I would like to see a gender graph. It won’t be perfect since I know a few ladies that haven’t registered their accounts. I will be attending, but not interested in playing in Pinburgh.
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Someone can do a very un-scientific headcount based off of these Women of Pinburgh group photos (2017–top + 2018–below) Add +1 to the 2018 group because I was late to the photoshoot. 
To add to your unscientific data, there were also two separate pictures taken in 2017; here’s the second one (sorry if it’s weird and squashed, I’m not good at computer today):
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Add 1 to 2018. I wasn’t in the photo.
We cancel each other out, since I’m in the photo but not playing.
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Yeah, this will be my fourth Pinburgh and I’m not in any of those photos. I am far too all over the place to plan to show up for a photo, and I imagine a lot of other peeps are as well. Gonna keep it elusive AF in 2019 too!
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One might hypthosize though, that the market you describe is probably already saturated though. Or… that the growth in the event can’t really be made up substantially by some lack of local representation in the past… that somehow swelled into it now. Tracking people’s States would give an interesting view of this, especially over 2-3 events I think.
But ancedotally, I think most people would tell you that the event is already dominated by out of towners. I do notice when editing the list the number of PPL affiliations (including PPL people who were on the 'no IFPA id list…) but even if it were 80+ people… +20-30-50 people doesn’t account for the growth in the hundreds.
And this is the question that actually drove some of this initial analysis from me. Is it pinburgh getting a better attach rate? or is it pinball growth in general? I think an interesting twist to look at will be to take the group of low event players… and look at the states they are from. That should be easy to do in the data.
My theory on this is… as long as the investment is low… people as a whole… simply don’t care. You can get a total noob to pay $5 or $10 for a casual tournament… they see it as a simple admission fee for entertainment. Ask people to pay $100… they see it differently and need to ‘justify’ it for themselves. Pinburgh does that with the format of 2 days of play and the generous payouts. Most people do not have expectations of getting ahead from pinburgh payouts. Even getting a few hundred dollars, most people know they are spending way more than that to be there.
Pinburgh differentiates itself with its high payouts… but I doubt that really moves the needle for people who passed on pinburgh before, but are going now. Those who think they could come out ahead, already were chasing the competitive angle to begin with. Big payouts just make it an easier pill to swallow.
I think the hype train around the event probably drives it more than potentials for winning.
These are great survey type questions for replay 
FX in general skews 33% female, if that helps. I don’t have specific Pinburgh data handy, but I know Pinburgh alone skews more male than the overall show.
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I can’t speak for pinball growth in general, but I can tell you that I answer a generally constant stream of e-mails from people who are either old pinball players finding the game again or new players who are just getting interested for the first time because they heard something about the show. The progression usually starts with the larger show, then progresses to my showing them the videos, and then progresses to answering questions about competitive pinball / IFPA, and finally ends up with me answering angry e-mails because they didn’t get into Pinburgh after talking to me about it for months.
Also, I just saw this topic for the first time. If you ever have data questions, you’re far more likely to get an answer if you e-mail me directly through the website rather than tagging here. I usually have way too much on my plate to check in here regularly, but I can say this is usually the only pinball website I will actually check.
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Youtube analytics for PAPA videos are 97% male with a pretty standard age bell curve that peaks at around 33 years old.
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Also, just for kicks, people have spent a combined 65 years watching PAPA videos.
Top countries in order are:
USA
Canada
Germany
Sweden
UK
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A very unscientific count of women registered (by my guess at the first name, so +/- my assumptions) says a little over 10% of the folks currently on the 2019 list are women.
Also I’m not in any 2018 photos and I was there and am a woman.
I’m not sure that any growth plots based on any specific demographic are going to be all that useful, given the land-rush and somewhat random nature of registering. Lots of people who want to be in aren’t, and growth spikes amongst any given demo could just be attributed to the randomness of who clicks better. If we could add in the waitlist that would be better since it captures everyone expressing interest.
I think an interesting comparison, if possible, would be demo-bucketed growth of the show itself vs. all Pinburgh interested parties (actual players plus waitlist).
The ‘race’ isn’t really that big of a factor in the demographics because the ‘race’ affects all demographics pretty consistently. It’s not like MD people have a better shot than a CA person. The fact it randomizes is in its favor. So statistically it should be pretty inert.
Second… the ‘race’ doesn’t change that the same is still hundreds bigger than last time.
And third… the waitlist is in the dataset now
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Thats my brother!!! Although he plays in league around here once in a while…our both first tournaments was the 2014 Pinburgh…I became obsessed…he didn’t…lol
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