A Ballarat councillor says spending $20,000 to get the Australian Museums and Galleries Association to town for their annual conference is a good investment.
The 4-day event in September will attract around 700 people and return about $1.15 million to the local economy according to a council media release.
Cr Mark Harris says he’s confident it’ll produce a healthy economic outcome for the city.
“If you went with twenty-grand and said look, here’s an advertising dynamic for Ballarat, you wouldn’t get much of a return out of it.”
“You can always question any sort of spend for any conference I suppose, and we frequently do, but this sort of input I think is about right on the money and I think it will be successful,” Cr. Harris said.
Most recently, the event was held in Newcastle in 2023 and Perth in 2022.