"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
ups.com...
If both
admissions and camping fees are in "Registrations" -- as true in the
early years -- their
attendance claims are off more yet!

It's interesting. Although I've noticed some decline in attendance at
OSH over the years, I didn't think it was so steep.

With the demise of the WWII and Korean War vets, we've lost a HUGE
chunk of EAA (and pilots in general), yet strangely (IMHO) the biggest
drop in attendance has been in the weekend airshow crowd.

I've attended every OSH convention since '83 (drove into 16, flew into
9), and remember when the airshow crowd was MUCH larger -- there were
years when you couldn't approach the flight line after noon, with
everyone staking out good spots.

You still go to the airshow? I got burned out on the airshow itself several
years ago because so many of the acts are essentially clones, and I've seen
'em a dozen times anyway. At both SnF and Osh, I look at the schedule of
performers and if I don't see an act I really want to see, I use the time to
shop the booths and take a look at exhibits which


Now, it's tight around show center, but you can walk right up to the
line simply by walking several hundred yards south. That was simply
not possible in the past.

I was attributing this drop to the fact that the grounds themselves
have grown so huge that the crowd is more diffuse, but apparently it's
a deeper problem. Of course, all you have to do is look at the "Gone
West" page in the EAA mag to see that they're losing something like 50
members per MONTH to the Grim Reaper -- and we all know that kids
aren't jumping into flying like they used to...

The North 40 camping attendance was still strong this year, but (as
previously noted in other threads) the "2nd Wave" that usually arrives
mid-week (to take the place of the early-departers) was way down.
Dunno if that was due to weather, or other factors.

It certainly was in our case. There was a system that essentially cordoned
off everything from 100 miles East of Chicago to a couple hundred miles West
of the city. In addition, it looked like there was a good chance of rain at
Osh itself. I imagine the prospect of flying through very marginal weather
to get to a potentially rainy airshow was too much for many of the late week
folks.

KB


And, of course, the all-important vendors/exhibitors seemed to be busy
as always, often to the point of grid-lock. When *that* starts to go
away, you'll see AirVenture start to die...
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"