Dateline: 10-02-2007

2007 in Review - Attendance / Demographics / Hotel Occupancy

Attendance

Attendance was up again in 2007, continuing ourtrend of slow, steady growth.

Here’s a more detailed breakdown, showing trends over the past four conventions:

	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008
Total Registrations:	2,086	2,353	2,505	2,665
Pre-registrations:	1,525	1,647	1,791	1,889	1,009
At-the-door:	561	706	714	776
Warm Body Count:	2,014	2,308	2,434	2,549

It should be noted that the number of pre-registrations taken at the 2007 convention for our 2008 convention (1,009) is up significantly from last year’s equivalent pre-registrations (840). Is this indicative of a greater awareness of our speacial Year 10, 4-day convention plans resulting in more people pre-registering, or will we see a spike in actual registration/attendance nubmers? Only time will tell...

Demographics

Normally we present our demographic breakdown for the convention in this section. This year we have looked at the data, carefully analyzed it and determined that it really doesn't present an accurate picture of our convention.

Survey responses were down quite a bit this year. Less than 10% of convention attendees took the time to return one. That means our confidence interval is almost 7%, which means our results could be 7% higher or lower than the results we could have presented.

As an example, our data showed that only 1% of our attendees were 25 or younger. Anyone walking around the convention would agree that number seems extremely low. A visual survey of the convention would suggest that the convention attendance is getting younger but our survey data is showing the exact opposite.

While we can't be certain the data is wrong, we lack confidence in the results and think they present an inaccurate picture of the convention. We are looking at reasons why our survey returns dropped this year and also at ways we can ensure we reach a larger cross section of the convention.

Sheraton Bloomington Hotel Occupancy

Our 2007 stay at the Sheraton Bloomington Hotel saw us close once again to filling the hotel on Friday night, and we hit that mark on Saturday!

Owing to a long-term contract the Sheraton has signed with United Airlines, we were not able to fill every room they have - 25 rooms are perpetually reserved for use by the hotel itself. This leaves 534 rooms for use by CONvergence.

We fell a little short of the fill on Friday, occupying only 510 rooms. But Saturday saw a dramatic increase, and we in fact occupied all 534 room available to us on that date. Needless to say the Sheraton folks are quite pleased, and as always, overjoyed and excited to host CONvergence. Our actual stay amounted to this:

For 2008 we hope to totally fill all 534 rooms on both nights. To that end we will be tweaking the room assignment process just slightly, designed to ensure that we achieve this goal. As in previous years, we currently have no formal agreement with any other near-by hotel as an overflow facility. Should we succeed in filling the Sheraton, we feel certain close-by hotels will accommodate our attendees.

Thanks to all who choose CONvergence!