When Aspen Journalism got an invited to check out the operations center staffed by the Pitkin County incident management team assembled to help handle the public safety aspects of Winter X Games, we saw it as an opening for our data desk to mine the rich vein of metrics coming out of what has historically been community’s largest special event.
What we thought would be a fairly straight forward report took a turn when it became clear that the new operator of X Games would not be sharing a total attendance estimate for this year’s three-day action-sports festival.
So we looked to other sources to gauge how big the X Games were this year compared to years past. And we got a lesson in “how the sausage gets made” in terms of where those six-figure attendance totals put out by previous X Games operator ESPN came from.
Relevant data points related to X Games include total attendance, law enforcement contacts, lodging occupancy rates, number of bus riders, percentage of parking utilized. Facts and figures that are accessible. Other readings are harder to gauge — economic impact, median age of visitors, the marketing value of three days of TV coverage.
That that new operator would be gun shy in publicizing an attendance total they could be confident in the accuracy of likely signals that they just need another year under their belt of running the complex festival to get the hang of counting all the people coming through. But one thing is certain: X Games is a unique event for Aspen and there are many ways to evaluate its impact on the community.
Check out that story, as well as the latest from our weekly ongoing data tracking projects, below.
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– Curtis Wackerle
Editor and Executive Director
X Games bus ridership rebounds but still lagging pre-COVID years
New operator declines to release total attendance estimate; incident management team says crowd was “well behaved,” no arrests made.
By Laurine Lassalle | February 15, 2023
The new operator of Winter X Games is not releasing estimated attendance totals from last month’s event, although other data indicates that crowds were up from last year but still lagging the massive numbers seen during the pre-COVID-19 years.
Data dashboard: New occupancy record for Aspen last month
Roaring Fork basin snowpack reaches over 120% of normal
By Laurine Lassalle | February 15, 2023
• Paid occupancy in Aspen reached 77.5% in January, up from 69.7% last year — a new record for January.
• Snowmass recorded its fifth best January with 72.8% paid occupancy, up from 2022’s 67.3%.
• Lake Powell’s elevation is down to 3,522.3 feet, or 2.7 feet below target elevation.
Tracking the Curve
Garfield County has reported 28 new COVID-19 cases since last week. Eagle County has added 24 cases, while Pitkin County has recorded 13 cases since Feb. 8.
By Laurine Lassalle | February 16, 2023
Garfield County has reported 28 new COVID-19 cases since last week. Eagle County has added 24 cases, while Pitkin County has recorded 13 cases since Feb. 8.
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