Attendance at DragonCon 2009

[redneckotaku.livejournal.com]

I have noticed no one has asked this question.  What was the official paid attendance at Dragon Con 2009?  How is that number arrived at?  Some cons (Anime Expo for example) count a four day attendee as four people attending (turnstile count).  As someone who has run a registration at a con before and am interested in this stuff (will never figure out why), I was wondering these things.

Comments

[astralfire.livejournal.com]

Official attendance 35k
Dragon*Con does NOT use the "turnstile count" counting method, and each membership is only counted once.

[kneadtoknow.livejournal.com]

That's a drop from last year, isn't it?

[wolfchylde.livejournal.com]

If it is, it's not a very large one. I recall attendance figures were somewhere in that mid-30k range last year.

Of course upping the admission prices was undoubtedly going to have some impact on attendance figures. Though I don't think it's in D*C's best interest to report actual figures if they come out to be higher than they were insured for, either...

[jackob.livejournal.com]

Only 35k official?

I heard numbers as large as 75k unofficial mentioned (though that seemed excessive).

[astralfire.livejournal.com]

Sorry anyone saying 75k is just guessing. Dragon*Con did not print that many badges, and unsold badges were returned to the office.

[nightwing22dg.livejournal.com]

I was told pre-reg was in the 40,000 range and a record year for pre-reg by an artist in the art room. Don't know how he heard the figure though.

[vernard.livejournal.com]

Pre-Reg is officially defined as "Non-TicketMaster purchases that were purchased prior to the closing of the Main Dragon Con office before the Con".

There were < 15,000 of them this year.

I do not officially speak for DragonCon but I am one of those poor bastards that works registration damned near every hour its open.

[craftypug.livejournal.com]

I heard it said that numbers were around 50K. Given the lines, the crowds in the dealers room, exhibit rooms, walk of fame and just in general I could believe numbers in the neighborhood of 50K.

50K seems more believable than 35K. 35K is the official number quoted for the past few years. The crowds seem to grow every year. How can the crowds grow, lines grow longer (three hours for registration alone?) and even with four hotels a person was faced with huge crowds.

75K not hardly. 35K? Would be surprised. 40k to 50K I can believe.