Past Conventions

HOW WE COUNT ATTENDANCE

There are many different ways of reporting convention attendance numbers, and every convention reports theirs differently. Our totals are based on: weekend badges, VIP badges, Friday badges, Saturday badges, and Sunday badges. All numbers include both pre-registration and on-site registration for adults and children over six. (Children six and under get in free, so they’re not included in our paid attendance totals.)

Unique attendance numbers represent the number of distinct individuals that pay to attend the convention. To reach this number, each badge sold is counted once, regardless of badge type or how many days the person attended. This is our preferred way to view attendance and is the basis for our official attendance numbers.

Turnstile attendance numbers represent the number of times attendees likely visit the convention. To reach this number, weekend and VIP badges are counted three times each and day badges are counted once each. We’re not fans of turnstile counts because they artificially inflate attendance numbers, but we present it here for completeness and for the sake of comparison to other shows that only provide turnstile numbers.

These numbers are not a “warm body” count. They don’t include artists, guests, industry, panelists, performers, photographers, press, staff members, vendors, or volunteers. Those groups of people are necessary to make COAF what it is, and they amount to a few hundred people each year. But we feel the best measure of a con’s success is the number of people who pay to attend the show, not how many badges we can give away—even if that means our attendance numbers don’t look as big compared to some other cons.