The National Folk Festival, according to recent rough figures from Eastern Maine Development Corp., helps the Bangor area by $3.7 million a year, a useful calculation as the city prepares to serve as host of the event for the final year. But the dollar figure is no more important than one of the numbers that went into figuring it.

Attendance for the first two years of the festival has been approximately 80,000 and 110,000 respectively, with most people coming from outside the Bangor region. The $3.7 million suggests that, under the right conditions, the city can afford to continue holding a major cultural event after the National Folk Festival moves on; the impressive attendance figures also suggests this and many other possibilities besides.

If Bangor can be a popular destination for festival-goers it can justify investing in related ongoing activities, outdoor recreation and the sort of relaxed tourism of sightseeing, shopping and dining that now stretches the Maine summer season from May to early October. The city’s emerging, handsome waterfront is not only the home of the festival; it can become the starting place from which tourists will see the region.

Eighty-five percent of the people attending the National Folk Festival in Bangor were from Maine, according to surveys done during the festival. People from around the state want to visit here, listen to excellent music, see top acts and appreciate local crafts. The value of a cultural festival goes beyond this, certainly, but as Bangor shapes what is to come next, it should recall that the large majority of its guests at the folk festival were fellow Mainers. It may be that Bangor must first establish itself as a destination recognized by the rest of Maine before it attracts more people from farther away.

Among the conclusions of the EMDC study is this: “The festival is helping highlight the potential for redevelopment to residents and developers alike. These impacts are impossible to quantify or track – but may be the longest lasting…” That seems about right – enough interest in Bangor exists so that the city can be re-enlivened if it pursues the kind of high-quality events that have made the Folk Festival successful, and, whatever the final dollar figure, Bangor will be better off for it.