I thought I would share with those who maybe involved with planning of the games both inside and outside of the athletic area.

I did a survey at my games.  Both the survey and the way it was taken had minor flaws but overall the data should produce useful info.

Used greed to get people to take the survey by giving them a chance at a drawing for a broadsword (my own).

Asked what three areas held the most interest and least interest and gave them a list of areas within my games.

Most interest

Piping ................. 17%
Athletics ............... 14
Shopping/Vending ... 11
Celtic Food ............ 9
Dance ................... 8
Sheep Herding......... 6
Dog Agility.............. 6
Main Music Stage..... 4
and others.....

I found it very interesting that piping was at the top and dance was much lower (I believe it is a function of its location at my games).  I was not surprised by Vending/Shopping or Celtic/Ethnic Food.

The survey takers where suppose to move about the grounds and take surveys at various locations but ended up taking the surveys in a fixed location which somewhat skewed results.

Least interest areas was very age dependent with children's/family activities, workshops, and noon parade leading the way.  Over 35% stated they found nothing least-interesting, which makes many on the committee happy.

I had similar complaint a few years a go, which was solved by an extending lunch break -- now the vendors are happy as they get flooded with people leaving the athletics area (vendors are between athletics and food).

Vendors can be a difficult lot, they want a certain location but not near certain other vendors, they would like the number of competing vendors limited, ..... All of which is natural since they are looking to maximize their income. 

They are also a great resource. When a games get a good bunch and keep them happy, they become very loyal to that games. They travel over a region and can become your eyes and ears on what is going on. They give warning s on many issues, some protect your games as well as their income, others are out of purely loyal. They are diffidently something not to ignore.

Overall, I would not wager on the percentages my survey revealed but feel that the survey captured the top areas of my games. 

The main reason I posted the results to the (somewhat flawed) survey is to begin to show some of the complexity of what draws people to a Highland Games.  Perhaps to also educate those who may hold a simplistic and chauvinistic if not persistent view that athletics is the biggest draw and very little else matters. 

I hold a holistic view of the games: The games is a three legged stool of piping, dance, and athletics competition/demos which provide the ethnic atmosphere to draw in paying customers.  Throw in an Entertainment Tent to draw in those outside of the Scottish/Celtic community and add the various other venues to build a complete family entertainment package.

The top venues are consistent no matter how the data is slice and dice for various groups of games patrons (by age groups, with or without kids, gender, the always flawed income category, ... ).  Athletics, piping, vendors, ... are always near the top but other areas (children's activities, workshops, animals, ethnic food, .....) become more or less important depending on the group.

For what it is worth, here is some details:

Kids: people with kids had slightly more interest in athletics then those without kids.

Internet Usage: people who did not visited the games website had more interest in athletics than those who did.

Gender: males had more interest in athletics than females

Age: interest in athletics declined steadily with age, until the 60+ age group who had more interest than the 50-59 age group

Income (always questionable category): Under $30K and 50-75K in income had more interest in athletics than other groups. People with income >75K had the least interest.

people with >75K of income had most interest in piping. (hmmm can money buy taste?)

In Metro area/outside of metro area: those in metro area had more interest in athletics than those from outside of metro area

Those who found athletics interesting also found (in decreasing order) piping (17%), shopping (11%), celtic food (10%), sheep herding (8%), dance competition (7.5%), and dog agility (6%) interesting.

Mark,

Maybe we could come up with a survey that we could all use at our games.. so it is consist across the board. I would like to see what Alma, Saline, and Detroit survey states and maybe this will give the A.D and executive committee board into changing the venue.

Just a thought

A survey of highland games in scotland taken by Dundee university about ten years back produced the following results.

The vast majority attended the games to watch the "TARTAN EVENTS" ie pipe bands, highland dancers and heavy events.

Over 72% of the people attending were tourists. and most arrived between 1.00 and 1.30 pm and most left between 4.00 and 4.30 pm

Of all the heavy events the caber was most popular followed by the 56lb weight for height then the scots hammer.

Twelve games were surveyed (both amateur and professional) from Forres in the north to Peebles in the borders, and the results were as follows.

EVENTS AND FACILITYS IN ORDER OF POPULARITY

 Heavy events

massed pipe bands

highland dancing

Tug o war

Refreshment tents

Grass track cycle racing

Solo Pipeing

Hill race (where applicable)

Road race (where applicable)

Trade stands

Track and field athletics

Displays of a various nature   ie parachute jumps,martial arts,line dancers ect.

When asked what they least liked about the games a large number, 41% said the toilet facilitys were either too few or not up to an acceptable standard (especially the ladies toilets) and that sometimes the coach parks were too far away from the actual games and thought that a coach drop off point for passengers would be an improvement. Iwould like to think that most games surveyed took the results produced, and points raised on board.

Snider wrote: Mark, Maybe we could come up with a survey that we could all use at our games.. so it is consist across the board. I would like to see what Alma, Saline, and Detroit survey states and maybe this will give the A.D and executive committee board into changing the venue. Just a thought

I have been thinking on this for a while.  The problem with surveys is that when not created correctly or administered correctly, they can generate misleading results. One also need a goal on what you want the survey to tell you. 

I have a MS in Statistics (Sadistic) but have not touched that area of statistical analysis in decades.

I believe that if or when people build a survey for their games, they should include the time of day the survey was taken and the location on the grounds.  These values will have a strong influence on the results of the survey.

I would not make any earth shattering decisions on what venues to include or exclude based on my survey.  However, it served the purpose of being an indicator. 

Examples of questions brought about by the survey at the QC games and analysis: Why was dance not as high? 
(1) Dance competition is in an air conditioned ballroom which can be easily over looked by the public.
(2) Those who favor the dance competition tend to be isolated for much of the day. 
(3) Numbers of people who favor dance seemed to increase over the lunch hour when there was a break in competition (dance moms are out strolling and shopping)

Changes considered: More signage for dance and doing demos on the main stage a few times a day.

I made many wording mistakes because the survey was thrown together at the last minute. Yet, it provided some useful info about how many come from out of town and when they do come, where do they stay -- good for local visitor bureau and hotel sponsors.  So even badly worded questions can provide insight, (but one has to keep in mind the weakness of surveys and/or how they were administered.

A surprise was the income question.  I felt I would get garbage back from this question but given the breakdown by age, the income numbers actually looked reasonable.  Very surprising to me (I am one of those people who always answer the highest income level)

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So in the end, I think it would be a great idea to have a standard set of questions that each game could administer, but one would need room for questions that specifically are tailored to a given games.

The standard questions can see how the games crowd measures up against the norm (and if they are close to the same results, the games maybe able to avoid mistakes made by others)  and provide the demographic details the all games should have to manage them.

The game specific survey questions is way a games could perhaps find what areas are weak and what areas are strong.  With that knowledge, a games could make the choice of allocating limited resources to improve the weak areas or eliminate the weak areas and plow the resources into what the public wants to see.

I hesitate eliminating any portion of a games because I believe the festival atmosphere of the games many attractions gives the games an advantage in competing for the family entertainment dollar that many other festivals miss (but that is a totally different topic)