Catherine Baird has attended the Sacramento Jazz Festival in years past, but her experience at the festival this year was different.

Though Baird was enjoying the jazz party atmosphere in Old Town Friday afternoon, she didn’t buy passes to this year’s festival because she wanted to save money. Still, Baird and her friend Cynthia Garcia, who are both from Sacramento, participated in the Jazz Fest scene and contributed to local businesses.

“We spent because we wanted to,” Garcia said, noting that she didn’t feel pressured to buy anything.

The Sacramento Jazz Festival, also known as the Sacramento Jazz Jubilee, brought in about $8 million last year to the local economy, according to the Sacramento Convention and Visitors Bureau. This year, with the city's budget in a deficit of $50 million, the millions of dollars that may have come in through visits to restaurants, bars, hotels and other businesses is more important than ever.

Right now, the public must endure a waiting game before learning the final tally from this year’s festival. The Jazz Festival is still crunching its attendance numbers and likely won’t have any sales totals until the end of this week, said Eric Hokom, who works on the festival’s marketing committee. The Convention and Visitors Bureau won’t receive figures from hotels for another two or three weeks, bureau spokesman Mike Testa said.

The $8 million figure for last year’s sales from the Jazz Festival accounts for spending on hotels, meals, retail, parking, gas and other expenses by both tourists and locals, Testa explained.

But if the experience of Steamers Coffee and Tea Exchange in Old Sacramento is any indication, the local economy may have received a significant boost from this year’s Jazz Fest. Steamers Manager Maddy Spitz said the café took in about $10,000 in revenue over the weekend, which is about three times as much revenue as a normal weekend for the restaurant.

About 10 years ago, Spitz recalls that more customers packed into the café during the Jazz Fest weekend. Business was not as busy at this year’s event as it was about a decade ago, but it was still better than an average weekend, she said.

Last year, the festival drew 65,000 people. Festival organizers attribute the dip in attendance last year to the rainy weather. In 2007, 70,000 people turned out for the event, according to festival organizers.

Hokum said Friday that pre-sale tickets for the festival were down a little bit from past years. However, festival organizers anticipated the troubled economy would cause a decline in pre-sale tickets, he said.

Despite the recession, John and Danielle McNamara are proof that the festival still has its regulars. The father and daughter from Citrus Heights lunched on paninis at Steamers Coffee and Tea Exchange in Old Sacramento Friday. The McNamara family has come to the festival for more than 10 years, John McNamara said.

Danielle McNamara, 30, wore the festival’s signature beads.

“We get beads every year,” her father said.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.