History

For increased transparency, we report attendance for in-person events in three ways:

(1) Paid regular attendees

This method counts paid regular attendees, and also VIP members.

All paid attendees are counted, whether or not the person picked up their badge.

(2) Total paid members

This method counts all paid regular attendees (method #1 above), and also adds exhibitors and artists, who pay for their spot in the KumoriMarket (Exhibitor Area, Artist Alley, and Small Press).

(3) Total badgeholders (a.k.a. "warm body count")

This method counts all of the above, and all other badge types, including staff (all staff are volunteers), panelists, guests of honor, industry, and press.

However, this differs from methods #1 and #2, in that for all membership types, it only includes people who actually picked up their badges.

Did Kumoricon change how it reports attendance?

For most of Kumoricon's history, we only reported numbers using method #1 (paid regular attendees). To provide additional information, we updated our website in August 2018 to report numbers using all three methods. At this time, we did not change our policy for how we count paid regular attendees.

When we started reporting using these additional counting methods, we were able to recompute exact numbers for the previous two convention years (back to 2016) based on our membership database. Numbers for years prior to 2016 are estimates based on information in our publication materials. Estimates are rounded to the nearest 50 and marked with the * symbol.

Based on recomputation from our membership database, some of the "paid regular attendees" numbers from 2012 to 2016 varied slightly due to greater precision in our record-keeping and counting programming—however, our policy for this counting method did not change. You can compare our most up-to-date, accurate numbers reported above with previous numbers we reported using our website archive's snapshot of the 2017 page.

Are these numbers "turnstile" numbers?

No. For all three counting methods we report, we count unique individuals. This means that each person is counted no more than once, even if they attended more than one day (or all days) of the convention.

Some types of conferences or events report "turnstile" attendance numbers, which means that if a person buys a full-event badge for a three-day conference, they count three times in the attendance figures. Kumoricon, like almost all other anime conventions, does not report using "turnstile" numbers in its primary attendance reports.

(Prior to 2012, there is a rare exception to this, which we believe has only a negligible impact on the reported numbers: In the rare case that a person buys two separate single-day badges, they may have been double-counted, due to not being tracked under the same badge. Almost all of our attendees who attend for more than one day buy a weekend membership, in which this double-counting does not occur. Our newer software avoids duplicate counting for years 2012 and later because it identifies repeat single-day badge purchases as the same person.)

Staff are listed in a separate column. Does this mean that staff are not counted in the attendance number?

Staff are not counted in the attendance number for the "paid regular attendees" or "total paid members" counting methods. Staff are only counted in the "total badgeholders" counting method (a.k.a. "warm body count").

How is attendance for online events (DigiKumo) reported?

The attendees column includes all registered attendees except staff. For "pay what you want" events, all registered attendees are counted, regardless of donation choice.