Quick plug for a previous thread I did at the end of 2017 making predictions about IFPA growth in 2018. Forecasting IFPA Tournament Growth: Is There a Fee Effect?. In a nutshell, I used a forecasting model to predict what 2018 should look like, based on growth from previous years.
Here are the observed and predicted events so far.
It is too early to talk about march, because TD’s have until 30 days after an event to submit results. There are still many events from march that have yet to be submitted.
For january and february, here are the observed and predicted events. I’ve included 2017 for comparison.
In January, we saw 337 tournaments, which was an improvement over 2017, but a bit shy of the predicted 363. In February, we saw 335 events, which was a drop from 2017. However, note that this drop was predicted by the forecasting model. This was because SCS finals was moved from February to January. Indeed, 335 was only about 9.5 events shy of the predicted number of events.
In sum, there doesn’t appear to be a fee effect.