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When news that the Salt Lake City FanX last weekend claimed to be the third largest comic con in the US came out earlier this week, there was some questioning by some veteran con observers of whether this number was accurate, given the number of people shown in photos. I reached out to the show runner Dan Farr to ask how the attendance number was arrived at, and he graciously replied:

Thanks for reaching out to me about this. I know there is always a lot of questions around how different events count attendee numbers. We based our numbers on estimated individuals not the turnstyle number (counting people each time they come). We had about 60-70K ticketed attendees (in Sept we had just over 50K ticketed) and then we added the number of non-ticketed free kids that we estimated at .5 per adult ticket. That was the same formula we used in Sept last year so either way it was clearly significant growth over the past 6 months. We had over 400,000 square feet of exhibit space plus 115,000 square feet of indoor ticketing area which was double the floor space we had in Sept. We also had around 50 – 75K  square feet of meeting space for our panels etc. 

So there you go, the number is an estimate, not a ticket count, but it is a consistent estimate with with the previous show in Salt Lake City. I appreciate Farr’s honesty in stating how this number was reached. Clearly there were a LOT of people at the event, whether you think the #3 claim is deserved or not.

I also asked Farr about the PR statement that the SLCC Facebook page had a reach of 2.5 million when it has just over 92,000 likes. He replied:

The reach of 2.5 million is based on the Facebook analytic numbers about how many people saw our posts during the week of the event.

So there you go…some weird FB metric I won’t even go into.

I notice that Awesome Con in Washington DC has claimed attendance of 40,000 and to be honest, their photos look even less like that number. Once again, I’m sure this was a great and successful event however the numbers were derived.

Once again, we’ve been seeing a lot of wishful thinking/porky pies* over the years on con attendance, and we’ll only see more of that as the business gets bigger. I would entreat show runners to stick as close to the truth as they can. An aura of flim-flammery and undue hype will hurt this still-rising event category more than it will help.

[Photo from the SLCC FB page, of the FanX volunteers.]

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Well it’s seems the Salt Lake City con hits its goal with 100,00 attendees, according to a press release. That would make it the third biggest show in the US. Show Runner Dan Farr is very bullish on the show:

“I still feel really strongly that we haven’t even tapped but a small percentage of the potential market of attendees that would have a good time here,” he said. “People can see ads or they can see messages on Facebook or they can see billboards or whatever it may be, but until they really experience it, you have a hard time really knowing what an event is like. Once you have more people experience it, they’re going to tell more of their friends … what they missed out on.”

Salt City’s first con was held last fall, and this was a second show on the schedule. The next one in September will add even more space and expand to the rest of the downtown area. The event had a big focus on nerdlebirties—Star Trek, Nathan Fillion, Karl Urban—and it seems to have delivered a great experience for fans.

Last year’s show has a lot of crowding and fire marshall problems, but those were solved this time out:

Greg Gage, who manned the booth for his Sugar House store, Black Cat Comics, loved seeing how happy everyone was. He remembers how, during the first Salt Lake Comic Con, some people had to wait three hours to get into the building, and were met with discouragingly dense crowds once they did.

But this year, the organizers doubled the floor space and, as far as Gage saw, managed the lines much better this time compared to last.

“People could move in and out, there were no traffic jams of cattle like in September,” Gage said. “They came in and were a little more ready to have fun.”

Last year’s event drew either 50,000 or 80,000—both numbers were reported—so this is a big leap> and yes, I heard from a few folks who thought the 100K number was a bit inflated. I reached out to Farr to find out how they counted attendees, and will report any response. Some shows count one ticket as one person, some one ticket on one day as a person, so it varies.

But…what ya gonna do? There isn’t a Better Business Bureau to monitor comic-cons. Inflated attendance has been part of the game for a long time, and with cons becoming big business, numbers are going to get more spectacular…and with that should come greater scrutiny. Looking at the above video and photos of the show it certainly looks crowded and fun, but not necessarily 100,000 strong. I don’t mean to throw shade on what was obviously a good time for everybody, but I’ve talked to many many show runners and been to many many cons. I’ve been talking to the SD folks and the ReedPOP people for years, and the show growth they’ve gradually reported seemed to jibe with what people experienced on the ground.

However many people attended the show, it’s clear that Salt Lake City is a great market for a comic-con.

92,057

https://www.facebook.com/SaltLakeComicCon

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