Well it wouldn’t surprise me (remember when Jesus fed 5,000 people with a couple of baskets of fish?) In the dead tree version of the Gargoyle Leader (I can’t find the freaking link on there site) they talk about the economic impact of the event (which makes me laugh, because when I used to wait tables the running joke was if they prayed before they ate, and made sure you saw them praying, and only ordered water to drink, you weren’t getting a tip). In the article they say 300,000 people are showing up to the event . . . yeah . . . right. As Scotty Hudson pointed out a few years ago, if every single person in the metro area came (which is about 230,000 people) you would still have to estimate that an additional 70,000 are coming from out of the area. There isn’t enough hotel rooms and campsites or even church basement floors to house all those people. Even JazzFest claims only about 30,000 come from out of Sioux Falls to their event. C’mon LifeLight, isn’t it a sin to lie?
I think they count someone who comes in three days in a row as three people, but I suppose you already knew that.
A lot of them go to the mall to shop around, or at least park their bus.
Crazy bus!
A couple years ago i helped with a booth out there. I was told they figured the attendance by counting the cars that came then multiplying by some number, which i don’t remember but i think it was 3, or maybe even 4. So i myself was counted as 9 or 12 people. Someone could notice if any of the parking people have counters and ask what the multiplier is this year.