Demographics

[Mayhemxpc]

This is kind of sort of related to the survey threads, but I am more interested in the outcome rather than discussing the merits of this particular survey.

In particular I am interested in learning what kind of people come to Oshkosh. The first and most obvious questions include:

How many people actually come? It is not the 500,000 advertised.That number, as has been posted elsewhere, treats a single week pass as seven people attending. How many discrete human beings were in attendance? This is a little harder than just how many admissions were sold or distributed. Some people come for two or three days buying and individual ticket for each day.

How many of these people are pilots?

What is the make-up of the non-pilots? Categories might include family and friends of pilots; aviation enthusiasts (which can itself be broken down); non-pilot members of the aviation industry; and some category that would include people who are just there for the entertainment value, without any particular aviation interest. (Family and friends might be broken down into family who are aviation enthusiasts and those long suffering souls who just wanted to keep an eye on their pilot family member or who were otherwise dragged their against their will.

Age, sex, and distance traveled are also interesting.

Some of these are addressed in the survey. Some are not. There has to be an effort to get a good statistical sample of the survey, too. The survey takers know this, but having seen other surveys (and survey analysis) I know that such things are not necessarily given.

This is more than just idle curiosity. These numbers can provide a basis for aviation strategy -- a strategy to reach out to the public and ensure that we have an aviation future.

Maybe all of this information is already posted and I just don't know where to find it.

[BeagleOne]

Well, six of those people were me (I?), and my brother and his family counted for 28, since there are four of them and they each went all seven days.

I suppose one place to start would be to find out how many weekly passes were sold. Then, since you have to show a membership card to get the member rate, find out how many members bought individual day tickets and guest passes. That could probably be broken down further; how many members bought one day, two days, etc.

IDK how to break down non-member admissions. You might just have to count each of those passes sold as one person, even though some non-members go more than one day. IDK also how you'd get to the other information, unless everyone going through the gates was asked to fill out a short survey.

[Jim Rosenow]

To throw further confusion into the mix...my wife and I were apparently counted as 14 of those 500,000 folks, and should have been counted as only 8. We both bought weekly passes even tho we were only there for four days....not much more expensive, not sure of departure date, and easier to keep track of 1 band a piece.

Don't know that the data could be gathered, but it would be interesting to further break down attendees between hypothetical "I drove in for the day, brought my own food, and walked thru all the display buildings playing with knobs and asking what things were, dragging my six kids, before the airshow" and "I flew my Turbo Cessnanza Spitfire (that's ready for some upgrades), stayed at the Hilton, bought 4 ANR headsets and spent another $8K in the buildings ".

That sounds, and is, elitist of course. If you are a vendor which part of the public would you be interested in encouraging? Who has the greater potential to influence kids in the direction of aviation? Who should be the target demographic?

....and yes...I am deliberately picking provocatively extreme examples for the sake of discussion.

Jim
EAA 64315

[Bill Greenwood]

I go to football games in Austin which is 101,000 people. Well, actually about 90,000 people and often about 10,000 other primitives like Okies or Yankees.
And games in Boulder, maybe 45,000 or so.
Using these at some kind of reference, I would say the Oshkosh crowd during the day might be in that range, maybe 50,000 on up. Of course a week day may not be as full as Saturday.
It is somewhat hard to compare since the football crowd is compact and they announce the attendance and you know the stadium capacity and you can see about how many seats are filled. whereas with the aviation crowd it is so spread out over at least two miles from the North 40 parking and camping all the way south to ultraligthts and even beyond, not to mention a few thousand more who will be at the museum or Pioneer or seaplane base at any one time.

I have seen big crowds, a couple of hundred thousand at the 2nd march in Washington during the Vietnam War, and I don't think Osh has that many in one day.

One thing I like best about EAA/Oshkosh is that people from most all political segments and from many geographic and economic backgrounds are there to have a good time for the week, not to look for problems. One night, I who am a Democrat had dinner with 4 friends who are all conservative Republicans. We talked about airplanes, women ( two came over and joined us at our table) and telling the most awful jokes they could come up with. Everyone was interested in having fun, not blaming someone else for any problems.
We get one week of sanity at Oshkosh with people and things the way they ought to be, and then you go back to the other world where the worst part of human hatred comes out in Gaza, or with the shooting in Missouri, or kids at the border, or Ebola virus somewhere else, or Isis or whatever awful thing is out there.

PS for all the techno nerds out there, when we were at dinner and talking about departure weather for the next day, I was the only one who didn't pull out my cell phone to check the forecast. I felt like a atheist at the Vatican.

[martymayes]

Seems like a few yrs ago, EAA had a company estimate the number of people on the grounds from aerial photographs. That would give you a rough estimate of one-day attendance. Of course, no way to know how many of those were pilots, age, or how much sex they have (oh shucks, that wasn't the question, was it?) or how far they travel.
A survey would be a neat idea, maybe they could include in into the ticket package.

[frfly172]

As a start they could count the daily tickets and subtract the weekly sales for a rough idea. Would probably take a few more volunteers.

[Mayhemxpc]

In terms of how the data might be used, there is no one correct answer. The Gardix-Royal Avionics companies will look at one group while EAA aviation futurists will look at another. Both are importent to the growth or even continued future of the industry/avocation/inherent freedoms. AirVenture does not get enough in gate receipts to cover the cost of putting on the event. The balance (and more) is covered by sponsorships and pavilion rentals (and other sales) to make a net surplus. Ford is a huge sponsor. They have been open that, although Ford has always promoted aviation, what sells their sponsorship to its board is the demographic of people attending AirVenture, making them more likely to spend money on a new car. Everyone who attends AirVenture benefits from that sponsorship, not just those who might fall into the high disposable income, car buying bracket. The Young Eagles program (future of aviation) especially benefits.

The extreme examples are not provocative. They are critically important considerations.

PS: My family of five plus one friend counted for 6 weekly passes, so 42 people of the 500,000. Of these only one was a pilot. My wife, who in years past attended only to spend vacation time with her whole family, has since become very enthusiastic about attending. One reason she enjoyed it this year was the Teachers workshop day on Tuesday, which earned her CE credits. It really energized her for the rest of the week -- and beyond. That is another demographic! A note about the friend. Best friend of my oldest son (17 yrs old). Flew up with me and my oldest son as a Young Eagles flight. He was never much interested in aviation (or anything else much) before the trip. Since coming back from AirVenture he has become very enthusiastic and has been pestering his parents about continuing with the YE program and learning to fly. Again, each of these represents an important population we need to reach out to.