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 Previous: FCC Amateur Radio Enforcement Letters for the Period Ending January 4, 2007 |  Next: FCC Presses Two Utilities to Resolve Power Line Noise Complaints |
By Barry A. Goldblatt, WA5KXX
January 8, 2007
Ham-Com, the "Biggest Hamfest in Texas" traces its roots back to the 1960s. In 1978, a small group of hams in Dallas decided to invest their own money to build a "ham radio convention." In 2003, Ham-Com celebrated its 25th anniversary. The event has fulfilled the original goal of the founders, gained national recognition and hosted the ARRL national convention on three occasions.
Nearly 4,000 people filled the Plano Center's 86,000 square-foot facility during Ham-Com 2006. [Photo by WA5KXX] |
James Alderman, KF5WT, adds a Ham-Com flavor to the Boy Scout "One-day Radio Merit Badge Program. [Photo by WA5KXX] |
What's Important to Attendees [Larger image] |
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The first Ham-Coms were held at a hotel in Dallas and, as attendance grew, the event was moved to the Arlington Convention Center. The move was a big improvement and helped attendance grow from a few thousand to as many as 7,000 in the mid-1990s. The change of location allowed the organizers to increase the scope of the event to include a bigger tailgate market, more flea market tables, guest speakers, workshops and special interest group meetings. The efforts of Don Smith, W5DS; Maury Guzick, W5IO; and others helped successfully shape the event during the period from 1980 through 2003.
So what's changed? Ham-Com, like everything else, has been impacted by the Internet. In my opinion, that impact is more positive than negative. The Ham-Com web site, www.hamcom.org, has grown from a few pages to a fully interactive system that provides up-to-date news about the event, online admission sales, program lists, presenter biographies, venue layouts, maps, classified ads, hundreds of digital photographs from previous events and the full-color "Ham-Com Flyer." In 2005 and 2006, the web site received over 159,000 visitors each year. Visitors viewed an average of six pages, making the total number of "page hits" just over one million. The web site was visited by hams from 80 countries before, during and after the event.
The "Ham-Com Flyer" has changed, too. Early versions were printed newspaper-style designed for mailing and as hand-outs at the event. As printing and mailing costs increased it became evident that this would have to change. In 2004, the "Ham-Com Flyer" (38 pp) became an Adobe Acrobat™ PDF document that could be downloaded or printed via the Internet. The flyer contains complete event information including maps, venue layouts, schedules, special interest group information, presentation details and presenter biographies. It was downloaded over 48,000 times in 2006, and many attendees brought their copies to the event.
Over the past several years, event planners placed heavy emphasis on continuing education and youth events. The Ham-Com Board of Directors made the decision in 2004 to attract more high-quality presentations and increase the number of youngsters at the event. Those efforts paid off. The Programs Director, John Beadles, N5OOM, and his team scheduled over 100 hours of speakers, workshops and special interest group meetings in 2004, 2005 and 2006. Many of these presentations included the use of video projectors and computers with high-speed Internet access. The result was classrooms full of hams eager to learn about the latest innovations in Amateur Radio.
Speaking of innovation...in 2004, Larry Pollock, NB5X, of the W5YI-VEC came up with an idea to implement "same-day" call sign returns for Ham-Com VE sessions. New hams who received their CSCEs on Friday received their calls signs before the end of the day.
Also in 2004, a team consisting of Frank Krizan, KR1ZAN; Richard Phillips, KB5YBQ; and James Alderman, KF5WT, developed an innovative one-day program for the Boy Scout Radio Merit badge. Over 100 scouts received their badge in one day at the 2004 and 2005 events. The 2006 event added another 87 badges to the growing count. A number of the scouts who participated in those classes have since become Amateur Radio operators.
In 2006, Ham-Com made presentation materials in various formats (PowerPoint, Word, and PDF) available via the web site. So far, there have been over 2,000 downloads.
In 2007, plans are underway to videotape as many presentations as possible and make them available in RealPlayer™ format via the web site.
Going up! Increases in prices for everything from gasoline to venue rental forced the Ham-Com Board of Directors to re-think how they would produce the 2006 event. The problem was made even more acute when the management at the Arlington Convention Center announced that there were no available dates in June 2006 for Ham-Com. The only choice was to move the event back to May or forward to July or August. Neither choice was a good one--May is too close to the Dayton Hamvention and July in Texas is extremely hot. The board looked at several other venues and decided to move the event to the Plano Centre in Plano, TX. Costs at the old venue had been escalating for several years, and it seemed to make sense to change to a new location if we could lower costs. By 2005, the cost of producing Ham-Com exceeded $30,000, and there was a definite need to reduce admission, commercial exhibitor and vendor costs. Parking fees, which had long been a big source of complaints from attendees over the years disappeared plus food prices and hotel room rates were markedly lower in Plano.
So why do you need a report card if you're not in school? It's an interesting question and one that only an event planner can truly appreciate. Having been the event chairman since 2004, I felt it very important to establish some sort of metrics. After all, you can't fix something if you don't know there is a problem. Frankly, I was concerned that with a change of venue, economic factors, high fuel prices and cycle 23 at low ebb, attendance might be affected. Establishing a baseline could prove very beneficial in the long term. The challenge was whether or not we could measure the dynamics of a very diverse group of people who come together once a year for a number of varied activities under a single umbrella.
The statesman, Benjamin Disraeli, once said that there are "Lies, damned lies and statistics!" With that in mind and not being either a mathematician or a statistician, I turned to an Internet site that provided the ability to build an online survey that could be made available to event attendees. It also graphed the results and delivered a full report on responses as well as the raw data. The cost: Under ten dollars!
The first Ham-Com attendee survey with 20 questions went online immediately after the 2004 event. Nearly 500 people, about 10% of total attendance, took part in the survey. According to John Fullingim, WN5PFI, a Dallas ham who earns his living as a professional marketing and branding consultant, that number represents an excellent sample. The results proved very interesting and provided insights as to how we were doing with regard to planning and executing the event. A similar survey was used after the 2005 event, and it, too, provided interesting results. The Ham-Com Board of Directors used the results from 2004 and 2005 surveys to improve the event.
In 2006, John volunteered to help improve the survey and provide professional interpretation of the results. The Ham-Com Board of Directors was extremely pleased that someone who engaged in statistical analysis for a living was interested in what we were doing and thought that it was valuable. John added things that he knew would result in even more valuable insights than we had been able to glean from the previous surveys. The 32-question survey went online about a week after the 2006 event. This time, nearly 400 people, or about 10% of the attendees, took part. Complete results are available on the web site at www.hamcom.org.
"The important numbers," according to John, "really boil down to responses in four distinct areas. They are: overall attendee satisfaction, the likelihood of the attendee to return, underlying drivers for satisfaction and things that might motivate the attendee to return."
John thinks that the telling number for attendees who are "very satisfied" with the event is quite high at 66%. The group in the "not at all satisfied" category is only 10%--a number that falls far below the norms that statisticians expect for this type of event. In fact, the results are, according to John, "enormously positive, especially coming from a group of people who typically have strong opinions."
Will they come back? Arguably, that is the most important question to be answered. The survey showed that 74% of the respondents place themselves in the "very likely to return" category and only 4% are "unlikely to return." John, WN5PFI, says that "statistically speaking, 74% is an amazing number for any event."
What's driving satisfaction at Ham-Com? Apparently, quite a few things. The numbers indicate that the single most important driver of attendee satisfaction for Ham-Com 2006 appears to be the change of venue. In fact, the single most important driver overall appears to be the change of venue. That also turns out to be a significant motivator for people to attend the upcoming event in 2007. Other significant motivators include: the ability to learn about new developments in Amateur Radio, the improved tailgate market, the tabletop flea market, guest speakers and special interest group meetings. All of these things seem to be at work motivating hams to return to Ham-Com.
What about the rest of the survey questions? One of the things that the Ham-Com Board of Directors is concerned about is the number of "first-timers." That number appears to fairly consistent from 2004-2006 at around seven to eight percent but needs to increase.
Ham-Com obviously has an extremely loyal following. Several respondents reported that they attended their first Ham-Com in 1975, and the average number of events attended over the years by all respondents is nine.
Getting the word out is important! We learned that over 60% received information about Ham-Com via e-mail (that number has been increasing since we first charted it in 2004). A little over 17% received a postcard in the mail and 31% got information about the event via a club web site or newsletter. The numbers add up to more than 100%, which indicates that many attendees received information about the event from multiple sources. This is probably due to the fact that more than 50 clubs and organizations carry information about Ham-Com in their newsletter or on their web site.
Where do they all come from? Over 26% came from 200 miles or more, 16% from greater than 50 miles. The balance come from the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex which has a very large concentration of hams. Plano and Collin County are home to nearly 2,000 licensed Amateur Radio operators. Two clubs in Collin County, the McKinney Amateur Radio Club (MARC) and the Plano Amateur Radio Klub (PARK), provide year-round support for the event.
What's important to attendees? Workshops and special interest group meetings are obviously very important to the event according to 55% of the respondents. That number has remained consistent throughout the surveys from 2004-2006. Meeting old friends was listed as "very important" to 74% of the respondents.
And, it's not surprising that 83% of the respondents feel that commercial exhibitors and vendors are an important part of the event. That is coupled with 73% of the survey respondents who came to Ham-Com 2006 looking for a specific item and purchased it. We should also add that just over 52% of the respondents said that they spent more than one day at Ham-Com 2006. The event has its share of "hamfest marines," but many people stick around to experience more than just the tailgate and flea markets.
The questions that we asked about the tailgate and flea markets show that a majority of the respondents sold at least one item and that they considered their participation in those activities a reasonable use of their time and money.
So, how does it all add up? Change is inevitable and Ham-Com, like other hamfests around the U.S., will have to adapt to a wobbly economy and shifting demographics. Now that we have a better idea about what attendees want, we're able to deliver a high-quality event that will keep people coming back year after year. The last statistic says it all: Over 90% of the hams who responded to the survey said that Ham-Com 2006 provided value "equal to or greater than the cost of admission." I only wish my high school report cards had been this good...
| Previous: FCC Amateur Radio Enforcement Letters for the Period Ending January 4, 2007 | Next: FCC Presses Two Utilities to Resolve Power Line Noise Complaints |
