HOW MANY PEOPLE HAVE BEEN TO BURNINGMAN?

P-Mobius · Post by **P-Mobius** » Tue Mar 23, 2004 7:17 pm

what is the more or less official statistic on this one?

im referring to the sum total over the event"s entire history.
cant count the same person twice.

there were about 30,000 people last year
has there been a consistent ration of returnees to newbies and what is that?
i think about 3/4 of all burners have been before--but there may be no way to know this stat and it changes from year to year

my estimate is that there are only about 100,000 burners in the world, which is not that much---much less than a large scale rock festival, or even a big game at the rose bowl...

but i dont know

what do you think and if you know for real--please tell

III · Post by **III** » Tue Mar 23, 2004 7:25 pm

>>consistent ratio

I BELIEVE IT"S BEEN STEADY AND PRETTY CLOSE TO 50%. GROWTH WAS ABOUT 40% A YEAR UP UNTIL 2000, AND THEN IT LEVELED OUT. A ROUGH BACK OF THE ENVELOPE CALCULATION PUTS TOTAL EVER ATTENDANCE AT SOMEWHERE AROUND 200,000. (PROBABLY GIVE OR TAKE 20%).

III · Post by **III** » Tue Mar 23, 2004 7:29 pm

>>there may be no way to know this stat and it changes from year to year

OH YEAH - THIS IS ONE OF THE QUESTIONS ALWAYS ASKED BY THE BRMOS, WHICH IS WHERE I REMEMBERED THE NUMBERS FROM. LOOKING AT THEIR ARCHIVES, IT SEEMS TO BE CONSISTANTLY BETWEEN 45-55%.

http://www.dcn.davis.ca.us/~mos/

precipitate · Post by **precipitate** » Tue Mar 23, 2004 8:26 pm

WHY ARE YOU YELLING AT US?

III · Post by **III** » Tue Mar 23, 2004 8:31 pm

WHO ME?

I'M JUST FOLLOWING PRECEDENT.

P-Mobius · Post by **P-Mobius** » Thu Mar 25, 2004 11:51 am

hey thanks for the info--
200,000 huh?
so i underestimated---hmmm
on one hand thats alot of people, on the other hand hardly

ciao

unjonharley · Post by **unjonharley** » Sun Mar 28, 2004 3:00 pm

P-Mobius wrote:hey thanks for the info--
200,000 huh?
so i underestimated---hmmm
on one hand thats alot of people, on the other hand hardly

ciao

/
Always wash your hands after handling people. You don't know where they've been.

rodent · Post by **rodent** » Sun Mar 28, 2004 3:18 pm

3

only 3 people have been to BM, III, parcipitate and Badger. All the media hype, the entire website, it's all been a cruel and complex prank to fool you. Even most of the accounts on this board are socks to pump up the lie.

---
rodent (putting the eek in geek)

III · Post by **III** » Sun Mar 28, 2004 11:25 pm

the really silly part of that, of course, is that p & i still haven't met badger. we're always so busy building they hype that we never get around to it.

III · Post by **III** » Sun Mar 28, 2004 11:26 pm

come to think of it, i've never actually seen p while i was at burning man either.

it's a lot of work keeping all those puppets going...

robotland · Post by **robotland** » Mon Mar 29, 2004 6:02 am

...Who's that guy in the hat that I briefly glimpsed behind the giant green firebreathing head?

alienfry · Post by **alienfry** » Mon Mar 29, 2004 12:37 pm

burner diaspora.

Bob · Post by **Bob** » Wed Mar 31, 2004 12:06 am

Estimated attendance: http://www.burningman.com/whatisburning ... eline.html

MOS' sampling is said to have been biased toward first-year attendees.

Burning Man's own survey in 2001 presented results which I can only describe as irreproducible.

III · Post by **III** » Wed Mar 31, 2004 7:56 am

ouch - that'd be a lot funnier if it was meant to be...

theCryptofishist · Post by **theCryptofishist** » Wed Mar 31, 2004 11:11 am

rodent wrote: Even most of the accounts on this board are socks to pump up the lie.
)

This sock is dirty and misses its mate. Plus there's a hole in the toe.

P.S. No one's alllowed to say "where all the sense leaked out."

dragonfly Jafe · Post by **dragonfly Jafe** » Wed Mar 31, 2004 2:54 pm

[quote="Bob"]
Burning Man's own survey in 2001 presented results which I can only describe as irreproducible.

What am I missing here? What is irreproducible about the 2001 data? Jafe

scotto · Post by **scotto** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 7:08 am

According to stats from the BLM:

http://www.nv.blm.gov/Winnemucca/recrea ... m03-ea.pdf

Post by **AntiM** » Sat Apr 17, 2004 4:43 pm

Using the chart and assuming everyone goes back every year, you can estimate how many newbies there are each year. Add the newbie numbers and the first year together you get about 30,000. Of course the logic is faulty, some folks never go back and others skip years. The biggest single jump in numbers was from 1998 to 1999, I got 9,100 alleged newbies counted that year. It falls off sharply after that, even by percetage of growth figures.

My math skills are horrible, so fire away.

what year did the website begin? has on-line access changed attendance? I know that's how I found out about burning man, had never knowingly met a burner prior to showing up at the front gate.

Anti M

Bob · Post by **Bob** » Mon Apr 19, 2004 6:14 pm

AntiM wrote:....My math skills are horrible, so fire away.

Don't confuse math with statistics.

....what year did the website begin?....

Archive of the current domain:
http://web.archive.org/web/*/www.burningman.com
Previous websites don't seem to be cached.

Post by **AntiM** » Tue Apr 20, 2004 7:13 am

Righto ... my statistics skills are even worse than my math skills. And I supposedly have studied statistics. Struggled through a poorly taught course more like ...

Given the raw data on attendance, one could make many different claims. I've always feared "raw data."

Simply: there are more burning man attendees now than there were in the past. I think that is accurate.

wishy-washily,
Anti m
(correlation is not causation)

theCryptofishist · Post by **theCryptofishist** » Tue Apr 20, 2004 8:52 am

AntiM wrote:I've always feared "raw data."

And with today's modern E coli who can blame you?

III · Post by **III** » Tue Apr 20, 2004 9:51 am

>>correlation is not causation

the only other useful thing to remember from statistics is

"it'd be really weird if nothing weird ever happened"

dragonfly Jafe · Post by **dragonfly Jafe** » Fri Apr 23, 2004 8:44 am

Burning Man's own survey in 2001 presented results which I can only describe as irreproducible.

So the BLM data and the official website data track pretty closely (although the website data is about 10% lower than BLM). The survey results appear to be completely different. If over-enthusiastic-newbies (OEN's) responded more than jaded old timers (JOT's), a reasonable theory proposed by others, then this would explain the results. I know I filled out the survey my first year, but ignored it all on later years.

regards, Jafe

technopatra · Post by **technopatra** » Fri Apr 23, 2004 9:00 am

Bob wrote: Burning Man's own survey in 2001 presented results which I can only describe as irreproducible.

Ack. Somehow the intro paragraph for the survey results was left out. There were about 2500 respondents as I recollect, which would make the first chart understandable.

The second one just plain bites, tho. We did a much better job with the 2003 Census, which will be published with the 2003 AfterBurn very soon.

Bob · Post by **Bob** » Fri Apr 23, 2004 11:44 am

It's all rather complex.

Nobody really kept track before '97 or '98, which is why in the Timeline on the main website you see very round numbers suddenly changing to five sig figs.

Results from MOS were biased toward newbie responses, and I'd imagine BM's results would have been biased toward newbies, staff & their friends, and people who read the JRS more closely than others, leaving out people less interested in official activities or joining in survey responses.

The best estimates could probably be derived from comparing ticket & mailing list records from year to year, and checking against the "official" Gate/helicopter census and a small-scale, more representative survey on the playa. Part of the mission of a BM survey is feedback from those interested in giving it, which is a bias in itself. But I'm neither a statistician nor a PR flack, so I'm probably talking out of my ass.

Apollonaris Zeus · Post by **Apollonaris Zeus** » Wed May 26, 2004 8:30 pm

Not Enough and way too many.

A II Z

HOW MANY PEOPLE HAVE BEEN TO BURNINGMAN?

HOW MANY PEOPLE HAVE BEEN TO BURNINGMAN?

147,750 since 1990...

how many burners on the head of a pin?

Re: how many burners on the head of a pin?

stat!

Re: stat!