Surveys to provide a look at BPSW visitors, their preferences and impact on local commerce

The Montana Office of Tourism and the University of Montana are collaborating with Blackfoot Pathways: Sculpture in the Wild to gather data about who visits the sculpture park, and BPSW board members and volunteers were on hand during September's residency to distribute questionnaires to park visitors.

Funded by the Montana Office of Tourism to gather information on park visitors, the length of their stay, what services they use and where they spend their money, the surveys also gathered feedback on the park itself.

"Montana Tourism has funded what they call 'Survey in a Box,' which is done by University of Montana in Missoula" BPSW artistic director Kevin O'Dwyer told the BVD. "This whole thing will go into a database and they'll look at everything from who came to...information on what people liked, what people didn't. We'll get a lot of feedback, and it's very valuable for us to get that feedback."

The completed questionnaires will be passed on to the University of Montana for use in statistical studies after being reviewed by the Sculpture in the Wild Board.

According to O'Dwyer, as of Thursday, Sept. 27, more than 300 completed surveys had been collected over the span of two-and-a-half weeks.

"It's only a small amount of the people that attended, because we can't catch everybody," he said. "It really is amazing the amount of people from out of state that are coming here. Just two days ago we got Oregon, Massachusetts, Arizona, England, Atlanta, Colorado, Idaho, Clancy, North Dakota, and Great Falls. I didn't select these, they were just handed to me yesterday."

In addition to the data collected from the surveys and the park's guest counter, O'Dwyer said the BPSW website has had more than 10,000 hits in the past month.

"Trip Advisor is five-starring it, Facebook is five-starring it, it's an art destination," he said. "People are following it. The beauty of what we're doing is that it's very international...the project is an international project with international artists, playing off of that in a small community and a natural environment."

O'Dwyer believes that the value of the Park lies not just in art and education, but in commerce.

"It's part of a puzzle, with other things," he said. "I love the car show, and the other things that happen here, but the Sculpture Park is part of that. I know on those weekend events people spend money, they have drinks and they stay in hotels. But also, the value of the Sculpture Park is that people are doing the exact same thing."

The survey should provide the first real snapshot for the community of how much of an impact visitors to Sculpture in the Wild have on the Lincoln economy.

The Sculpture in the Wild board intends to share the data collected from the survey, which O'Dwyer feels will be of interest not just to the BPSW Board or the University, but to the community of Lincoln.

"It's for all of us," he said. "The Chamber of Commerce will get a copy of this, because it's really important to know that we've had 32,000 people so far that have come in, and it will probably be up to 36,000 by the end of this residency. If...let's say ten percent of those people stopped in town, that's 3000 people. I said originally that culture brings commerce, and people who come here as an art destination, they're going to spend a couple of hours there and then they're going to spend some money and spend a bit of time in town."

O'Dwyer served for eight years as Artistic Director of Sculpture in the Parklands, Ireland's only sculpture park dedicated to the interpretation of the natural and industrial legacy of the Irish bog lands, which is now in its sixteenth year and receives over 100,000 visitors a year. Although Sculpture in the Wild's acreage is smaller than that of the Irish park, O'Dwyer is impressed with the park's momentum, in comparison.

"Just looking at our numbers...when I established the one in Ireland, we did not reach that type of number in five years," he said.