ALMS Attendance Figures?

[WMUCarGuy]

Is there anywhere I can find attendance figures for ALMS races? I searched around a bit and found them for a few races, but not much more info. Can anyone help?

[Graham Goodwin]

There are figures available via the ALMS marketing info - If you email their people and explain why you want/ need them you may get them reasonably easily

[Flyin Ryan]

Originally Posted by WMUCarGuy

Is there anywhere I can find attendance figures for ALMS races? I searched around a bit and found them for a few races, but not much more info. Can anyone help?

The last time I went to Petit I think it was about 75-80k announced.

[TWK]

Originally Posted by Flyin Ryan

The last time I went to Petit I think it was about 75-80k announced.

What year was that? It's well off the mark for 2008.

[Speed-King]

Originally Posted by TWK

What year was that? It's well off the mark for 2008.

I guess it all depends on if you go for the number of unique persons or for the imfamous "weekend numbers"....

[TWK]

Originally Posted by Speed-King

I guess it all depends on if you go for the number of unique persons or for the imfamous "weekend numbers"....

It depends on nothing. He said "announced," and there were Saturday at-track announcments of attendence at Road Atlanta in both 2007 and 2008.

The so called "infamous weekend numbers" are the same approach used by golf, NASCAR, Grand Am, IRL, and every other event that sells both multi-day and single-day tickets. That's because it's the accepted approach in determining exposure and thus a part of ROI to sponsorship in those kinds of events.

The track cares how many tickets were sold (that's your "unique persons" number). Everybody else, from vendors to teams to sponsors, cares how may "boots are on the ground" each day of the event. That's how you get to your "infamous weekend numbers."

I suppose they might care about your "unique persons," but they'd have to assume that those multi-day ticket-buyers (a large proportion of total attendence) would only eat and drink one day, only shop the vendors one day, and be blind to sponsors (and grid girls) all but a single day.

[WMUCarGuy]

Originally Posted by Flyin Ryan

The last time I went to Petit I think it was about 75-80k announced.

I think I saw a figure of 113,000 for Petit last year.

[deggis]

82,250 average per weekend mentioned here:

http://www.americanlemans.com/News/Article.aspx?ID=4552

113,000 for Petit:

http://www.americanlemans.com/News/Article.aspx?ID=4900

[TWK]

Originally Posted by WMUCarGuy

I think I saw a figure of 113,000 for Petit last year.

That was the official 2008 attendence. If you can remember where you saw it...

[TWK]

nt

[Flyin Ryan]

Originally Posted by TWK

What year was that? It's well off the mark for 2008.

It was either 2005 or 2006.

An Audi won. Does that help? :P

The so called "infamous weekend numbers" are the same approach used by golf, NASCAR, Grand Am, IRL, and every other event that sells both multi-day and single-day tickets. That's because it's the accepted approach in determining exposure and thus a part of ROI to sponsorship in those kinds of events.

Yeah, but it just looks ridiculous when Long Beach claims 250k and I can only see a quarter of those. "Who's sitting in the stands watching the race?". I hate attendance inflation in general. Like last November for instance, the New York Knicks were playing at the Memphis Grizzlies. One columnist at the game stated there were maybe 4000 legitimately in the stands. The announced was 10000. I know why they have the larger number, but an actual race attendance number would be nice.

[TWK]

Originally Posted by Flyin Ryan

It was either 2005 or 2006.

An Audi won. Does that help? :P



Yeah, but it just looks ridiculous when Long Beach claims 250k and I can only see a quarter of those. "Who's sitting in the stands watching the race?". I hate attendance inflation in general. Like last November for instance, the New York Knicks were playing at the Memphis Grizzlies. One columnist at the game stated there were maybe 4000 legitimately in the stands. The announced was 10000. I know why they have the larger number, but an actual race attendance number would be nice.

The Grizzlies game is a good example, actually, even though it happens for an entirely different reason. In the case of a sport with high season-ticket sales, the tendency is to add the season ticket base to the individual sales and announce the result as the attendence, ignoring the fact that losing teams will have a fairly high percent of "no shows."

In the case of multi-day events with multiple gates and traffic issues, it isn't very cost effective (because total attendance is more important, as I've mentioned) to try to count the individual daily entries. As a result, you get the sum-of-the-event number.

My observation is that the "headline race day" whether Saturday or Sunday, gets 50 - 70% of the total, though that varies greatly depending on the particular event. Combined events are difficult, but to their credit, ALMS has not claimed the entire Long Beach attendance, for instance.

Long Beach total attendance - from "official" sources - was said to be 170,000 in 2008. ALMS put its number at 105,000 at Long Beach. With Saturday being "pushed" in the past couple of years, the percent claimed by Sunday is likely at the low end of the range, 50% of the total (also reflected was the reduced interest in the dying Champ Car over the past few seasons). So, I'd allocate 85,000 to Sunday attendance, not the 65,000 that is reflected in the above two "announced" figures. That's IF you are going with "boots on the ground" as your measure, and would leave ALMS able to "claim" on the order of 85,000 for Friday and Saturday (and Thursday, remember they "added" a day of testing, and likely counted some attendance on that day...especially since it was free...).

But that's not really how its being done. Part of the calculation here is the large number of two-day tickets, which tend to "even out" the attendance for Saturday and Sunday...plus very low cost Friday attendance that pushes that day up. All-in-all the claimed figures are probably correct if based on an assumption that three-day ticket buyers attend three days, two-day attend two days, and so on. (That's now pretty close to the Memphis Grizzlies case, isn't it?)

Bottom line here is that the numbers exist. They are, however, not simple to decipher. (We haven't even mentioned "give aways," have we?)

[Kold]

Happy receipient of 5 give-away 3-day tickets for Long Beach 2008 last year : )