AirVenture 2019: Facts and Figures

It's weird though. If you but a 6 day pass they count it as 6 visits. I think they are passing the scorecard
 
At my fly in. 1 ticket 1 visit.
As a cfi you should know this kind of stuff
But lots of multi day events track total attendance as each person every day they were there. Like at a motorcycle race they may report 100,000 attendance for a 3 day weekend.
Half of that may be the Sunday races and the rest are attendance on fri and sat
 
It's weird though. If you but a 6 day pass they count it as 6 visits. I think they are passing the scorecard

In defense of the EAA, if you count how many people were there each day, and then multiplied it by the number of days, it does add up.

But you are correct that there are not 642,000 unique visitors.
 
It certainly didn't feel as busy as past year.

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I think MLB counts TV crew, concession employees, etc. as part of attendance so maybe it's how they track massive shows
 
I think it only makes sense to count one ticket per day as one visit and a 6 day ticket would count as 6 visits.

If I had a 6 day fly in and 6 people came for one day each (1 per day) that would be completely different than if all 6 people came all 6 days.
 
I hope to boost that number by 2 in 2020. I've never been. My wife was less than enthused when I asked her the other day to go with me next year. Since today is our 32nd anniversary she said she'd go with me next year as my anniversary present.
 
It certainly didn't feel as busy as past year.

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I had the opposite impression. Every line seemed to be longer and the buses were almost always standing room only. The line for the seaplane base tour was about 1.25 hours long. They might have had one less boat than last year(I cant remember), but last year I was able to walk right up and get on the next boat.
 
Do they count average aircraft movements only during the time the field is open? Seems like that number could go up significantly if you take out the hours the field is closed to arrivals and departures.
 
So help me make sense of this: "More than 10,000 aircraft arrived at Wittman Regional Airport in Oshkosh and other airports in east-central Wisconsin. At Wittman alone, there were 16,807 aircraft operations in the 11-day period from July 19-29". If more than 10,000 arrived, but there were only 16,807 operations, that must mean that over 3,000 planes must not have departed after arriving. What am I missing here?
 
At my fly in. 1 ticket 1 visit.
That would be the Bry-In, right? :)

A great experience this year...after we got on the ground. We missed the heavy storms on Saturday/Sunday and got in Sunday afternoon and secured a camping spot with good drainage. But it was tense getting in, with very tight spacing on base/final to 36L. When the controller's voice goes up a full octave, and he sounds more like an auctioneer than ATC, you know it's hectic!!
 
It's weird though. If you but a 6 day pass they count it as 6 visits. I think they are passing the scorecard

When they announce the attendance at a baseball game, do they announce the number of asses in seats? Or the number of asses in seats minus the number of season ticket holders?

This is the same.
 
So help me make sense of this: "More than 10,000 aircraft arrived at Wittman Regional Airport in Oshkosh and other airports in east-central Wisconsin. At Wittman alone, there were 16,807 aircraft operations in the 11-day period from July 19-29". If more than 10,000 arrived, but there were only 16,807 operations, that must mean that over 3,000 planes must not have departed after arriving. What am I missing here?

That's why the aircraft camping had to be expanded recently. Every year about 3000 airplanes get left behind. They constantly have to make space for more.
 
So help me make sense of this: "More than 10,000 aircraft arrived at Wittman Regional Airport in Oshkosh and other airports in east-central Wisconsin. At Wittman alone, there were 16,807 aircraft operations in the 11-day period from July 19-29". If more than 10,000 arrived, but there were only 16,807 operations, that must mean that over 3,000 planes must not have departed after arriving. What am I missing here?
10,000 in multiple airports, so not all are at Wittman. Some arrive before or leave after, and still others are flying demo flights constantly out of Wittman or another airport.
 
So help me make sense of this: "More than 10,000 aircraft arrived at Wittman Regional Airport in Oshkosh and other airports in east-central Wisconsin. At Wittman alone, there were 16,807 aircraft operations in the 11-day period from July 19-29". If more than 10,000 arrived, but there were only 16,807 operations, that must mean that over 3,000 planes must not have departed after arriving. What am I missing here?

Does that include multiple landings and takeoffs of one plane, like the Bell Helicopter, Ford Trimotor, and daily air shows?

And maybe some were trailered in, lol.
 
I hope to boost that number by 2 in 2020. I've never been. My wife was less than enthused when I asked her the other day to go with me next year. Since today is our 32nd anniversary she said she'd go with me next year as my anniversary present.
Never been! That’s crazy. I’m planning next year as well. 2020 has a good ring to it.
 
Some thoughts while I was there...

This thing could continue to grow both in real estate and temporally if the resources were found.
There is a limitation of space at Osh, but to pick this up and move it to a place with a 1000 more acres seems implausible.
There is enough interest I think that the show could double in length and they would have good attendance (but there was a volunteer shortage this year, so that means hiring people and a higher admittance price)
I estimated there were 1800 seminars/forum/talks!
Would love to be a fly on the wall during their policy-making or event planning.
 
This year was my 2nd fly-in and camp, we came in toward the end of the show arriving Thursday and left on Saturday. We parked in the experimental area, it seemed to me that there were fewer planes in that section this year than last at the same time. However maybe I was just in awe the whole time last year ;-)

I think the EAA does a great job in general hosting a massive event like this, I'm impressed with how organized and the shear number of people working there. And everyone is so friendly. My hats off to everyone involved.
 
Been five days since I landed back home....and loved every minute of it.

I make a point of visiting every booth in the hangers. That was how I picked out my new panel last year (Garmin - I know - zero surprise, but at least I did seriously look at every alternative).

One thing that I noticed - Epic aircraft had a huge presence in the middle of the field and had zero lookers. Beautiful airplanes, but no interest?

Attended some great forums. Mike Bush was great. John and Martha King were hilarious. They are two of the most professional speakers in any field that I have ever seen. I was kind of surprised at their "live act" how good it was.

Very few attendees take advantage of the forums and seminars. I think I attended around 8 events and really gained alot of knowledge.

Air show was always great every day.
 
10,000 in multiple airports, so not all are at Wittman. Some arrive before or leave after, and still others are flying demo flights constantly out of Wittman or another airport.
Ah, that's the part I missed - "and other airports in east-central Wisconsin." I need to read complete sentences.
 
One thing that I noticed - Epic aircraft had a huge presence in the middle of the field and had zero lookers. Beautiful airplanes, but no interest?.

I first went in 2015. Epic had the same large presence and certification was just around the corner. Four years later and there is little changed from the customer’s perspective. I wish them well but I think it will take actual deliveries to rekindle interest. Unfortunately, I think they may have missed the economic cycle due to certification delays.
 
Finally came home today. Our 37th consecutive Oshkosh is in the books! Here's the synopsis:

* 2,180 nautical miles

* 2,509 statute (regular) miles

* 7 stops along the way. (Springdale, AR; Monroe, WI; Oshkosh, WI; West Bend, WI; Racine, WI; Mountain Home, AR; New Braunfels, TX)

* 14.4 hours flight time (includes an enormous amount of taxi time on Oshkosh!)

* Average speed 150.3 knots (174 mph)

* 14 bars visited.

* HOPS Party a resounding success. No Wednesday t-storms, for the first time in years.

* Countless beers (and a few "old fashions") consumed.

* Lake perch consumed on FIVE occasions!

* Many, many wonderful friends and family seen along the way!

What a trip! Only 353 days till OSH '20! We will be counting the days.
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It certainly didn't feel as busy as past year.

What?!? I've been going for the last 15 years straight, and this year was noticeably larger than any previous year. The South 40 has grown, Scholler had a whole new section and was much fuller out at the extreme edges. Lines were longer, airshow crowds were more crowded, Fond du Lac looked to have grown to the size of Sun 'n' Fun... There was more room available at the show than ever before, yet all places were more crowded as well.

Do they count average aircraft movements only during the time the field is open? Seems like that number could go up significantly if you take out the hours the field is closed to arrivals and departures.

Yeah, I've tried to calculate that several different ways and it never comes out with their number. The time period they talked about (July 19-29) has the field open for 117 total hours, which would be an average of 144/hour. And the 29th (Monday after the show) has very few operations.

The busiest day of the show is around 400 operations per hour... The other busiest airports in the world average about 100 per hour on their busiest days. That seems like a much more impressive stat. I'd also like to know how many they clear out on Sunday after the airshow is done!

Does that include multiple landings and takeoffs of one plane, like the Bell Helicopter, Ford Trimotor, and daily air shows?

The Mooney accounted for six operations. :)

There is enough interest I think that the show could double in length and they would have good attendance (but there was a volunteer shortage this year, so that means hiring people and a higher admittance price)

Not to mention, they'd probably lose a fair number of vendors. The booths are already expensive, and would need to cost more to support a show that's twice as long... But it's expensive to pay your employees for that length of time too, and it's very difficult on them to work the show as it is. It's incredibly tiring.

I sure wish it lasted longer. You'd need 6-8 weeks to see it all, unfortunately... And the best part is seeing friends, and making it longer would probably mean that more people would only be there part of the time, making it less likely you'd see your buds.

One thing that I noticed - Epic aircraft had a huge presence in the middle of the field and had zero lookers. Beautiful airplanes, but no interest?

Well, they've been around for quite a while now, and they always seem to be on the verge of certification... But nothing has changed. The Epic LT has been out since 2004 and became available for purchase as a kit in 2006. They were already in certification testing at that point, yet they've still not certified a single airplane, 13 years later. It's kind of hard to get excited about at this point, since it seems Cessna's Denali is likely to be certified first and suck up a lot of the market.

John and Martha King were hilarious. They are two of the most professional speakers in any field that I have ever seen. I was kind of surprised at their "live act" how good it was.

And they're some of the nicest people you'll ever meet, too.
 
Attendance: Approximately 642,000 — 6.8 percent above 2018’s record total.
Economic impact*: $170 million for the five counties in the Oshkosh region (Winnebago, Outagamie, Fond du Lac, Calumet, and Brown)

170,000,000/642,000=$265 a person.
 
At least two, actually, that I witnessed. May have been more, I didn't have my head outside the building for most of the week.
hey....thank you for your service. Could you work on providing more of a variety in food choices? Same carny food at each stand. The Mechanic's shop had some different stuff....but most served the same stuff.

And...the air shows were lacking...not sure what was up with that....but, there were huge gaps between acts. Something was a miss there.....

I stayed off field....so I didn't have any of the concerns with the showers that some were barking about....
 
Attendance: Approximately 642,000 — 6.8 percent above 2018’s record total.
Economic impact*: $170 million for the five counties in the Oshkosh region (Winnebago, Outagamie, Fond du Lac, Calumet, and Brown)

170,000,000/642,000=$265 a person.
Seems too low. Times 4 for me. My share of a motel room $300, entry to the show $144, food $200, rental car share $100, Avgas $225, souvenirs $50.
 
Remember the Airventure attendance numbers are PER DAY. So if you buy multiple day's wristbands, you count as distinct visitors for each day. If you bought a weekly band, you count as seven.
Of course, some of us had weekly wristbands and didn't pay for them nor did we pay any lodging.
 
How many licensed pilots were there? I've heard that it's less than 5%.

That 5% licensed pilot number is still higher than the percentage of people flying airplanes in Alaska.

This was my 4th year. I think there were more people. The bus lines were crazy and I did not get the sense that there were fewer buses.
 
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