Hamvention Attendance Tops 30,000

Attendance rebounded at the 2019 Dayton Hamvention®, coming in at 32,472, according to the Dayton Amateur Radio Association. That's an increase of more than 4,000 people over 2018, which had seen a decrease in attendance from 2017. Officials said their free Sunday-only admission experiment accounted for about 800 additional attendees, but consider it successful enough to repeat it next year. The idea was to give non-hams from the Xenia, Ohio, area an opportunity to see what Hamvention and ham radio are all about. According to DARA, this year's attendees came from all U.S. states and territories as well as 60 other countries around the world.