totient: (arisia)
phi ([personal profile] totient) wrote2011-01-05 05:49 pm

more data

Arisia registration figures are pointing to a con of around 2900 or perhaps 3000 people. This is squarely in the middle of a strange no-man's land: there's very little data about how conventions of this size work. Boskone went directly from a 2700 person con in the Park Plaza in 1984 -- something the dynamics of which Arisia understands intimately -- to the largest SF convention in the world, and already too big for its new and bigger hotel, in a single year (1985). Minicon likewise skipped over 3000 as an attendance figure, and found (as Boskone did) that a 3300 person con is very different to run from a 2000-2500 person one.

I'm sure everyone will fit in our enormous new hotel, but I'm really quite curious to find out which things will be the same and which will be different at that number, because almost no one has done it before.

And I'm glad that we still have a membership cap, even if it's higher than it was before.

Scale

[identity profile] zzbottom.livejournal.com 2011-01-05 11:19 pm (UTC)(link)
Just to have an appreciation, because I haven't attended any other con besides Arisia, what were the registration numbers for the Hyatt and Park Plaza?

Re: Scale

[identity profile] palmwiz.livejournal.com 2011-01-06 01:20 am (UTC)(link)
Oh, right! We've been in the 2000-2500 range for almost a decade now. The last few years this has been constrained by the capacity of the Hyatt -- not so much that we've turned people away, though we've done a little of that and a lot of threatening to, so much as that they have fled. There's quite a population of people who've been waiting for an Arisia they can attend without feeling quite so crowded.

Re: Scale

[identity profile] shayde.livejournal.com 2011-01-06 01:21 am (UTC)(link)
It depends on what year you're looking at - but it generally hovered around 2300.

Re: Scale

[identity profile] londo.livejournal.com 2011-01-06 01:51 am (UTC)(link)
I thought our record for attendance was set in the Hyatt regardless of it being tiny?

Re: Scale

[identity profile] palmwiz.livejournal.com 2011-01-06 04:48 am (UTC)(link)
Yes, indeed, though there was a con nearly as big in the PP, and it wasn't nearly so crowded.