[Accrs] 2018 Fair attendance and donations

[Alameda County Central Railroad Society]

Well, the 2018 Alameda County Fair is in the can.  
 
A review of the statistics for donations reveals this year’sperformance was second only to that of the year 2000, both in dollars anddollars per visitor.  I’ll give aquantitative report at the next business meeting.  Since the 2000 record, donations began a longperiod of decline that only began to improve in dollars four years ago and in$/visitor two years ago.  This year’s $/visitorwas nineteen percent better than last year—a very significant improvement.  Such a change begs the question—Why?  
 
At the welcome desk I have heard speculation regarding this phenomenonof donation improvement, so I will add my opinions here.  This year the donations collected in the boxat the back door were almost a quarter of all donations.  In contrast, the amount collected there inpast years, when it was counted separately, was less than ten percent.  That in its self would account for about halfof the donation improvement.  I believethere are two reasons for that increase: 1. the scavenger hunt, and  2. the big sign there drawing attention to thedonation box.  In addition to the above,I believe the strong national economy has added discretionary spending money tothe visitors.
 
Visitor attendance, on the other hand, was lack luster.  In the last ten years, it was the secondlowest at 47,031.  It was only 144 morethan last year.  Our busiest day thisyear had 3,970 visitors.  A few yearsago, that many visitors in a single day was not unusual.  I believe the record was 6,258 set in2015.  I called the Fair office today toget their attendance number.  Their preliminarynumber is 426,000+.  That puts ourattendance at 11.0% of the Fair attendance—not a significant improvement.  I noticed that our percentage dropped two percentagepoints coincident with the placement of retail booths around our front door in2016.  The opinion of the Fair personnela couple years ago that the booths would improve our visibility has provedfalse.


John Kolberg
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