I AM FREAKING OUT!!!! Ok I'll try pasting the entire thing again (by the way, it looks fine until I actually click submit):
In 2003 53 out of 200 conventions were foreign language, that’s 26.5%.
In 2004 68 out of 211 conventions were foreign language, that’s 32%.
In 2005 74 out of 227 conventions were foreign language, that’s 32.5%.
In 2006 92 out of 266 conventions are foreign language, that’s 34.5% (12 of the convention sites are WTS owned facilities)
Overall convention growth breaks out like this:
2004 had 5% more conventions that 2003.
2005 had 7% more conventions than 2004.
2006 has 15% more conventions than 2005.
Since the US growth has been negligible over the past several years we can surmise that more convention doesn’t mean more publishers/attendees.
It would appear (although I didn’t do the actual check) that smaller and smaller venues are being chosen which results in the same overall attendance but more dates, more dates provide the society bragging rights about the number of conventions held.
The number of foreign language conventions growth:
2004 had 12% more foreign language conventions than 2003.
2005 had 8% more foreign language conventions than 2004.
2006 has 20% more foreign language conventions than 2005.
The number of foreign language conventions is increasing faster than the number of English conventions.
I don’t know what all this means but these are the numbers. Surely someone can draw some conclusions from them.