Regional Convention Attendance (page 9)

Journeyman

More attendance reports via Reddit (from the Share Your Convention Attendance thread over there).
Most people posting over there just put the numbers showing up but without context, but a few had some more detail:

CANADA

Edmonton, Alberta - 9,461 on Friday and 10,462 in Saturday, 10,681 on Sunday.

"This sounds like alot (sic) but there isn’t one in Saskatchewan at all. Everyone there got assigned to travel to Edmonton. My parents live in Saskatchewan and they always use to have 4-5,000, in the 80’s it was closer to 6-7,000 people, now they merged two provinces into one."

SWEDEN

"Just got out of the convention in Malmö Sweden. Reported attendance on Sunday was 8647. Pre-covid at the same venue I remember attendance numbers peaking well over 9000. 58 were baptized. Mostly born in teens seemingly but a couple of converts aswell (sic)."

Vidiot

Saskatchewan merged with Alberta?

Damn.

HTF so they spin that?

Journeyman

I know! In terms of distance, that's almost the equivalent of assigning the whole of England to one venue!

As someone who lives in the UK (which is only about 500 miles by 300 miles in size) distances across the USA and Canada blow my mind. It's no wonder so many Witnesses in those countries resent all the Hall closures.

road to nowhere

Journeyman

I getcthe impression the assignments for things requiring travel are done by densely populated eastern US based fools who have no concept of the rest of the US. I have seen circuits with a mountain pass ( impossible in winter) in the middle. Routine assignment of conventions in " "just " the next state, a mere 600 miles

Journeyman

Another weekend has rolled by, which means another set of conventions. Anyone have any updated experiences from their area?

I see Kim & Mikey have posted a YT update on the subject of convention attendances. I'm not going to link here or say any more as I know they post here so I don't want to steal their thunder if they want to post, but if you haven't seen it and are interested, head over there!

JWTom

Road to Nowhere

There is a midwest assembly hall that has for years had people assigned to it from great distances away for one and one reason only. To spread the cost of maintaining it across a wider group of people. They would routinely assign people to it that would need to make a 3-6 hour drive for a circuit assembly. It truly was insanity and I never had to attend it.....but just heard the stories.

Journeyman

A couple more RC attendance updates from the "My report from the 'trying my patience' DC" thread:

nowwhat? reports attendance at the Cleveland, OH, USA:

Pre covid attendance was always 7k+ this year 4500.

iloowy.goowy at Amhest, MA, USA:

Pre-covid there would have been over 5k in attendance but this past weekend barely 3k showed up, even on Sunday.

Journeyman

So the 'flagship' UK conventions at London's Excel convention centre and Wembley arena are happening this weekend (18th-20th) and next (25th-27th).

Any PIMOs attending either location in the next fortnight, let us know what the attendance and baptisms are!
And any other useful observations too. Will there be fewer volunteers and/or attendants, with more having to work longer shifts? Will there be any visible difference in the quality of the organisation? What will the general atmosphere be like - buzzing (because it's the first one for several years) or flat (because everyone's tired now)?

Excel has been used before so it will be good to compare stats with pre-COVID years.

I think this is the first year they're using Wembley arena though, so it will be harder to assess any decline so easily from those numbers, but I looked online and saw the venue holds 12,500 people so it will be interesting to see how many seats go unused. I don't know how many circuits are assigned there, but my guess is that the org would not book a venue unless they hope to fill it at least 75%, so they're probably anticipating around 9-10,000 minimum?

Incidentally, I notice that there is The Big London Tattoo Show at Excel on the second weekend - at the same time as the JW convention. That should be funny to see the two different audiences mixing on the concourse! 🤣

smiddy3

I notice that there is The Big London Tattoo Show at Excel on the second weekend - at the same time as the JW convention.

No prize for guessing which one I would be attending if I lived nearby.

How about you ?

Edit to say :

I would appreciate it if some Aussie could provide some info on how attendances are going with conventions here compared to what took place in the past ?

Anyone ?

Gorb

The elderly jw stay at home here, for streaming their best ever convention.

G.

Regional Convention Attendance

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