related to design, 
performance, and communication, can greatly enhance the value of local products and services, 
as well as increase their dissemination throughout an area. Together, the technology sector along 
with the skilled artists (collectively dubbed “the Creative Class”), have been shown in many 
cases to contribute to an increase the economic value of an area, which is why having a creative 
district can be critically important to a city. (Dwyer, 2011)  
  A third major economic advantage cultural districts present are the opportunities to 
improve upon the harmony between the city, the community, and commercial businesses. 
Cultural districts play a major role in organizing both small and large-scale events that involve 
collaborations between stakeholders in the district. Annual events such as food, art, or film 
festivals, concert series, and holiday celebrations are all proven to be much more effective at 
being economically successful when cultural organizations work together, as opposed to 
operating independently (Thornton, 2012). An example of this can be found in Pasadena, 
California’s Levitt Pavilion. The Old Pasadena Cultural District worked with the Levitt 
Foundation, a group that works to financially enable local band shells to put on free concerts.  
The concert series ended up being remarkably successful, and is now credited with helping 
revitalize the downtown area into a popular tourist destination, all as a direct result of 
community, business, and city collaboration (Watson 2013).  
2.2.2 Cultural Expansion, Quality of Life Advantages 
By centralizing creative assets through clearly locating, labeling, and drawing increased 
attention to a community’s cultural assets, designating an area as a cultural district is a powerful 
way to foster additional value, both social and economic, to an area (Dwyer, 2011). One result of 
this is that cultural districts can lead to a better quality of life for those that currently work and 
live in the district. Being able to advertise a particular part of a city as creative and culture-rich 
creates a desirable reason for people to go there. Having this advantage helps attract new 
residents, allows current businesses to try new ideas, as well as encourages the development of 
new businesses within the district. With these developments, the culture of an area can 
continually evolve into something unique, which is a major key to attracting tourists. (Roos-
Brown, 2013) 
2.2.3 Community Involvement Advantages 
Cultural districts are also a powerful tool to help foster resident involvement in the 
development of a community. One example of this can be found in Tucson, Arizona’s Garden 
District, a cultural district that covers one square mile in midtown Tucson (see APPENDIX F). 
We interviewed Ida Plotkin, the grandmother of one of the members of Team NCD, who also 
happens to be the president of a neighborhood association within the Garden District. Ms.  
Plotkin stated that the district’s goal is “to have more participation in the community, which is 
difficult because many people are refugees and many do not speak English” (Plotkin, 2016, 
September, Personal Communication). 
She provided examples on what the association of the district did to provide opportunities 
for people to be involved. They accomplished this through a strong focus on internal 
communication for those within the district. The district members set up three kiosks and 
multiple newsletters to share information to both residents and tourists about their community. 
They proved to be a success, with nearly 50% of the community signed up for district 
newsletters. Through this district-wide newsletter, they were able to easily organize community 
events such as bird watching, free garden tours, and parties in community pavilions, all of which 
helps foster a noticeable sense of community within the district (Plotkin, 2016, September, 
Personal Communication). 
Ms. Plotkin stated how they measure success of their Garden District. They measure 
community usage of the library for a number of programs such as homework help programs, 
children’s story time, teen lounge usage, English literacy class attendance, and community 
meeting involvement. The district also measures the usage of their Botanical Gardens, taking 
data on landscaping and conservation efforts, as well as natural history and art exhibit 
attendance. Participation in community affairs is collected through measuring involvement in 
walking clubs, neighborhood watch groups, percentage of newsletter users, volunteer musicians’ 
performances, and food trucks sales. Her group additionally meets monthly with the Tucson 
Police Department to get updates on levels of crime and other issues the community is facing.  
In conclusion, the Garden District’s community involvement programs have proven to be 
a success for the district. This district involved more people in the community and brought pride 
to those who live and operate within the district’s signage. Increased community involvement 
had a powerful effect on making the district both safer and more desirable to visit (Plotkin, 2016, 
September, Personal Communication). In relation to the Nantucket Cultural District, while there 
are currently community efforts to maintain high levels of volunteerism and community 
development, none of them currently are organized under the oversight of the NCD committee. 
However, as the district is further developed, this is something that it hopes to change over time 
(Schulte, & Gonzales, 2016, September, Personal Communication). 
2.3 Challenges of a Designated Cultural District  
While cultural districts are known to have a wide range of advantages, there are 
additional considerations that must be taken into account. In particular, when cultural districts 
are designed to be used as a public policy instrument for local economies or for urban 
revitalization reasons, there can be negative socioeconomic consequences (Thornton, 2012). 
Additionally, the potential challenges a cultural district may face range anywhere from  
gentrification, to the “Disneyfication” of an area, to the unfortunate reality that there is no 
guarantee of their sustained success. 
2.3.1 Gentrification  
Gentrification is defined as “the arrival of wealthier people in an existing urban district, a 
related increase in rents and property values, and changes in the district’s character and culture”. 
The term holds a negative connotation, as wealthy people moving into an area can displace the 
less well-off members of the community as a direct result of rising property values, as well an 
increased cost of necessary goods and services (Grant 2003). Since cultural districts are known 
to bring an increased economic value to an area when wealthier, higher-educated people move 
closer to them, gentrification is a possible outcome. This is especially true if a cultural district is 
being used as a tool to reinvigorate the culture of a certain part of a city. Additionally, since 
cultural districts are usually centered in the downtown parts of cities, the resulting benefits are 
often only beneficial to those who live in the district. Outlying less well-off populations may be 
unable to benefit from the increased economic value of an area, which also can contribute to the 
risk of displacement from gentrification (Thornton 2012).  
In the case of the Nantucket Cultural District, there is a unique issue that arises in regards 
to gentrification. Since the property values of Nantucket are already extremely high, the concern 
is not so much about pushing poorer members of the community out, but rather pushing middle-
class year-round residents out. One concern the Nantucket Cultural District faces is the 
possibility that current property values will rise even higher. It could eventually result to higher 
costs of living for the year-round residents of the island, which could impact their financial 
ability to continue living on the island. 
2.3.2 “Disneyfication”  
 Another major challenge to the sustainability of cultural districts is the eventual 
“Disneyfication” of the district. In a 2012 issue of Advocate’s Forum, contributor Sean Thornton 
defined the term “Disneyfication” as to how an area becomes “a whitewashed homogenization of 
consumption, merchandising, and labor in an effort to provide a more tourist-friendly 
atmosphere, generally at the expense of the local area’s cultural and infrastructural authenticity” 
(Thornton, 2012). The term is derived from Main Street, USA, a well-known Disneyland 
attraction that portrays an idealized “safe” district where real-world problems are nonexistent and 
corporate branding exists at every turn. In short, as cultural districts try to emulate this particular 
strategy in order to attract more tourists, extensive commercialization runs the risk of ruining 
aspects of what makes a particular culture unique and attractive. 
An example of this can be found in the New Orleans French Quarter, a cultural district 
with a deeply-rooted history in Southern politics. The district here is located directly next to the 
Mississippi River in New Orleans. During a revitalization period in the 1990’s, there was  
growing interest from local residents in having a riverfront park being a facet of the area. Instead, 
commercialization interests took over the project and over twenty years later there currently sits 
breweries, marketplaces, hotels, and casinos, all heavily stylized and marketed based on the deep 
historical culture of the area, much to the apparent chagrin of longtime residents (Souther 2007). 
Nantucket faces a similar challenge to the New Orleans French Quarter, they must keep local 
residents happy and respect the proud history of the island, without turning the area into a 
commercialized caricature of itself. 
2.3.3 Lack of Sustainable Success 
 Another challenge that cultural districts must overcome is the fact that they are not 
always a sustainable venture, and long term goals of economic development and growth have 
proven difficult to achieve (Thornton, 2012). For example, a 1998 study profiled the Tucson Arts 
District Partnership, an arts district in Arizona that was praised for its positive impact on local 
jobs, sales, and tax revenues (Noonan 2013). Yet by 2001, the district was in decline, now 
consisting of tattoo parlors, bars, and clubs while theaters and art galleries sat empty. The major 
issue in this particular case was the city trying to use a cultural district to help revitalize a part of 
a city, without actually putting in the necessary funding to sustain the district. The lack of 
continued support and district mismanagement led to unreasonable rents for theater and gallery 
owners, which could only be alleviated by renting out extra storefront space to other businesses, 
which changed the culture of the area enough to lead to its decline. (Regan 2001). In order to be 
a sustainable success, the Nantucket Cultural District must be continually funded, monitored, and 
managed, while at the same time avoiding the same mistakes that led to the downfall of other 
cultural districts (Noonan, 2013). 
2.4 The Nantucket Cultural District 
The Nantucket Cultural District, shown in Figure 2, was officially designated in January 
of 2016, however the culture of the island of Nantucket has been informally present for many 
years through the many cultural organizations throughout the island. 
  
 
Figure 2:  A current map of the Nantucket Cultural District. The blue outline shows the boundary of the district. 
(Nantucket Cultural District Designated, 2016). 
The Nantucket Cultural District Steering Committee, a group consisting of members of 
town government, local businesses, museums, and other organizations, hopes to play a key 
leadership role in promoting culture and arts on the island. Its current motto, “to enrich 
community life for residents and visitors and to enhance Nantucket’s economic strength through 
collaboration and promotion of our cultural organizations” outlines the direct goals of the NCD 
(Nantucket Cultural District, 2016). At the time of its founding, the mission of the cultural 
district was straightforward; the NCD Steering Committee wanted a mutually-beneficial 
harmony between organizations and businesses, with a major focus on getting more people 
downtown in the shoulder season. (Murphy, Schulte, & Gonzales, 2016, September 16. Personal 
Communication).  
10 
 
 
Figure 3: General Composition of the NCD organized by sector (Rondeau, 2016): 
 
At the time of its designation, as shown in Figure 3, the district contained 16 cultural and 
social organizations, 18 hotels and inns, 29 art galleries, 35 restaurants, 23 food vendors, 129 
shops, and 7 parks (Appendix A). Currently, the NCD encompasses most of the island's primary 
historic downtown core, however the district is still a work-in-progress. 
As of September 2016, the district had limited funding. When the district was created, the 
district received a grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council for $2,500, which was then 
matched by the Town of Nantucket for a total of $5,000. This funding however had to go 
towards Nantucket Arts Council administrative costs for the registration of the district, which 
still means the district has little money to work with. This meant that necessary staples of a 
cultural district such as maps, signage, social media presence, and internet presence were 
currently in the development stage. As a result, the ability for district outreach was limited at the 
time. While the NCD had applied for additional funding, those proposals were currently in the 
process of being reviewed, and as such the district was still limited in the capacity of what it 
could accomplish financially (Murphy, Schulte, & Gonzales, 2016, September, Personal 
Communication). 
 
2.5 Goals of the Nantucket Cultural District 
The NCD is a new organization and therefore had a basic set of goals for its first year of 
operation. Their goals include improving public knowledge of the district, creation and support  
11 
of collaborations/linkages between member organizations, and to collect data on the economic 
impacts of the district. These goals were formed to align with the interests of the NCD as well as 
the MCC. 
2.5.1 Improve Public Knowledge of the District via Social Media 
One goal is to educate the public that the NCD exists. Physical media, internet presence, 
and social media are all important when developing community outreach for the district. For any 
modern organization, the key developing community outreach is to develop an online presence 
(Godwin, 2016). The NCD has already created physical media in the form of district brochures 
(Appendix C). While the NCD currently has a Facebook page and a dedicated page on the 
Nantucket Department of Culture and Tourism website, the information presented is currently 
limited, which is something they would like to further expand (Murphy, Schulte, & Gonzales, 
2016, September 16. Personal Communication). 
 According to a Google study, 97% of all consumers use the web to search for local 
organizations. Therefore, having and utilizing an online presence as a component of your 
marketing strategy is an important facet to the sustainability of any organization, independent of 
the size or type (Godwin, 2016). In particular, an organization’s website is the most important 
asset to their online presence. It works as a centralized location to sign up for events and 
services, to find contact information, or collect donations in a safe, time-efficient manner 
(Solutions Resource, 2016). Currently the NCD does not have an official website where visitors, 
curious about the organization, can find any of this and learn in-depth about everything the 
district has to offer. 
 Having a website serves as the basis for a wide variety of additional web presence 
opportunities. In particular, having a website serves as a location to reach additional social 
media, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and many others. When developing a social media 
plan, all social media presence must have a purpose, as well as realistic goals. The return on 
investment of the social media plan depends entirely on the feasibility of these goals, the wide-
reaching ability to communicate, and informing the public specifically what they want to know 
about the district (Social Media Manager, 2016).  
“(Social Media) allows customers, potential customers and other interested parties to 
engage easily via a channel that plays an important role in their everyday lives” (Godwin, 2016). 
Facebook for example, is fully capable of planning and advertising events, sharing pictures and 
videos, and directly interacting with visitors. Additionally, users can easily share Facebook 
media and events with their friends, which helps greatly with additional outreach (Hassan, 2014). 
Twitter and Instagram are both additional outreach platforms that have similar functions to 
Facebook. Twitter is a quicker, more direct microblogging platform. Information posted on 
Twitter is required to be under 140 characters, so information is presented in a short and simple 
fashion (Ward, 2016). Instagram is entirely visual media-focused, which makes a great place for  
12 
posting event posters, activity updates, and showcasing other engaging media. Additionally, 
Instagram is noted for having much higher audience engagement rate compared to other 
platforms, which is increasingly more important when building a brand identity (Istvanova, 
2014). 
2.5.2 Create Collaboration & Linkages Between District Members 
Another goal of the NCD is to encourage businesses and institutions to collaborate and 
involve themselves in developing the district. The NCD hopes to do this by encouraging cultural 
organizations and businesses to create what they are referring to as “linkages”. Linkages is the 
term that the district is using to describe collaborations between businesses, cultural 
organizations, and the Town of Nantucket. One example that the Steering Committee gave for 
their idea of linkages is dinner at a restaurant, followed by a discount movie at a local theater. 
Another example of a linkage would be an event at a cultural institution catered by a local 
restaurant. Linkages like this currently exist in the district, however the Steering Committee 
would like to track them, as well as improve on both the quantity and quality of them (Murphy, 
Schulte, & Gonzales, 2016, September, Personal Communication). 
The NCD hopes these linkages will become a way to help attract residents to the district 
during the difficult “shoulder season”. The shoulder season is informally defined as April to May 
and September to October. During this time period, the summer tourism economy is not in full 
swing, but the downtown area still is viewed as having an economic potential. Through these 
planned linkages, the NCD hopes to incentivize the residents that generally avoid going 
downtown to go downtown during these times of the year. (Murphy, Schulte, & Gonzales, 2016, 
September 16, Personal Communication). 
2.5.3 Collect Data on the District 
A third goal of the NCD is to encourage businesses and organizations to collect relevant 
economic data to represent the development of the district. The NCD needs this data from 
organizations to present to the Massachusetts Cultural Council, as well as for short and long-term 
internal planning. Additionally, with the focus on linkages, the NCD wishes to track the success 
of current events.  This topic is outlined in much further detail in Sections 2.7, 2.8, and 2.9. 
2.6 Supporting and Oversight Agencies  
While cultural districts are primarily independent ventures put together by either a town 
government, an existing cultural organization, or a collective of businesses, they still require 
external oversight and funding to be successful. In Massachusetts, cultural districts are directly 
designated, organized, and supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council. (Mass Cultural 
Council, 2016)  
13 
2.6.1 Massachusetts Cultural Council (MCC)  
The Massachusetts Cultural District Initiative was launched in April 2011 after state 
legislation was passed in 2010 to support and bolster culture throughout the state. This action led 
directly to the formation of the Massachusetts Cultural Council (MCC). As of early 2016, there 
are 32 official cultural districts in Massachusetts; all of which are designated, supervised, and 
partially funded by the Massachusetts Cultural Council. The MCC states that “These cultural 
districts help local arts, humanities, and science organizations improve the quality and range of 
their public programs... they attract artists, cultural organizations, and entrepreneurs of all kinds - 
enhancing property values and making communities more attractive” (Mass, 2016e).  
In order to ensure the accountability of the districts, the MCC conducts yearly site visits, 
and requires annual reports that demonstrate the continued development and impact of existing 
cultural districts. The report may vary depending on the cultural district, however, it must show 
how the district is affecting the local economy. Every five years, the districts are required to 
renew their designation through the MCC, and cannot be renewed if their annual reports have not 
been submitted. These reports are also essential tools for the districts to gain funding through 
granting agencies and programs.  
2.6.2 Massachusetts Cultural Council Grant Programs  
There are different types of grants that can be given to projects by the Massachusetts 
Cultural Council. A specific grant that can be given to a cultural district by the MCC is called the 
Cultural Investment Portfolio Grant, which totaled $143,618 to Massachusetts Cultural Districts 
for the fiscal year of 2016. In fiscal year 2017, the MCC plans to invest over $4.5 million in 
nearly 400 nonprofit arts, humanities and science organizations through its Cultural Investment 
Portfolio program. (Mass Cultural Council, 2016) 
The Cultural Investment Portfolio invests in general programming needs of cultural 
organizations. According to the MCC website, the Cultural Investment Portfolio (CIP) “provides 
unrestricted general operating support grants and project support grants to nonprofit 
organizations that provide public programs in the arts, sciences, and humanities in 
Massachusetts.” The amounts of grants given by the CIP are determined through a formula based 
methodology. Specifically, they are determined by an analysis of an organization’s expenditures, 
combined with a review of the total funds allocated to the Cultural Investment Portfolio by the 
MCC board based on “the agency’s annual legislative appropriation” (Mass Cultural Council, 
2016). Examples of recipients of the CIP include museums, performing arts centers, music and 
dance programs, theaters, art studios, and many more. Individual grants ranged anywhere from 
$2,500 for small projects, up to $56,500 for museums (Mass Cultural Council, 2016). 
The Massachusetts Cultural Council continually invests in the development of the state's 
creative centers through a few additional funding programs (see Figure 4). The Local Cultural 
Council Program (LCCP) seeks to promote the availability of cultural programs for  
14 
Massachusetts citizens. To do this, the program awards over $3 million dollars annually to nearly 
5,000 cultural programs, in support of field trips, after school programs, as well as concerts and 
performances. The Cultural Facilities Fund (CFF), a program that supports the “acquisition, 
design, repair, renovation, expansion, and construction of nonprofit and municipal cultural 
facilities” (Mass Cultural Council, 2016) will be allocating $9.3 million dollars in grants ranging 
from $7,000 to $300,000 for the 2017 fiscal year. The Adams Arts Program (AAP), a program 
that provides support for individual projects that work to create and grow culture and awareness 
in a community. In the 2016-17 fiscal year, the AAP plans to distribute nearly $745,000 to 
projects throughout Massachusetts ranging from grants to town governments to arts museums. 
(Mass, 2016 a,b,c,d) The Cultural Investment Portfolio Gateway Program is another program the 
MCC offers, it looks to provide preliminary support for new cultural ventures, so that they may 
apply for Cultural Investment Portfolio once programs have been officially established and 
proven to have cultural value (Mass Cultural Council, 2016).  
 
  
Figure 4: This figure compares the money received or granted by the MCC. 
2.7 What Data Do Cultural Districts Require?  
Data collection is the process of obtaining and analyzing information on predetermined 
variables in a way that enables one to test hypotheses and evaluate potential outcomes. (Data 
Collection, 2016). Since one of the objectives of our project is to develop metrics to collect data  
15 
about the Nantucket Cultural District, we must examine different forms of data and determine 
the most effective metrics for data collection.  
While there are many opportunities and possibilities for collecting data in a cultural 
district, the challenge is to determine what data can be collected in an efficient manner and how 
that data can be used to support the development of grant proposals.  Many of these grant 
proposals focus on the particular goals of the various state cultural councils. For example, in 
Colorado, cultural districts focus on utilizing the arts to create jobs and therefore, the data 
collected is designed to enable the state to assess the job creation impact of each cultural district 
(Figure 5). In Massachusetts, the state focuses on increasing attendance and therefore, measuring 
economic impact through cultural involvement.  Specifically, Massachusetts requires 
commercial building occupancy rates, as well as attendance data to the cultural district (Figure 
5).  
 
Figure 5: Required Metrics for Cultural Districts, by State (Programs, 2014)  
16 
The limitation of using other districts as examples is the fact that there are few cultural 
districts in Massachusetts that fit the same economic model as Nantucket or that have existed 
long enough to have applicable experience. The list of metrics in Appendix B are ones that were 
identified as being both important as well as feasible for the NCD to look into further. Some of 
these metrics are easy for the district to compile, however other metrics such as local 
partnerships (linkages), economic impacts of cultural events, attendance data, and community 
knowledge of the district are more difficult. Since they are the more difficult ones to look into, 
and the district does not have the budget to hire an outside organization to collect this data. 
2.7.1 Qualitative Cultural District Data 
Qualitative data focuses on data that is non-numeric and non-specific. With an isolation 
to specificity, qualitative data collection enables observations to be tracked with ease, as they do 
not require in-depth numeric data. Collecting qualitative data can be easier, however drawing 
specific conclusions or showing relevant change without concrete number data becomes a 
difficult task. While qualitative data collection harbors many methods, the majority “can be 
classified in three broad categories: in-depth interview, observation methods, document review” 
(Data Collection Methods, 2001). The key point to gather from this is the broadness of which the 
categories are composed. This sharply contrasts with the specificity of quantitative data 
collection.  
Nantucket becomes a major tourist destination during the summer season, with tens of 
thousands of people coming and going. Tracking metrics such as audience size and composition 
is difficult since many city-wide events are free to the public and lack physical boundaries and 
turnstile entrances (Stubbs, 2014).  A common practice for qualitative tracking is “gauging 
whether attendance is higher, lower than previous years or simply receiving word-of-mouth 
positive feedback from visitors” and evaluating comments on social media have proven to be 
effective methods (Stubbs, 2014). While this type of data collection does not allow us to 
discretize cultural involvement, it does allow the MCC to create records for yearly comparisons. 
Another form of effective qualitative data collection is to utilize personal anecdotes and study 
them in aggregate. This is done through one-on-one interviews, surveys, and focus groups. 
Collecting and working with the residents, business owners, cultural organizations, and tourists 
to know what they view as valuable and worthwhile. While each person may have differing 
opinions, when viewed in aggregate, their opinions can provide insight into the effectiveness of 
any cultural event. 
Tracking qualitative cultural impact can be a difficult task for a multitude of reasons. A 
study by the National Cultural Districts Exchange found that every district is too unique to utilize 
a generalized evaluation tool (Stubbs, 2014). This uniqueness is what prevents a common set of 
qualitative metrics or a standardized/universal collection practice that all districts can use. For  
17 
this project, the uniqueness provides an interesting opportunity to quickly isolate similar districts 
and generate effective solutions, which is elaborated on further in Section 2.8.   
2.7.2 Quantitative Cultural District Data 
Quantitative data focuses on the discrete, or the concrete information. This type of data 
collection focuses on fitting descriptions of the world into a finite set of “predetermined 
categories” (Data Collection Method, 2001). While many options exist for collecting this data 
the most common strategies for quantitative data collection include: “experiments/clinical trials, 
observing and recording well-defined events (e.g., counting the number of patients waiting in 
emergency at specified times of the day), obtaining relevant data from management information 
systems, administering surveys with closed-ended questions.” (Data Collection Method, 2001). 
A key point to notice from all of these methods is the specificity at which they are administered, 
quantitative data focuses on the specific and condenses the continuous spectrum that is cultural 
data to the discrete and finite.  
 Since the Nantucket Cultural District falls under the jurisdiction of the Massachusetts 
Cultural Council, the nature of the relationship between a large statewide agency and a small 
island community’s cultural district means finding proper quantitative metrics can be a 
challenge. However, the MCC understands the limitations of most local entities and therefore 
“requires that individual districts collect information on two specific indicators: visitation 
numbers and [building] occupancy rates.” (Stubbs, 2014), which can be collected across all 
districts. To fulfill the necessary requirements of the creation of the NCD, those two metrics 
must be reported annually, as well as lodging and meals tax data. To capture visitation numbers 
requires a measurement on the foot traffic of a region, or the quantities of business patrons to a 
region on a specified date. While this can be isolated to specific dates, occupancy rates pose 
another challenge because a rate imply that it is a dataset tracked over time. Therefore, it is 
necessary to track changes in residency and patronage correlated against an index of cultural 
events. 
By only obtaining two data points the NCD will keep its status as a cultural district, but 
grant giving organizations wish to receive more data than just what is required (Mass Cultural 
Council, 2016). With a vast array of possible metrics and data points to track, determining how a 
small municipal system should track this information is vital to the continued success of the 
NCD. Therefore, our project must also look towards other metrics and determine the most 
commonly used metrics by other districts. Therefore, our project is not isolated to the data 
required by the MCC, instead the requirements serve as a base level suggestion for data 
collection.  
18 
2.8 What Data is Collected by Other Cultural Districts?  
In order to determine more specific metrics to collect, it becomes necessary to look to 
other cultural districts in Massachusetts to see specifically what data they are collecting, how 
they are collecting it, and how they are presenting it to the Massachusetts Cultural Council. In 
order develop our data collection methodology, we looked into what three other Massachusetts 
cultural districts were reporting, specifically, we looked at districts located in Barnstable, 
Springfield, and Worcester, MA (Table 1).  
 
Cultural 
District Title P
opulation  Seasonal  Age 
Local 
Government 
Control 
Founding Body 
Reports on 
Business 
Activity 
Funding 
Structure 
Barnstable 
Village Cultural 
District 
45,000- 
125,000 Y
es 2
 
years N
o  HyArts  No M
embership, 
Government 
Springfield 
Downtown 
Cultural 
District 
154,000  No 3
 
years N
Springfield 
Business 
Investment 
District 
Yes  Membership 
Salisbury 
Cultural 
District 
182,000  No <
 1 
year N
o W
orcester Art 
Museum N
o  Grant-Based 
Nantucket 
Cultural 
District 
11,000- 
60,000 Y
es <
 1 
year Y
es N
antucket Arts 
Council N
o  Grant-Based 
Table 1: Comparing the four Districts in Massachusetts discussed (Rondeau District Survey Sheet) 
2.8.1 Barnstable Village Cultural District 
  The Barnstable Village Cultural District (BVA) (see Appendix F, Item 3) is a useful 
example to look at for two primary reasons. The first reason is because the BVA is a relatively 
older district compared to the NCD, having been designated in March 2014. Since it is older, it 
has been around long enough to have submitted two annual reports to the MCC and developed a 
metrics set of its own. A second reason it can be a useful source is due to its status as a seasonal 
destination located on Cape Cod, it receives a summer tourist influx similar to that of Nantucket. 
The BVA collects participation for their events in order to see community and visitor 
involvement with the arts and culture of the town. Data was collected from a few willing 
businesses located downtown about seasonal income and increased purchases during events and 
festivals (Rondeau, 2016). An interview with BVA cultural district management yielded a few 
specific questions asked by the MCC. Specifically, they were asked “What are popular tourist 
activities, and how much do tourists spend in town? How many empty storefronts do you have? 
Is there any empty town space that a cultural institution is moving into? What are the venues for 
local artists?” (Rondeau, 2016). These metrics are important, as there are likely similar questions 
that the MCC will be asking to see in the NCD annual report.   
19 
2.8.2 Springfield Downtown Cultural District 
The Springfield Central Cultural District (SCCD) located in Springfield, Massachusetts is 
a large cultural district encompassing a third of a square mile in downtown Springfield (see 
Appendix F, Item 4). Designated in January 2014, their mission statement is “to foster civic 
engagement and arts education in the City of Springfield by creating and sustaining a vibrant 
cultural environment that positions the City as the cultural capital of the region” (Springfield 
Central Cultural District, 2016). The Springfield district hopes to increase synergy between 
member organizations and an open communication through board meetings with updates and 
notices. As a result, the district hopes to increase resources, outreach, and collaborations between 
the cultural district organizations (Springfield Central Cultural District, 2016). Since the SCCD 
must also submit an annual report to the MCC, the SCCD can be used as a case study to examine 
how they report different metrics. In their 2016 annual report, the SCCD reported a few different, 
non-essential metrics to the MCC, specifically they focused on social media, as well as member 
and revenue statistics.  
The 2016 SCCD annual report displayed that there was a 77% increase in new Facebook 
and Twitter followers, a 60% increase in social media “likes”, 358 unique social media posts, 
and 150x user engagement on all platforms versus 2015 statistics. Social media is important for a 
cultural district to inform people about local events, so having an increase in involvement with 
the district’s Facebook, Instagram, Twitter pages, etc. can show an increase cultural district 
involvement. (SCCD Annual Report, 2016).  
The SCCD also listed their changes in funding and memberships versus the previous 
year. They listed metrics discussing how grant revenue was “up 483% from previous year, with 4 
times the amount budgeted for.” The report also listed a metric about there being an additional 
28 new members within the last year. Additionally, the SCCD report listed community created 
and supported initiatives the district helped put on, such as mural programs, art displays, and 
progress on the cultural district’s website (SCCD Annual Report, 2016). Both of these metrics 
are reasonable consider collecting within the scope of the Nantucket Cultural District, as they 
have both an emerging social media presence, as well initial first year member and funding data 
they can report (Murphy, Schulte, & Gonzales, 2016, September 16, Personal Communication). 
2.8.3 Salisbury Cultural District (Worcester) 
  The Salisbury Cultural District, located in Worcester, MA and founded in summer 2015, 
is another unique example to look at for cultural district metrics (see Appendix F, Item 5). This 
cultural district is significant to our project as Worcester Polytechnic Institute was a founding 
member of the district, and is geographically located within the district. Having this link to a 
cultural district allowed us to use our university connections to reach out to a few members 
involved in the framing of the district. Specifically, we reached out to Linda Looft, the Assistant  
20 
Vice President of Government & Community Relations and University Relations, as well as Erin 
Williams, the Cultural Development Officer for the City of Worcester. 
          Through our interview with Mrs. Looft, we learned a few things about how WPI collects 
attendance data at large events hosted at the school, as well as how different organizations in the 
district benefit from each other. Specifically, they use a program called iModules that tracks 
registration demographics for events hosted at the university, such as the TouchTomorrow 
Festival or Robotics tournaments at the school. Additionally, she enlightened us as to how a few 
other members of the Salisbury District were working together to bring more people into the 
district. An example she gave was how the nearby Worcester Art Museum was offering free 
admission days during major exhibit openings, which resulted in large crowds being drawn to 
both the museum and the nearby organizations. The Worcester Art Museum additionally hosts a 
farmer’s market in their parking lot, which has shown to both draw people to the museum and 
help local farmers. These events, as well as those put on by WPI and other members of the 
district, bring large amounts of foot traffic to the district, which greatly impacts the number of 
people that go to local restaurants, as well as the surrounding parks and institutions. (Looft, 
2016, October, personal communication). 
          Our interview with Ms. Erin Williams, Executive Director at Worcester Cultural 
Coalition, gave us a larger insight to how the City of Worcester measures cultural impacts of 
both the Salisbury Cultural District, as well as the citywide Worcester Cultural Coalition (WCC). 
The WCC was described as “a macro-level cultural district” that included 78 organizations 
throughout the entire city of Worcester. The Salisbury District is considered “a microcosm of the 
Worcester Cultural Coalition” by comparison, so many of the Salisbury Cultural District’s 
metrics and data collection strategies are taken directly from the WCC. The major strategies that 
we discussed were online presence, attendance data collection techniques, and business data. 
Addressing each of these, for social media they hired someone for six months in order to 
setup and maintain their social media accounts initially. After that period, they transferred social 
media control to WCC members since they had a basic framework to work with. They also 
manage a weekly email newsletter (with nearly 30,000 subscribers) and a WPI-created website 
that lists and advertises events in the greater Worcester area. For attendance data, they utilize a 
specific few strategies. Member organizations submit their attendance data directly to the WCC, 
however for open area events or festivals, they draw on a few different techniques. Specifically, 
they work with Worcester Police to estimate people per square foot for open outdoor events, as 
well as perform car counts and utilize orange snow fencing to create dedicated entrances for 
events, so that guest throughput can be estimated better. This data was clarified to be estimated 
for final counts, as opposed to completely accurate. Business attendance and profit data for is 
also collected and utilized by the WCC. In order to do this, they work with a few businesses 
throughout Worcester. When asked about how the WCC convinces businesses to allow the 
Coalition to use their data, Ms. Williams maintained that in order for businesses to be willing to  
21 
submit their it must be completely anonymized first so that nothing proprietary about the 
business’ operations are compromised. Through these three metrics, the WCC builds an accurate 
estimation of success for ongoing Coalition activities (Williams, 2016, October 13, Personal 
Communication). 
2.9 What Data is Available to the Nantucket Cultural District?  
For the Nantucket Cultural District to receive grants, there must be proof that the grant is 
needed and that the grant will be utilized effectively. To meet both of those standards requires 
insight into the types of data grant organizations are looking for. Determining common metrics 
becomes an important goal for both our group and the Nantucket Cultural District. The type of 
data we collect and the methods we use for collection revolve around the type of approach we 
would like to take when creating a model for the Nantucket Cultural District.  For modeling 
Social Sciences, there are four main approaches; the representative, the heuristic, the power, and 
the sociality. Each of these approaches has their own merits, but to gather insight into the NCD, 
our group will construct a representative function and a sociality function. The representative 
function is utilizing data collection and analysis to simplify and quantify cultural impact. The 
sociality function is created by utilizing external methods for analysis and building off of the 
work of other researchers to determine what is truly necessary. (Mohr, Rawlings, 2012) 
Nantucket has many different data sources available to track the cultural district activity 
and impact. Some will show clear connections and others may be more unclear, therefore, 
utilizing a mix of quantitative and qualitative is a necessity. Not only is the data itself important, 
but so is the tracking, analysis, and security of this data to ensure that it can continue to be 
collected.   
22 
3: METHODOLOGY 
 The purpose of this chapter is to present the general methods we used to achieve our project 
goals. As depicted in Figure 6, the 
process started with background 
research, where we conducted research 
on the methods of data collection by 
other cultural districts. In the 
assessment section, we discuss our 
approach for determining which 
metrics we decided to look into 
collecting. In data collection, we 
explain the process for evaluating 
different proposed data collection 
methods. In the data analysis section, 
we detail our criteria for determining a 
system to analyze the selected metrics. 
 
3.1 Mission Statement 
Our goal was to assist the Nantucket Cultural District by developing a community 
outreach plan and creating a system to collect and evaluate metrics to measure the 
impacts of the district. To achieve this goal, our team did the following:  
●  Determined the most appropriate metrics for understanding the economic impact of 
the Nantucket Cultural District 
●  Determined the means to efficiently collect the data that represented the selected 
metrics 
●  Created criteria for a system to analyze, present, and archive the collected data. 
The methods to achieve each of these objectives are detailed in the following sections. 
3.2 Objective 1: Determining the most appropriate metrics for calculating the economic 
impact of the NCD.  
The NCD Executive Steering Committee asked us to select a set of metrics to collect data 
from the district in order to demonstrate the performance of NCD to the Massachusetts Cultural 
Council. Ideally, the selected metrics would represent the impact of the Nantucket Cultural 
District on tourism, resident life, and the local economy. 
 
Figure 6: This flowchart represents our methods for how 
we accomplished our goal.  
  
23 
3.3 Objective 2: Determining a means to efficiently collect selected metric data 
Qualitative Data 
Our sponsors suggested we communicate with specific stakeholders involved in the 
cultural district through interviews, focus groups, and surveys. These stakeholders included 
cultural organization owners, business owners, and residents. Gathering qualitative data using 
these strategies allowed the general public as well as the selected cultural district participants to 
share their opinion on the progress of the NCD. The results of the qualitative data were used to 
determine the best means to collect quantitative data. 
The first method we proposed was to perform preliminary interviews with cultural 
organizations, businesses, and residents. The goal of these interviews was to determine their 
current knowledge of the cultural district as well gauge their willingness to cooperate with or 
become a member of the NCD. We wished to learn what type of data they are already collecting, 
how they are collecting it, how they are archiving it, and which types of data they were willing to 
share with the NCD. 
Working with our liaisons, we identified the key informants in the cultural district such as 
the Steering Committee and Executive Steering Committee board members. We planned to use 
the first interview to gauge how our interview plan was working and then adjusted our interview 
guide to the resulting feedback. Using the questions listed in Appendix E, we tailored our 
interview guide specifically to the stakeholder in question.  Prior to any discussions with 
stakeholders, we provided the interviewee with an IRB consent form and informed them that we 
would record the interview audio for our records [Appendix G].  
We additionally planned to collect qualitative data using focus groups. The target 
demographic of these focus groups was intended to be members of the NCD Steering Committee 
and Executive Steering Committee and was planned to include 1-2 facilitators, 1-2 secretaries, 
and other invited guests. The objective of the focus group was help form a clear idea of how the 
recommended data collection system and data analysis and presentation methods were 
recognized by the Steering Committee members. 
Quantitative Data 
From our study of other cultural districts, we created an initial list of possible metrics 
(Appendix B). We then created a set of criteria to determine if the proposed metrics would be 
applicable to the NCD. We based our methods for selecting quantitative metrics on the following 
criteria: 
●  Non-sensitive to business data 
●  Already collected or easily collected by member organizations 
●  Able to be representative of economic impacts 
●  Realistic for the NCD to collect from the member organizations  
24 
 
The process which we choose to recommend was influenced by the results of our 
qualitative data from our focus group and interviews. 
3.4 Objective 3: Creating a system for analyzing and archiving the collected data. 
The goal of this objective was to develop criteria for a system to help the Steering 
Committee determine the impact of both cultural linkages, as well as cultural district events.  
These criteria included: 
●  Having one easy-use tool that required minimal training  
●  Able to collect and consolidate data from many different sources 
●  Keep data and information confidential 
●  Easy analysis of data and be able to track economic changes in correlation with cultural 
district events (Appendix C, D) 
●  Track linkages and collaborations between organizations 
●  Incentivize organizations/businesses to input their data 
●  Easily accessible for everyone. 
●  Easily scalable for use by small and large organizations 
●  Easily adaptable for future changes 
   
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4: FINDINGS 
  In this section, we will present our findings. We start this section by presenting some 
additional background information that is pertinent to understanding how we arrived at our 
findings. This background material is then followed by our detailed findings. 
Background 
When we first arrived on the island, we had a long discussion with our liaisons about the 
direction we should take for the beginning of the project. This conversation led us to focus on 
tracking economic fluctuations within the district, collaborations between businesses and 
nonprofits, as well as tracking attendance at smaller, non-festival events. Our liaisons also 
provided clarification that they would not like us to track previously established, larger events 
such as the Christmas Stroll or the Daffodil Festival. 
Based on our initial discussion, we tentatively proposed that the NCD track changes in 
attendance and changes in gross sales at local businesses at times surrounding small scale events 
and any linkages (collaborations). In order to make sure our proposed ideas were viable for the 
district, we set out to interview 10 members of the business community in order to determine the 
best way to collect data on the selected metrics. In addition to these data discussions, we 
developed and implemented a list of questions for interviewing (see Appendix E) that we thought 
would be useful for future district planning outside the scope of the project.  
 
4.1 Background Research Findings 
During the course of our project, we conducted background research on the topic of 
cultural districts worldwide. From this research, we discovered many findings that were pertinent 
to our project and our sponsors. These findings and their significance are described in Table 3 
below.   
26 
 
 
Finding  Significance 
The MCC requires cultural 
districts to file an annual report 
to show CD economic impacts 
The NCD must file a report to the MCC containing 
information and data that shows economic impacts by the 
end of the fiscal year. 
The MCC requires cultural 
districts to track attendance and 
building occupancy rates 
The Nantucket Cultural District must track cultural event 
attendance and building vacancy rates for their first annual 
report. 
A guideline of metrics that 
cultural districts should track 
does not exist 
The individual cultural districts may choose what metrics 
they choose to track and report. 
Funding and governance 
structures of cultural districts 
vary 
The individual cultural districts can choose how they would 
like to be funded, taking into account the composition of the 
district, the governance structure, and the managing 
organization. 
Cultural districts have a wide 
range of advantages and 
challenges 
With the development of a cultural district, there are many 
considerations that must be taken into account in order to 
ensure the success of the district. 
Nantucket has a unique 
economic and cultural 
environment 
The developed and wealthy nature of Nantucket creates a 
unique situation that separates the NCD from most other 
cultural districts. 
Table 2: This table displays the different findings that we discovered while conducting our background research as well as the 
significance of each to our project. 
4.2 Interview Findings 
  The first step we took towards the data collection process was qualitative data collection 
through interviewing key informants and stakeholders involved with both the cultural district and 
the downtown area as a whole. We interviewed a wide variety of people, including shop owners, 
restaurant owners, art gallery owners, cultural organization leaders, and NCD Steering 
Committee members. We asked a wide variety of questions (Appendix E), inquiring both into 
their status as a business owner or organizational representative, as well as a year-round resident 
of Nantucket.  
  Through these interviews, we learned what issues the members and potential members of 
the cultural district were facing. Listed below are the general findings from the results of our 
interviews. 
  
27 
●  Many community members do not currently know about the cultural district or its 
purpose. 
●  Many businesses and organizations use flyers, the local newspaper (The Inquirer and 
Mirror), N-Magazine, word of mouth, and local radio for their advertising needs. 
●  Many people use social media for obtaining and relaying information about events that 
occur on the island and in the district. 
●  There are too many newsletters from the various organizations and businesses on the 
island. Many people just delete them.  
●  Businesses generally only track inventory and sales data, while nonprofit organizations 
track attendance data. 
●  Many businesses change their target demographics during the off season (November-
March) and shoulder season (September-October, April-May) to make their products more 
accessible to residents.  
●  Many businesses have collaborated in the past, but not often. On average once or twice per 
year.  
●  Businesses were not likely to share their total gross sales, but they would likely share 
percentage changes in gross sales if they were asked and the data was kept anonymous. 
●  Weather and parking are major issues that keeps residents from visiting the downtown. 
 
Additionally, a few things learned in the interview process were determined critical to 
organizing our project activities. For example, we found that the NCD Executive Steering 
Committee requires its member organizations to report attendance data for one on-season event 
and one off-season event to the Nantucket Arts Council (abbreviated NAC; the managing entity 
for the NCD) for the first fiscal year of the NCD. As this was related to data metrics and 
collection, we spoke with NAC leadership about their current data collection techniques. At the 
time of the interview, the NAC’s strategy was to take attendance information from cultural 
district members, but there was no required uniformity to how the data could be submitted, 
which made the attendance information difficult to sort and analyze. This finding was 
particularly critical to our own study since we used it as a basis for our recommendations 
regarding the development of a data submission tool that could consolidate the attendance 
information into one single place (described in-detail in chapter 5).  
From the interviews, we additionally found that most residents of Nantucket get their 
information about events from a local scheduling website Mahon About Town, as well as the 
local newspaper, radio, and social media. However, we also found that the residents often made 
comments that there was not a central location that included a consolidated calendar of culturally 
significant events occurring downtown. These two findings were important because they 
emphasized the need for a consolidated calendar of cultural events. 
A final important finding from the interview process was that the public has limited 
knowledge of the district, but nearly every member of the community uses some form of social 
media that they check daily. After learning that the Nantucket Cultural District only has a limited 
social media presence consisting of a monthly-updated Facebook page, we determined that a  
28 
social media outreach plan that outlines what they should post, how often they should post, and 
which platforms they should utilize would benefit the district and provide a platform to increase 
social media presence.    
29 
5: RESULTS 
In this section, we will describe the deliverables that we gave to the NCD including our 
data collection and analysis tool and our website. We will first describe the features that we, 
along with the NCD Executive Steering Committee, decided were necessary of our data 
collection tool. We then explain how our tool is set up and what programs we used to incorporate 
the necessary features. We then explain how our tool works and what it will do for the NCD. We 
will also discuss our website, how we determined what features we aimed to include in it, and 
then go on to describe which features we were able to include and how the features work. For the 
deliverables; the data collection and analysis tool and the website, we developed a tutorial and 
provided written reference documentation to the NCD. This will allow the NCD Steering 
Committee and/or administrator to make changes to either the data collection and analysis tool or 
the website when needed. 
5.1 Data Collection and Analysis Tool 
In order to select an appropriate platform for the data collection tool, we developed a list 
of attributes that the platform had to be able to manage and support. Subsequently, we selected a 
data collection and analysis platform, configured it to support the types of analysis we required, 
and created a method for the data to be easily entered into the selected platform. To start, below 
is the list of features we identified that the platform needed to support: 
 
Feature  Reason 
Submitted data can be kept 
anonymous 
Members of the business community agreed to submit data only if it 
was kept anonymous. 
Be able to automatically create 
visualized representations of the 
data (graphs, charts, etc.) 
Visualized representations are needed for simple and powerful data 
analysis. 
Easily distributable to members 
District leadership will not want to waste their time on a system that is 
difficult, and neither will members that are expected to fill out the tool. 
Cost-effective 
The district does not have the budget for expensive software, they 
require something that is either free or affordable. 
Able to adapt to changes in 
metrics, easy to use 
The system should be easy to change and be adapted to future district 
needs. 
Table 3: This table lists the features of our data collection tool and the reason they were deemed necessary by the NCD Executive 
Steering Committee. 
 
Using these features as a guide, we identified that with respect to features and the cost of 
the platform, our best choice to develop this system was to utilize the free Google collaborative  
30 
software suite. Specifically, we decided on utilizing Google Forms for the collection interface 
and Google Spreadsheets for data organization and analysis. Google Forms was specifically 
chosen for its ease of use, the general familiarity many people have using Google software, as 
well as the ability for submitted data to be automatically entered into a Google Spreadsheet. 
Below in Figure 7, we show how the different Google Forms enter data into a single Google 
Spreadsheet. In Google Spreadsheets, submitted data from the Google Form can be automatically 
sorted into categories based on a few different qualifiers, such as if the data was the result of a 
linkage or a cultural event. Further, the data is then easily analyzed using Google Spreadsheet 
capabilities to sort data, develop graphs, and create visualizations of the data trends.  
Cultural Organization Data Collection 
The Steering Committee of the 
NCD has asked the cultural 
organization members of the district to 
submit data on attendance of two 
significant cultural events, one that 
occurs in the on-season and one that 
occurs in the off-season. This data will 
then be used by the NCD in their 
annual report to the Massachusetts 
Cultural Council. Prior to our arrival, 
the district members did not have a 
uniform way to submit their attendance 
data. This made analysis and 
preparation for the MCC annual report 
a time-consuming effort. To solve this, 
we built another Google Form for cultural organization members to uniformly submit their data. 
In this form, we ask the cultural organizations to submit information such as name of the 
organization, date of the event, name of the event, weather, and number of people in attendance.  
The information we collect for cultural organizations will then be uploaded directly to a 
Google Sheet. This sheet is setup to create graphical representations of the collected data than 
can then be used for the annual report. One way we show this data is by using a line graph to 
show attendance trends over time by event (Figure 8). In Figure 8, each line represents a 
different event, the x-axis displays the year and the y-axis represents the number of people that 
attended each event. The NCD will be able to use the raw data in conjunction with the tool to 
create many different types of graphs. 
 
Figure 7: This figure shows how the data collection and 
archiving process takes place. 
 
Figure 7: This figure shows how the data collection and 
archiving process takes place. 
  
31 
 
Figure 8: This graph displays trends in attendance at cultural events as reported by the cultural organizations. A 
positive slope shows that attendance has increased from the previous year. A negative slope shows that the attendance decreased 
when compared to the previous year. The data shown is for presentation purposes only and is not real data. 
Business Data Collection 
For businesses, the Google Form is setup to collect percentage change in gross sales from 
three days, each one exactly a week apart with the middle day being the day of an event. For 
example, the participating businesses would be asked for their percentage change sales data from 
the Thursday prior to the event, the Thursday of the event, and the Thursday after the event. The 
percentage change we are trying to obtain is a whole number, where zero signifies no change in 
sales, a positive percentage is a positive increase, and a negative percentage indicates a decrease.  
From this specific set of data, we can estimate the economic impact that cultural events 
had on the local economy based on the aggregate change in business in the district, which would 
be calculated automatically as a function of the Google Sheet. As displayed in Figure 9, data will 
automatically be input into graphical representations showing percent change in gross sales 
during an event. Ideally, if many members of the district submit data from a wide variety of 
organization types, the data will show an overall trend of how cultural events affected 
businesses. If a negative trend is noticed, then it gives the NCD Steering Committee insight into 
how different events affect business.   
32 
 
Figure 9: This graph displays trends in gross sales before and after events. The data represented currently is for presentation 
purposes only and is not actual data. A value of zero percent indicates no change from the previous week. The last metric 
indicates the percentage change in business between the week before the event and the week afterwards, this is a calculated value 
that shows the lasting impact of these events. 
Linkage Data Collection 
In addition to the Business Event Data and the Cultural Attendance Data, we also set up a 
Google Form to collect information regarding collaborations between businesses and cultural 
organizations, also known as linkages. Using the Form, we collect information such as the name 
of the linkage, the date it occurred, how they feel the event affected them, the weather, and their 
change in gross sales before and after the event. In Figure 10, we show a screenshot of the 
Linkage Google Form that we use to collect data from businesses and cultural organizations. For 
questions like “How do you feel this event affected your business” and “What was the weather 
like the day of you Linkage”, we utilize a Likert type scale. 
A Likert Type scale usually consists of a numerical range from one to five. A selection of 
a one, indicates a completely negative opinion, and a five indicates a completely positive 
opinion. A choice of three is completely neutral. This scale enables an opinion to be measured 
objectively, by creating an ordinal ranking of a subjective measurement and thus removing 
ambiguity. While this opinion data does not indicate the economic impact of the festivals or 
events, it is valuable for event planning and business administration. For example, an event with 
poor reviews may need changes in order to make improvements for the following year. 
Conversely, high Likert scale rankings may determine that similar events will be beneficial to 
both cultural organizations and businesses (McLeod, 1970).  
33 
We then ask for percent change in gross sales from the business that is submitting data on 
the linkages. To ensure that this data set is calculated consistently and accurately, we created a 
Percent Change Calculator. 
 
Percentage Change Calculator 
One challenge that may arise with our data collection and analysis tool is the 
inconsistency of how certain data is calculated. To resolve this issue, we developed a Percentage 
Change Calculator which will ensure consistent calculation of metrics. This calculator is 
embedded in a Microsoft Excel document that the user can download off the NCD website. The 
user inputs the date of the linkage or event, which the calculator will then use to determine which 
dates the user needs to enter gross sales data for. Then the calculator will use this gross sales data 
to output a percent change that the user will copy and paste into the Google Form as asked. The 
Excel calculator is directly downloaded to the user’s computer, so any confidential information is 
kept local on their device and therefore kept anonymous.  
5.2 Website 
One of the Nantucket Cultural District’s primary goals was to increase cultural district 
awareness. We determined that because the Steering Committee had already developed physical 
media such as maps and brochures (Appendix C), the next step they needed to take was to 
develop an increased internet presence. Prior to our project, the district’s web presence was 
limited to a single page on the Town of Nantucket Department of Culture and Tourism website. 
Figure 10: This figure shows a portion of the Linkage Google Form used to collect data 
from participants.  
34 
We proposed to the Executive Steering Committee that we expand the current internet presence 
into a fully-featured, independent website. The Steering Committee had already purchased a 
website domain name for the district, so we set out to create a website as a deliverable for our 
project. We prepared a list of website features that we and the NCD Executive Steering 
Committee agreed upon would be necessary for a successful website. Below in Table 5, the 
features of the website are listed, as well as the reasoning behind why we determined each 
feature was justified.  
 
Feature  Reason 
Fully supported and accessible on 
a mobile device, tablet, and 
desktop. 
The website needs to work on as many platforms as possible, 
especially mobile versions as they are most likely to be accessed 
while someone is visiting the district.  
Promote district activity through a 
calendar. 
Events are primarily used to drive traffic to the cultural district. If 
residents and tourist are unaware of these events, they will not be 
incentivized to visit the district. 
Serve as a centralized place for all 
district social media. 
More sources of exposure leads to more outreach for events, 
pictures, and other information in the district.  
List all district member 
organizations and their 
information. 
Direct links to member organizations is an incentive for members to 
be active in the district. Traffic to the district website can result in 
increased web and foot traffic to the member organizations.  
Easy-to-access, detailed map of 
the district. 
Tourists, who may need directions and a map of the district, need an 
easy place to refer to a map. Not everyone is going to wander the 
district in search of a map. 
Login-secured location for 
members to enter data that is not 
accessible to the public. 
The website needs to include a location for businesses and 
organizations to access the data collection tool. This would allow 
them to submit their data in a secure fashion and on their own time. 
Facilitate member networking to 
foster linkages. 
A major focus of the Steering Committee is fostering linkages, so 
having an easy way for those connections to develop was identified 
as a welcome additional feature.  
 
Table 4: This table lists the wanted features of our website as well as the reasoning which determined why we needed the feature. 
We decided that the best website builder for our project was the Wix.com platform. There 
were two reasons for selecting this platform. First, Makeawebsitehub.com ranked Wix.com in its 
“Top 6 Website Builder Platforms” (Best, n.d.). Their review states that Wix is an easy-to-use, 
full-featured website building platform with competitive pricing. Secondly, the team had 
previous experience with the Wix platform, which made it a justifiable choice for us to build the 
district’s website in a timely manner.  
35 
  The website went through multiple drafts over the course of its development. The 
feedback process involved the use of a focus group with the Steering Committee members 
providing insight and discussion. Feedback from the focus group resulted in us adding a 
comprehensive calendar of district events, featuring member organizations in the banners, 
showcasing pictures from district events, as well as general layout changes.  
  To set up the calendar of cultural district events, we used our liaison connection with the 
Department of Culture and Tourism to utilize their current Google Calendar feeds (Appendix H: 
Item 2.1). Through this working with the town’s Special Events Coordinator, the cultural district 
calendar synchronizes directly to the Department of Culture and Tourism’s calendar. This 
arrangement allowed the calendar to be limited to specific cultural events taking place within the 
district, as well as those occurring at partner organizations outside the district. 
  We determined that the best use of the welcome page was to include a scrolling banner to 
feature both district organizations and their events. Each organization or major event may have a 
space on the banner including a picture, description, and clickable link. This allows a website 
visitor to quickly explore and learn about organizations/events in the district. It also helps the 
visitor to quickly gain a better understanding of what culture means to the district and the 
community (Appendix H). 
  We determined that we wanted the website to feature a dual-role as an educational tool 
for visitors as well as a platform for businesses and cultural organizations to access the data 
submittal tool that our team also developed. The website features a page that is only accessible to 
district members. To access this page, the user creates an account which they can then use to 
request permission to access the page. The administrator of the website then grants access to the 
user to view the member page. This members-only page allows easy access to the data submittal 
tools, a form to add events to the calendar, and access to the website forum, which is discussed 
below. (Appendix H: Item 5) 
  To facilitate an increase in the number of cultural linkages present in the district, we 
introduced a forum to the website. The forum provides a space for the members to interact with 
one another and form collaborations. For instance, a museum could be hosting an event and need 
someone to cater food for the event. The museum may post on the forum and interested 
restaurants can reply directly. This tool will encourage communication and collaborations within 
the district and help to instill a sense of community.   
36 
6: RECOMMENDATIONS 
In this section, we will explain our recommendations for the NCD sorted by importance, 
starting with what we believe is the most important and immediate recommendation.  The time 
scale is the same for all six recommendations, which is simply “as soon as possible”. 
 
1.  The NCD Steering Committee should expand their number of partnerships. 
 
To do this, the NCD begin expansion efforts, as they are currently quite small. To do this, they 
need to invite new members must to the district so that knowledge and support of the district 
spreads throughout the residential, business, and seasonal communities. We left them with a 
short guide on how they should approach new potential members of the district, as well as what 
specifically should qualify a new business or organization to be considered a member for the 
district. 
This toolkit guide specifically outlines what being a member of the cultural district 
entails, including requirements and benefits. This includes (outside of the physical location 
requirements of being located within the district boundaries) that members must actively 
promote and support art and cultural events in the district. Additionally, in order to be 
continually considered a member, the business or organization are expected to submit event data 
to the Steering Committee through the data collection tool. We recommend that they also make 
sure that members of the cultural district actively promote using the different district media 
types. This could range from handing out pamphlets/maps, to linking their events and social 
media activity to the dedicated district calendar and social media accounts.  
One of the benefits to the businesses and cultural organizations that we outlined includes 
being able to use the Nantucket Cultural District branding that the Steering Committee 
developed. This includes the both the name and logo, as well as any social media tags that the 
Steering Committee decides on in the future. We have also outlined the benefit that being a 
member will have your organization and events featured more heavily both on the website, as 
well as district social media. More outreach for these businesses in better, so these are the 
ultimate benefits that the district can directly offer its members.  
Finding organizations/businesses to join would not be difficult, as our liaisons have a 
wide variety of contacts within the downtown community. The biggest challenge that the district 
could face in regards to this is reaching out to organizations is having them deny an invitation to 
join. Through this, they should begin to build themselves as a well-known entity within the 
downtown area.  
 
 
  
37 
2.  The NCD Steering Committee should begin collecting data from businesses. 
 
To do this, the NCD must create business partnerships that they then collect data from. In order 
to demonstrate the economic impacts of events and linkages in the district, the NCD should 
collect non-sensitive business sales data. Data collection should begin as soon as possible, as it 
gives more time for businesses and organizations to find time to compile and submit their data. 
By fulfilling this recommendation, the NCD will be able to develop a more comprehensive 
annual report for the MCC. 
The NCD may face some challenges when they try to accomplish this goal. Some 
businesses may have questions and concerns about the anonymity and security of providing 
sensitive data. However, the system only asks for anonymous percentage changes in gross sales 
from businesses (through the Percentage Change Calculator), so those arguments can be 
addressed in a reasonable manner.  
Other challenges may stem from the time involved with using the data collecting system 
on both the input (businesses) and output (analytics) sides. To resolve this issue, the NCD must 
reinforce to the member organizations that the data collection system is simple with a low time 
commitment to fill out. On the analytics side of the system, the NCD must be comfortable using 
the system. There are a few complex parts to the system that involve intermediate knowledge of 
the Google forms syntax. In order to make sure that the effectiveness of this system is not lost in 
any sort of complexity regarding how the system is programmed, we have done two things. The 
first was we held a training session with members of the Nantucket Arts Council (NAC), the 
Department of Culture and Tourism, and ReMain Nantucket before we left, the second was 
created an easy to use written guide that we left as a deliverable for a reference. With these two 
concerns addressed, any concerns about the system being too complex are essentially alleviated. 
 
3.  The NCD Steering Committee should adopt and update the new NCD website. 
 
To do this, the Nantucket Cultural District Marketing Committee should designate someone 
specifically to update and adapt the website to changes over time. The NCD Marketing 
Committee and the Nantucket Arts Council; the NCD parent organization, should first link the 
website to their domain at “NantucketCulturalDistrict.org”. This should be completed as soon as 
possible so that the district and district events may receive a maximum amount of exposure 
before the spring shoulder season begins.  
  The website has many features that, within the scope of our project, we did not have time 
to explore. We recommend that the NCD Marketing Committee delve into the many possibilities 
that the website platform can offer. Some features of the website that may be useful in the future  
38 
are the ability to send email newsletters, collect donations, and post their annual reports 
publically. 
  One challenge the NCD Marketing Committee may face while working with the website 
is the familiarity of managing the website. Since many members of the committee are new to the 
website building software it may take time to get comfortable with making changes to content 
and formatting. 
To overcome this challenge, we held a training session where we trained a few people 
involved in the District how to use and edit the website. Additionally, we left them with a 
detailed written guide on how to edit the different sections of the website. However, it is up to 
the members of the district to maintain the website so that it accurately represents changes in the 
district. 
4.  The NCD Steering Committee should expand their social media presence. 
 
To do this, the NCD Marketing Committee should expand their current social media presence to 
include more platforms as well as post more frequently to increase outreach and public 
knowledge of the district and cultural events. The most important social media for the NCD to 
utilize is Facebook. We recommend the NCD additionally create profiles on Instagram and 
Twitter, but refrain from using YouTube, Reddit, Pinterest, or other social media sites as they are 
not suitable for the NCD’s purposes. The use of social media will increase the knowledge and 
interest in the district as well as develop another platform for advertising.  
This should be accomplished by the NCD Steering Committee, but more specifically 
their internal Marketing Committee, as soon as possible. The NCD should set reasonable goals 
for their social media outreach. For example, one goal they might have is planning to double 
their social media “likes” by the end of the current fiscal year (ending in June 2017), but that is 
ultimately up to the NCD Marketing Committee.  
  To accomplish this goal, the NCD Marketing Committee should increase the frequency 
of their posts on social media, such as their Facebook page. They can do this by increasing the 
number of original content as well as increasing the number posts that are shared from other 
cultural organizations. We identified a popular platform called Hootsuite as a potential tool for 
the NCD to utilize. Hootsuite allows for the easy management of multiple social media accounts 
at once, and features tools to automate posting, track audiences, and engage with visitors across 
all platforms.  
  One challenge the NCD Marketing Committee may face is the demographic gap between 
the cultural district event target age and the age of social media users. The NCD must reach the 
people on social media that will be interested in cultural events, and adapt their social media 
strategies accordingly.  
  
39 
5.  The NCD Steering Committee should adopt a sustainable financial model. 
 
To do this, the NCD Steering Committee should to adopt a financial model that is not entirely 
dependent on grants. The NCD currently utilizes a financial model based entirely on receiving 
grant funding from outside organizations such as ReMain Nantucket and the MCC. Relying on 
grant funding as an exclusive funding source is both unpredictable and unreliable, so they must 
decide on a funding model that can sustain them in the long run (Buchanan, 2013). 
One challenge the NCD will face while trying to develop this financial model is the 
competition between themselves and the Chamber of Commerce, who offer a similar incentive to 
businesses. The Chamber of Commerce provides advertising for businesses on the island in 
return for a yearly membership fee. This means that the NCD must avoid imposing a 
membership fee on businesses to avoid competition, but still create a form of revenue to sustain 
itself and its expenses. 
This recommendation will be considered fulfilled when the NCD has a reliable source of 
revenue that does not rely on grants and that won’t compete with the Chamber of Commerce 
programs. This should be completed as soon as possible to ensure the sustainability of the district 
and its programming. 
 
6.  The NCD Steering Committee should track additional metrics in the future. 
 
To do this, the NCD Steering Committee should commit to tracking additional metrics using our 
data collection tool. Even if the Nantucket Cultural District changes its current financial model, 
data collection will still be important in district planning. The NCD Steering Committee will 
most likely continue to seek out grants as an additional source of funding, so having a large 
quantity of data on the cultural district is important. To assist the Steering Committee choose 
which metrics they would like to track, we have created a list of suggested potential metrics from 
a variety of sources (other districts, grant-giving organization, etc.) to give them a foundation for 
what metrics they should look into tracking next (Appendix B).  
It is up to the NCD Steering Committee to determine which metrics they see as important 
to track. We have given them the data collection tool, which can be modified to collect and 
compile more types of data. Again, this recommendation should be completed as soon as 
possible in order to compile a backlog of useful amount of data, should a grant or program arise 
that requires a specific data set.  
   
40 
7: CONCLUSION & FUTURE WORK 
The recommendations section explained what we believe the next steps are for the 
Nantucket Cultural District. They are organized in order of importance and start with 
approaching and expanding members of the district. We then endorse the use of our data 
collection system to collect economic impact data from businesses. Next, we believe the NCD 
should use social media and its new website to reach out to residents and tourists to educate them 
about the district and create interest in events in the shoulder seasons. Lastly, we recommend that 
the NCD adopt a sustainable financial model that is independent of grants and expand upon its 
data tracking to other metrics. 
From our findings, we have identified a project for future WPI students to possibly 
pursue in the future. We identified that there was a need to analyze public parking policies and 
availability during the shoulder and off-seasons. A few of our interviews found that parking 
restrictions and ticketing regulations are two factors that keep year-round residents away from 
the downtown area during the off-season. To do this, we suggest that a future WPI project team 
interview members of the community from many different demographic groups as well as policy 
makers and enforcers in town. This will give the team a clear perspective of the challenges that 
the town faces when trying to improve user experience downtown. A desirable outcome of such 
a project would be either the recommendation to change the public parking policies to better 
accommodate residents or improve public parking availability, and how to do so. We believe this 
project to be useful to the town to increase residential visitation during the shoulder and off-
season. 
7.1 Reflection 
The Nantucket Cultural District Steering Committee and the Executive Steering 
Committee have been extremely helpful in the completion of this project. Without the 
cooperation and time dedicated to us by these members, our project would not have been a 
success. We appreciate everything that the community and the NCD has taught us about working 
in the real world, including the many unexpected challenges that come with it. Our team has 
gained experience working with professionals, engaging members of the public, building useful 
graphical representations, and developing website platforms. 
   
41 
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45 
APPENDIX A: DISTRICT MEMBER INFORMATION 
This section shows the different compositions of the Nantucket Cultural District, the first one 
being by type of organization by street, the second showing the number of members by street 
sorted from least to most.  
Item 1: Nantucket Cultural District Composition by Street 
(Rondeau, 2016)  
46 
Item 2: Total Members of the Nantucket Cultural District by Street Name 
(Rondeau, 2016) 
 
 
 
 
   
47 
APPENDIX B: LIST OF METRICS 
This appendix contains a list of the different metrics we found as being potentially useful 
to the Nantucket Cultural District to look into using in the future. The metrics table starts with 
the required MCC metrics, the NCD suggested metrics, and then lists metrics that other 
organizations track. It is split across two pages for organizational and ease-of-viewing’s sake.  
Item 1: List of Potential Metrics  
Metric:  Adapted From: 
Tracking Visitor Attendance  MCC Requirements 
Changes in Building Occupancy Rates  MCC Requirements 
Changes in meals and lodging tax  MCC Requirements 
Economic Impacts of Cultural District Events  Sponsor-Suggested Metric 
Knowledge of the Cultural District  Sponsor-Suggested Metric 
Popular tourist activities  Barnstable Village Cultural District 
Venues Available for Local Artists 
Barnstable Village Cultural District & 
National Endowment for the Arts 
Tourists Spending in the District  Barnstable Village Cultural District 
Numbers of Empty Storefronts   Barnstable Village Cultural District 
Empty Spaces that Cultural Institutions are Moving 
Into 
Barnstable Village Cultural District 
Internet/Social Media Presence (Facebook, 
Instagram, Twitter, Website Traffic, etc.) 
Springfield Central Cultural District 
Changes in Grant Revenue 
Springfield Central Cultural District & 
National Endowment for the Arts 
Changes in District Membership  
Springfield Central Cultural District & 
Americans for the Arts 
Amount of & Types of Major Cultural District 
events.  
Required in MD, KY 
Numbers & Types of Partnerships at the Local 
Level 
Required in MD, KY 
Registration Numbers for Cultural District Events  Salisbury Cultural District 
 
    
48 
Item 2: List of Potential Metrics (Continued) 
Metric:  Adapted From: 
Revenue in Restaurants, Hotels, Retail, and 
Galleries 
 
National Endowment for the Arts & Americans 
for the Arts 
 
Tax Revenue and Property Values 
National Endowment for the Arts & Americans 
for the Arts 
Charitable Assets   National Endowment for the Arts 
Community Assets  National Endowment for the Arts 
Number of Events and Attendance 
National Endowment for the Arts & Americans 
for the Arts 
Number of Volunteers and Volunteering 
Organizations 
National Endowment for the Arts 
Number of Trusted Role Models  National Endowment for the Arts 
Measures of Innovation (Patents Granted, new 
Businesses) 
National Endowment for the Arts 
Jobs Created/Retained 
National Endowment for the Arts & 
Americans for the Arts 
Demographics of Home-Buyers  National Endowment for the Arts 
Residential Vacancies  National Endowment for the Arts 
Change in Consumption  National Endowment for the Arts 
Number of Visitors  Americans for the Arts 
Value of Historic Preservation Tax Credits  Americans for the Arts 
Partnerships between Businesses (Linkages)  Nantucket Cultural District 
 
 
 
 
 
   
49 
APPENDIX C: TOURIST BROCHURE 
This section contains the currently used Cultural District brochure. This is currently in 
print and exists at member organizations within the district, including the Chamber of Commerce 
and the Visitor Center. The front lists events, showcases pictures, and gives sources of more 
information to those who read it. The back is the district map which shows the locations of the 
member organizations located within the district.   
Item 1: Front of Brochure 
 
  
50 
 Item 2: Back of Brochure (District Map) 
 
(Murphy, Schulte, & Gonzales (2016, September). Personal Communication).  
 
 
 
 
   
51 
APPENDIX D: CALENDAR OF 2016 ANNUAL EVENTS 
This appendix contains a list, created by the Chamber of Commerce, of annual events that 
bring large amounts of people to the island.  
 
(Murphy, Schulte, & Gonzales (2016, September). Personal Communication).  
 
 
 
   
52 
 
APPENDIX E: SURVEY QUESTIONS; TOURISTS / RESIDENTS, &  
This is a sample from the list of questions that we asked residents, cultural organizations 
and businesses during the interview process. Other questions were asked, but this set of questions 
was deemed as the most important.  
Survey Questions 
Residents  Businesses/Organizations 
Do you know what a Cultural District is? 
Did you know that Nantucket had a Cultural District? 
Did you come to downtown for a specific event? 
Have you been or do you plan on visiting a 
museum, art gallery, or church / religious 
institution? How did you hear about said 
institutions? 
Do you think there are advantages to collaborating 
with other organizations or businesses? 
What do you know about the Nantucket Cultural 
District? 
What type of information/data have you collected?  
Are you more likely to go downtown if there is a 
large cultural event taking place? 
Do you think the cultural district affects your 
business? How? 
What software do you utilize to track your 
business data? (e.g. Intuit, Quicken, Access …) 
Are you a member of the Nantucket Cultural 
District? If no, would you be interested in 
becoming a member of the Nantucket Cultural 
District? 
What is the last Cultural Event that you went into 
to town for? 
Would you be willing to share some of your 
economic data so we could cross reference it with 
cultural district events? 
 
 
 
   
53 
APPENDIX F: CULTURAL DISTRICT MAPS 
This Appendix contains maps of various cultural districts including the Nantucket 
Cultural District.  
Item 1: The Nantucket Cultural District 
 
(Murphy, Schulte, & Gonzales (2016, September). Personal Communication).  
 
  
54 
Item 2: The Garden District Tucson, AZ  
 
  
55 
Item 3: The Barnstable Village Cultural District  
 
(Barnstable Village Cultural District Facebook Page, 2016)   
56 
 
Item 4: The Salisbury Cultural District Worcester, MA  
 
(Looft, 2016, October 6. Personal Communication). 
  
57 
Item 5: The Springfield Downtown Cultural 
 
(Springfield Downtown, n.d.)  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   
58 
APPENDIX G: Verbal Informed Consent 
This appendix contains the verbal consent template for our interviews. 
Verbal Consent for Issuing Surveys or Interviews: 
Spoken in a friendly, approachable manner: 
“[Greetings] We are a project team from Worcester Polytechnic Institute here in Massachusetts. We’re 
working in conjunction with the newly formed Nantucket Cultural District to assist them in collecting 
data about a few different aspects of the district. To obtain different opinions regarding these aspects, we 
would like to ask you a few relevant questions. Your participation in this survey/interview is entirely 
voluntary and you may withdraw at any time. Your responses will be recorded anonymously, no names or 
identifying information will appear in any of our project reports or publications. It is important to us that 
you fully understand your rights throughout this process and if you have any questions about this, please 
let us know.”  
Although we do not currently intend to, if we wish to take any photographs or videos for our 
project, we will refer to the protocol developed by the 2014 Cape Town Project Center Standards. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   
59 
APPENDIX H: WEBSITE 
This appendix contains screenshots of the different pages on our website, found at 
“https://teamncd.wixsite.com/ackncd”. It will be updated to 
“https://nantucketculturaldistrict.org” when the Nantucket Arts Council oversees our website in 
the future. 
Item 1: Home 
 
  
60 
Item 1.1: Social Media 
 
Item 1.2: ShoutOuts 
  
61 
Item 1.3: District Calendar 
 
Item 2: Visit the District 
  
62 
Item 2.1: Cultural Organizations of the District 
 
Item 3: Explore Nantucket 
  
63 
Item 4: About Us 
 
Item 4.1: Mission, Goal, MCC, Steering Committee Members 
  
64 
Item 4.2: Contact Us 
 
Item 5: Members 
  
65 
Item 5.1: Forum 
 
Item 5.2: Submit your Calendar Event 
  
66 
Item 5.3: Member Forms 
  
67 
Item 5.4: Percent Change Calculator 
 
 
 
    
68 
APPENDIX I: DATA COLLECTION TOOL 
This Appendix contains screenshots of our data collection tool and our data analysis tool 
displaying graphs of fake data. These graphs were made for proof of concept purposes to show 
the capabilities of the data analysis tool and to show what graphs will be automatically created 
once real data in input into the tool. 
Item 1: Average Attendance per event  
  
69 
Item 2: Attendance over Time by Event 
 
Item 3: Average Opinion of Cultural Events by Event 
  
70 
Item 4: Percentage Change Correlated with Linkages by Season 
 
Item 5: Percentage Change Correlated with linkages by Business Type 
  
71 
Item 6: Lasting Percentage impact of Linkages by Business Type 
 
Item 7: Average Opinion of Linkages Effect on Business by Season 
  
72 
Item 8: Distribution of Linkages by Season 
 
Item 9: Post-Event Percent Change in Gross Sales by Season of Linkages 
 
  
73 
Item 10: Percent Change in Gross Sales caused by Linkages Over Time 
 
Item 11: Comparison of Percentage Change in Gross Sales by Event 
  
74 
Item 12: Average Likert Score of Opinion of Event 
 
Item 13: Percent Change in Gross Sales over Time by Event 
  
75 
Item 14: Comparison of Percent Change in Gross Sales by Event 
 
Item 15: Percentage Change Correlated to business Type by Event 
  
76 
Item 16: Percentage Change Correlated to Event by Business Type 
 
Item 17: Percentage Change Correlated to to Business type by Event 
 
  
77 
Item 18: Percentage Change Correlated to Event by Business Type 
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