I went through the tournaments and looked up all the players in each
section.

Based on that information, I classified tournaments as 'scholastic'
only if all the players in it were scholastic or youth members or
were under age 19.

Events that didn't fit this criteria were classified as 'adult' if there
was at least one adult dues-paying member or player over 18 in it,
or 'mixed' if it was not possible to classify the event more accurately.

Here are the totals by year, including the number of games, players and
a breakdown of 'adult' and 'scholastic/youth' players. Records that
could not be classified by membership type, for example a 'non-member'
ID with no birthdate, were not counted as either adult or scholastic.

This is for regular rated events only and excludes matches.

It appears from this data that the number of games played in adult
sections has remained fairly flat since 1999. While the total number
of adult players has dropped off, consistent with the membership trend,
more scholastic and youth members have been playing in adult events.

Note that 45% of the participants in the 'adult' events in 2003
were scholastic or youth members.

This analysis, which in some ways is more complex than the work
I did in 2002, because I've got a more comprehensive database and
a much faster system, suggests that the percentage of scholastic
and youth players in adult events has been in the 40-45% range
going back to at least 1998. (Member records prior to 1998 are
more likely to be unclassifiable, so that participation rate could
go back even further.)


year | event_type | count | games | players | adults | schol/youth
------+------------+-------+--------+---------+--------+--------
1992 | adult | 9487 | 255068 | 127661 | 94589 | 24532
1993 | adult | 9244 | 255143 | 127731 | 94668 | 24748
1994 | adult | 9462 | 272531 | 135534 | 97501 | 29235
1995 | adult | 9792 | 282257 | 140422 | 98288 | 33079
1996 | adult | 9881 | 284213 | 142254 | 98000 | 35477
1997 | adult | 9551 | 277283 | 139039 | 91435 | 39412
1998 | adult | 8871 | 273363 | 135913 | 85475 | 44968
1999 | adult | 8582 | 301398 | 143864 | 79119 | 62969
2000 | adult | 7829 | 299846 | 141008 | 71807 | 67687
2001 | adult | 7722 | 294109 | 138681 | 72376 | 66168
2002 | adult | 7679 | 298481 | 140398 | 74116 | 65422
2003 | adult | 7691 | 285789 | 134097 | 72718 | 60573

1992 | scholastic | 1752 | 65478 | 30807 | 0 | 29699
1993 | scholastic | 2016 | 80126 | 36953 | 0 | 35547
1994 | scholastic | 2517 | 99539 | 46219 | 0 | 44036
1995 | scholastic | 2950 | 121739 | 57277 | 0 | 54588
1996 | scholastic | 3081 | 135365 | 61693 | 0 | 58245
1997 | scholastic | 3228 | 146160 | 66616 | 0 | 62971
1998 | scholastic | 3335 | 146981 | 67635 | 0 | 64518
1999 | scholastic | 2984 | 111951 | 53164 | 0 | 50925
2000 | scholastic | 3273 | 115912 | 54199 | 0 | 52312
2001 | scholastic | 3485 | 132512 | 61813 | 0 | 59978
2002 | scholastic | 3861 | 173492 | 79158 | 0 | 76731
2003 | scholastic | 4084 | 183982 | 82371 | 0 | 79136

1992 | mixed | 64 | 2114 | 972 | 0 | 858
1993 | mixed | 91 | 2132 | 1099 | 0 | 944
1994 | mixed | 101 | 2998 | 1413 | 0 | 1235
1995 | mixed | 107 | 3485 | 1712 | 0 | 1490
1996 | mixed | 162 | 5273 | 2629 | 0 | 2266
1997 | mixed | 136 | 3542 | 1830 | 0 | 1594
1998 | mixed | 92 | 4265 | 1881 | 0 | 1689
1999 | mixed | 100 | 4520 | 2153 | 0 | 1916
2000 | mixed | 76 | 3964 | 2048 | 0 | 1684
2001 | mixed | 127 | 9938 | 4758 | 0 | 3972
2002 | mixed | 188 | 13255 | 6110 | 0 | 5164
2003 | mixed | 319 | 18640 | 8740 | 0 | 6950
--
Mike Nolan