In 1986 when cities were battling it out to land the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Cleveland stepped forward with something the other bidders didn’t, a pledge of $65 million. That coupled with the city’s Rock and Roll roots and the desire of the people of Northeast Ohio to see the hall built here collecting 660,000 signatures all were huge factors in landing what has become a Cleveland icon.
Twenty-three years after it opened, a new economic study conducted by Rock Hall shows it to be the gift that keeps on giving. Consider this, the Hall ended up costing $92 million to build in 1995 and had an economic impact of $199 million just last year alone.
In 2017 the Rock Hall drew a record 568,000 visitors, roughly more than the Baseball and Football Hall of Fames see in a given year. More importantly to Cleveland, the study found that 80 percent of those people were from out of town, meaning their time here likely included a restaurant stop or two along with a hotel stay adding up to a total daily spend in the area by Hall of Fame goers of $349,000.
This direct spending generated additional benefits such as the 1,872 jobs those visitors supported and $59.9 million in income earned. Most of these employment and income benefits came in the food and beverage, recreation, and lodging sectors.
Visitors to the Rock Hall generated nearly $13.4 million in state and local tax revenues. Local revenues included $2.9 million in local sales tax revenues and another $1.2 million in bed tax revenues.
Additionally, every year, the Rock Hall welcomes thousands of students into the museum to experience firsthand the power of rock and roll through its award-winning programs. To date, new numbers show that more than 300,000 students have participated in Rock Hall learning programs.
The Toddler Rock program powered by PNC has reached 5,000 at-risk youth, who each spent an average of 60 hours learning and saw a 71% increase in letter recognition and comprehension scores. More than $10 million dollars collected from the Rock Hall’s admission taxes have gone directly to the Cleveland Metropolitan School District.
