Bridge Blog 989-A: Buffalo Regional Attendance

Attendance was way down at the Buffalo Regional, Wiebe Hoogland, who’s a Unit 166 board member, remarks Friday afternoon when he comes to play East-West at our table at the Bridge Centre of Niagara in St. Catharines, Ont..

He says that to be successful, a regional tournament should attract 800 tables. Buffalo, he notes, only had 600-some. Perhaps it was the location. Wiebe says he doesn’t like coming to downtown Buffalo and much preferred the tournaments in the former Grand Island Holiday Inn.

I suggest that it might have been hurt because it was so close to the Niagara Falls Regional. They’re only three weeks apart. It may have cut down on Canadian attendance. Wiebe thinks so, too.

The Falls regional is held only every second year and it used to be that the Buffalo tournament sometimes took place in June to avoid it. That was before Betty Metz, who runs the Buffalo tournament, went for a permanent October date.

So let’s go to the archives and look at attendance.

Oct. 2017 – 628 tables. Sunday Swiss – 41 tables.

Oct. 2016 – 718 tables. Sunday Swiss – 43 tables.

Oct. 2015 – 699 tables. Sunday Swiss – 41 tables.

Oct. 2014 – (Hamburg Fairgrounds). 671 tables. Sunday Swiss – 45 tables.

June 2013 – (Last year at Grand Island Holiday Inn). 886 tables. Sunday Swiss – 48 tables.

Oct. 2012 – 1,092 tables. Sunday Swiss – 67 tables.

Oct. 2011 – 918 tables. Sunday Swiss – 56 tables.

Oct. 2010 – 1,021 tables. Sunday Swiss – 62 tables.

Oct. 2009 – 1,047 tables. Sunday Swiss – 62 tables.

June 2008 – 1,032 tables. Sunday Swiss – 59 tables.

Oct. 2007 – 953 tables. Sunday Swiss – 71 tables.

March 2006 – No table total. Sunday Swiss – 51 tables.

And while we’re at it, let’s look at Niagara Falls.

Nov. 2015 – 1,094 tables. Sunday Swiss – 63 tables.

Nov. 2013 – 1,177 tables. Sunday Swiss – 76 tables.

Nov. 2011 – 1,001 tables. Sunday Swiss – 70 tables.

Nov. 2008 – 1,274 tables. Sunday Swiss – 81 tables.

Nov. 2006 – 1,255 tables. Sunday Swiss – 94 tables.