August 1, 1998 Reader Survey Results

Warpstock is the yearly event that attempts to bring the OS/2 community together in a weekend celebrating all things OS/2-ish. Lately Warpstock has been in the news in ways its organizers probably didn't want it to be. Regardless, it is the best chance for those who know a good OS when they see one to get out and enjoy themselves in a crowd of like-minded individuals.

Are you going? Is the price too high? The distance too great? Has the innuendo been too much? To find out, in our last issue we asked you about "Warpstock".

Answers to our survey were accepted from August 1st until August 16th. We had a total of 760 replies to our questionnaire with 85 "spoiled" entries (replies were considered "spoiled" if they did not contain an e-mail address, if all questions were not answered or if they were duplicates). This left 675 valid replies. The results were as follows:

Are you going to Warpstock '98?

Unfortunately, the reality of most of our lives is that any given location has a greater chance of being too far for us to get to rather than right next door. This is probably the case with Warpstock. The majority of our readers are not planning to attend this year's event in Chicago.

However, there are a significant number of people who are planning to go (11.6%) and an equal group who are not yet sure (11.4%). And of course, many of those that are not attending this year's Chicago conference may be considering Warpstock '98 Europe.

A surprising 19 people (2.8%) had never heard of Warpstock. Apparently there is still some advertising needed...

What type of pass did you buy / are you buying?

For those of us who are going to Warpstock, the preference seems to be for the "full enchilada". A total of 8.1% of all readers (67.9% of those who plan to attend) have purchased or will purchase a "Platinum" pass while only 3.2% of all readers bought all other end-user passes combined.

Was your decision to attend or not attend Warpstock affected by the recent Warpstock problems?

A few months ago many feared Warpstock '98 would be the event that never was. With the resignation of the original group selected to host this year's event, the OS/2 community held its breath, picked sides, or scoured the 'net for rumours. Now, after all the gossip has been sifted through, did it really affect anyone's plans? In a word, no. Most people (81.6%) told us that they didn't care about the fuss. Approximately an even number told us either that it convinced them to attend (1.0%) or to not attend (1.2%). Thankfully, we can report that all the worry was groundless and that this year's event doesn't look like it will be harmed by its early shakiness.

How far are you travelling to get to Warpstock '98?

Of those who are going to Warpstock, we wondered how far their travels would take them. We allowed people to enter their distances in miles or kilometers and converted all values to miles, rounding to the nearest mile for comparison. (Although most of the civilized world uses the metric system -- including Canada -- we realize that most Internet users are in the USA, hence our decision.)

As one would expect, the vast majority of those currently planning to attend are within a few thousand miles, probably in the continental US or central Canada. There were a few people telling us they would be travelling over 10,000 miles though!

Rather than deliver the raw numbers of the answers to this question, we graphed the distances. The results are shown below.

That's it for this issue.

Complete August 1, 1998 Survey Results

Are you going to Warpstock '98?

Category	Count	Percentage
Yes, I have bought a pass	46	6.8%
Yes, I will buy a pass before Oct. 16th	22	3.3%
Yes, I will buy a pass at the door	10	1.5%
I am not sure	77	11.4%
No	501	74.2%
I don't know what Warpstock is	19	2.8%
TOTAL	675	100.0%

What type of pass did you buy / are you buying?

Category	Count	Percentage
Platinum	55	8.1%
Gold	8	1.2%
Silver	3	0.4%
Bronze	11	1.6%
I told you, I'm not going	498	73.8%
I told you, I'm not sure	76	11.3%
I still don't know what Warpstock is	20	3.0%
Exhibitor's pass	4	0.6%
TOTAL	675	100.0%

Was your decision to attend or not attend Warpstock affected by the recent Warpstock problems?

Category	Count	Percentage
Yes, it convinced me to attend	7	1.0%
Yes, it convinced me not to attend	8	1.2%
No, it did not affect my decision in any way	551	81.6%
I'm not sure if it affected my decision	27	4.0%
I have never heard of any Warpstock problems	62	9.2%
I still don't know what Warpstock is	20	3.0%
TOTAL	675	100.0%

How far are you travelling to get to Warpstock '98?

Copyright © 1998 - Falcon Networking

ISSN 1203-5696