Is there an established or best practices method for estimating the number of people expected to attend a social function? We’re planning a company picnic for employees and their family and trying to get a handle on how many will come.
Someone has suggested using: (# of employees) / 2 will attend, then multiply that result by 4 as an average family size. Sounds reasonable, but the person was essentially just taking a SWAG, and we’re hoping for something with a bit more proof of it’s applicability.
Apologies if this better suited in IMHO, as there may not be an actual factual answer…
At the risk of sounding like a smartass, I can’t imagine any algorthmic formula that would be more accurate than simply asking folks to RSVP. Odds are that won’t give you an exact number, since some will inevtiably change their plans, but it’s gonna be closer than anything else.
In my very limited experience, the answer is: it depends.
The companies I did this at were under 100 people, and there were enough variables that it was tough to guess. Specifically:
a. People-facing departments (such as Sales) tended to have higher attendance rates than non-people-facing departments (such as engineering)
b. Different companies with different cultures had very different per/person numbers. One company I was at had a lot of 23 year-old single childless engineers. Another had many people with larger families.
So, dunno. I’d say your estimates are a good start though.