conventions - counting memberships

Many conventions like to post their membership numbers to show how big they are. This is also important when dealing with manufacturers and advertisers for prize support and ad rates. Most conventions also use very sketchy numbers about counting you.

If you attend a three-day convention on all three days, they often count you as three people towards their numbers. If you buy a weekend pass and only show up on two days, they would still count you as three people. Many conventions boasting 500+ memberships could really have less than 200 attendees using this method.

With Wincon, we always listed our attendance numbers as individual members. If you showed up all three days or only on Saturday, you were only counted as one. If you came on Saturday as a day pass and then came back on Sunday as a day pass, you still only counted as one person. This did make Wincon seem a bit smaller that some of the other conventions in the area but we didn’t feel that doing it any other way was giving an honest number. It also helped that we had highly competent people in charge of our registration process who were able to track people for day memberships.

So when you see conventions boast of their membership size, keep this in mind.