attendance numbers are not 100% linked to staff numbers as far as judging the smoothness of an operation.

I concur, which is why I split the hair I did above.

And, yeah, this con could have a much smaller staff ratio, but... I think Arisians tend to do a lot more work than is really necessary in most departments, and that by and large we do it 'cause we like doing it. If the various professionals who make Arisia happen billed out at their usual hourly rates (i.e, the money we could be making if we didn't spend all our time on this) it'd be well over a million dollars.

We overwork ourselves because we like it.