Last updated on April 18th, 2019 at 03:50 pm
Record Attendance at Phoenix ComiCon 2016!
Crazy Numbers!
The following press release is a little “Inside Baseball” with all the numbers and how they calculated them, but basically LOTS of people at Phoenix ComiCon this year!
Yes, it was HOT, but…
It was really a great time and the Hometown Geek team didn’t personally encounter major crowds except one time when they were getting ready to first open up the Exhibitor Hall downstairs and there was a little bit of mayhem and controlled chaos in front of the escalators. It also really helped that we drove to Phoenix on Wednesday night and were ready for action on Thursday.
Phoenix ComiCon will never be as huge as San Diego Comic Con and the Hometown Geeks, for one, like it that way. Phoenix ComiCon has its own style and charm and great, quality guests; it’s gotten better every year.
We would love to hear your experiences and how you enjoyed this year’s ‘Con so comment away down below!
P.S. we’ve been a tad slower on getting all our ComiCon coverage out to you all, but don’t worry – all our videos, articles, and podcasts are heading your way! Sign up for our newsletter to be the first to know when we post something new from Phoenix ComiCon!
The record summer temperatures during Phoenix Comicon brought record attendance. For the first time we will be reporting our numbers in two ways: Unique and Daily Attendance.
The first is our UNIQUE attendance count, which we have always reported. This is the number of people who attended during the entirety of our show, with each person counting once. Thus someone who purchased a full event badge is counted as one. This unique number counts all persons including paid and complimentary attendance, exhibitors, guests, volunteers, panelists, professionals, media, along with our sidekick and children attendance. It does not count any Convention Center staff, personnel, security, police, or EMTs who are hired to support the show.
The second number we are reporting is our DAILY ATTENDANCE count, which determines how many people are attending each specific day, and then adds those numbers together. This is typically the number the Phoenix Convention Center reports, and is also the number reported by most other pop culture conventions across the country. Our methodology to arrive at this number is to count the number of single day passes sold and provided complimentary. We then utilize a percentage of full event passes sold and provided complimentary that attend each day. This percentage derives from two years of attendee survey data “I purchased or utilized the following badge type” and “I attended the following days of con”. The percentage for each day is consistent over two years of survey data, and the average of two years is applied to the number of full event passes paid or provided complimentary to arrive at the count that attended each day. Our daily attendance count also includes exhibitors, guests, volunteers, and media counted in full for each day and panelists, professionals, sidekick and children attendance counted using the percentage method.
Determine daily attendance counts is notoriously difficult for any facility or event such as ours that allows flow in and out traffic. It’s simply a tool and guideline and should only be treated as such.
We’re providing both numbers to offer more transparency within this industry. We have found over the years that many shows report numbers without any further background provided as to their methodology of counting, and well, we like specific numbers and knowing the methods used to count attendance.
Comparisons will be made to San Diego Comic Con (or other shows) with our attendance numbers. We are not as large as San Diego Comic Con nor will we ever be. The San Diego Convention Center is larger than the Phoenix Convention Center, and the San Diego downtown area has more hotel rooms than does the Phoenix downtown area which allows them to host more attendees.
To the best of our knowledge the attendance reported for San Diego Comic Con of 140,000 is daily attendance. As they sell only single day passes I would put their unique attendance considerably higher, possibly in the 300,000 to 400,000 range. It is unknown if their attendance count is solely attendees or counts other groups such as exhibitors or volunteers as well. That SDCC handles the attendance they do every year with very little incident confirms for me that they really are the gold standard of pop culture conventions.
We are happy to report that 2016 featured record attendance at Phoenix Comicon with a unique attendance of 106,096 and a daily attendance total of 216,219.
