The Big E Has a Big Impact

Editorial

Depending on where you live, where you work, or where you operate a business, the Big E is either a big inconvenience or a big, as in big, and important engine for this region’s economy.

Actually, it’s both. But mostly, and to most people, it’s the latter.

Yes, it can be a disruptive force if you live within a mile or so of the fairgrounds, and especially if you do business on Memorial Avenue in West Springfield.

But mostly, it’s a powerful economic force, a 17-day fair that brings people, vitality, and various kinds of business to the region.

A 2019 economic impact study pegged the overall impact of the Big E at $681 million annually, a number that is now certainly much higher. It also brings thousands of jobs and millions in income-tax and sales-tax revenue.

There are dozens of business sectors, small businesses, and individuals that benefit from the Big E. That list includes hotels, motels, restaurants, and taverns; businesses that rent tents; gas stations and convenience stores; a certain casino in the South End of Springfield; and the businesses and residents around the Big E that devote their lawns and lots to fair parking.

It all adds up to a very large impact, one that can be measured in many different ways. Maybe the most effective is a glance back to 2020, the year when there wasn’t a Big E.

The negative impact was enormous. Hotels that booked rooms to visitors, vendors, horse-show participants, and more lost all of that. So did the restaurants, taverns, stores, and homeowners on the side streets off Memorial Avenue.

It was a crushing loss, something not covered by PPP or most any other form of relief.

So, when the Big E returned in 2021, those businesses, and this region as a whole, were all reminded of just how important the fair is to this region — not that anyone needed reminding.

As the 2024 fair continues, people are being reminded again. Those long lines of cars stretching down I-91 in both directions, and into downtown Springfield and deep into Agawam to the east and west, should be a very welcome sight, as much as they slow things down for area residents trying to get from here to there.

Those cars tell a story, a story not of traffic that is backed up, but one of a region getting a boost. A big boost.