Mumbrella360 delivers 1,020 visitor attendances in industry first audit
Mumbrella’s annual conference Mumbrella360 has become the first in Australia to have its visitor numbers audited by the Circulations Audit Board’s new rules for exhibitions and conferences.
The audit results for Mumbrella360 reveal a total attendance of 1,020, with a UVA (unique visitor attendance) total of 752 plus 268 speakers, media and staff.
Tourism Australia's marketing boss Nick Baker takes the stage at Mumbrella360
The auditing took place with Circulations Audit Board staff on site at the event whichwas at the Hilton Hotel in Sydney on June 6 and 7. It was conducted under new rules for the auditing of events developed by the CAB late last year.
Martin Lane, publishing director of Mumbrella’s parent company Focal Attractions, said: “We are already the only publisher in our sector to audit every one of our activities, including the traffic to Mumbrella’s website, the number of subscribers to our daily email and the print circulation of Encore magazine.
“Audits are not expensive so why wouldn’t you be audited if you’re not bullshitting the market?
“One of the areas where I’ve seen the most outlandish claims about attendance is conferences. Some organisers try and count the same person every time they walk in and out of the room, and charge their sponsors and exhibitors accordingly.”
The UVA number counts each visitor only once for the entire duration of an event, regardless of the number of visits.
Lane said: “We’re particularly proud to be the first conference-only event to independently audit those visitor numbers under the new rules. I hope that other event organisers now step up and do the same.”
CAB chief executive Paul Dovas said: “We’re looking forward to seeing more conferences embrace the new audit rules, as organisers recognise the value of the added granularity in our attendance data,” said Dovas.
Mumbrella has also become the only media and marketing title to audit the distribution of its daily email. Its official distribution in August was 28,448. This makes the Mumbrella daily email the highest circvulating daily email, and the second largest of the 20 emails that the audit bureau looks at. You can subscribe to the Mumbrella daily email for free via this link.
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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“Audit” of conference attendance??
That sound you hear is the whole events industry laughing their arses off.
Seriously, you must be joking.
It’s called a head-count. And if you have proper registration set up, you’ll know who, why from where and how long.
Event pros have practised this stuff for decades. You don’t need a “Circulations Audit Board” to tell you what you can see, hear and touch, 100% live.
It’s hilarious that someone has come along and tried to turn easily, accurately measurable head-counts into a new product to be charged for.
Either it’s April 1, or there’s a sucker born every minute. Or both.
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Hi Mike,
Clearly you are only familiar with a very scrupulous group of event organisers who would never make those headcounts you mention, then multiply them by the number of times those people walked in and out, and then times that by two when trying to sell an exhibitor stand for next year’s event.
The problem is not the event organiser knowing who’s at their event – of course they do. It’s their sponsors and exhibitors being able to believe them. That’s what an audit is for.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella