So Why is Indy a Small Showing?

Indy is not a small showing. Here's a graph of the data Jayhawk posted above. To my eye, it looks like attendance has been pretty stable over the last 25 years, albeit with a lot of variance. The mean attendance from 1989-2013 is 1702 (standard deviation 259). The pink line represents the mean over the 25 year period. As you can see, attendance this year, at 1636, is pretty close to the mean.7391 Wow, I've been out-geeked. I thought I was doing pretty good to figure out how to insert a table into a post. Didn't think of graphing or statistical analysis. :drink:

That's saying something! Perhaps Swimosaur should be invited to join the prestigious ranks of the top ten recorders. I'm way ahead of you. Already recruited him. Southeastern LMSC. Oh, the dangers of exposing your geekness on the forums....

Over 2000 participants three times, all of those three locations are within 15 miles. All in the largest LMSC by far with the best organization and most clubs, just north of the second largest LMSC. Indy is in a medium sized LMSC surrounded by medium to small LMSCs. The diehards will travel anywhere, but most attendance is going to be locals.

I agree with the posts about locals driving attendance (generally), but the Arizona meets (unless you consider Southern Pacific "local") don't seem to match that trend. I wonder how much the 'vacation' / locale attractiveness drive attendance? If I think back to my reasons for going to Clovis, for example, it was primarily to vacation in Yosemite. The other interesting thing I note in the list is that, with all the swimming prowess at the USA swimming level in the mid-Atlantic, we have had no SCY Nationals in the DC to NYC area. I know there have been LCM nats in Baltimore and Rutgers, but wonder why an NYC area team/pool has never bid on an SCY Nationals? I imagine the Greensboro 'relative proximity' to the mid-Atlantic and northeast also drove those numbers higher. Looking ahead to 2014, we have LCM Nationals back in the Mid-Atlantic, but they'll be 'competing' with Worlds in Montreal. I imagine Maryland Nationals will be more lightly attended, but Santa Clara for SCY should be large again (despite the pool being shallow and dated, IMHO ... storied and famous and I'll still be there, but there are better choices of pools in the SF area).

Clovis was my first, and so far, only, USMS Nats. Plenty of warm up and cool down space, even with Genadijus occupying a lane or two with his swim metrics testing. This was also the meet where FloSwimming videotaped every heat of every event.

Same is true about the Clovis meet (1582). Loved the Clovis meet! I just thought Indy would be huge due to the Midwest location. Also thought everyone should love that pool as much as I do! And lastly, I was sure he 6th event would be dropped and now regretting my choices.

Forgot to mention the amazing Gold Medal Sponsor spread at Clovis. One of the best!

Looking ahead to 2014, we have LCM Nationals back in the Mid-Atlantic, but they'll be 'competing' with Worlds in Montreal. Not for me; I'm going to both! :banana: After Worlds, we are going to travel up to Quebec City and back to Montreal, and then fly on to Baltimore for Nationals at the University of Maryland. :ohyeah:

Same is true about the Clovis meet (1582). True enough. That still goes to show that most entries are local, since so many easterners on these forums made loud proclamations that they would not go because it wasn't worth it somehow. Maybe they thought they were in jeopardy of being scalped by indian war parties. Those of us in the west know that hardly ever happens anymore.

I loved Clovis nationals, it was lightly attended but it was outdoors with nice weather and there was an insane amount of space for warmups. Often I had a lane to myself for pre-event warmups and could do some good pace work. Even the pre-meet warmups weren't too crowded since there was something like 40 SC lanes available. People who DO go to Indy this nationals are probably in for a similar treat; enjoy.