EAA AirVenture attendance declines in 2010

OSHKOSH - Fewer people attended this year's EAA AirVenture that ended Sunday in Oshkosh than any year in recent history.

Monday afternoon, the organization's president, Tom Poberezny, said he expected lower attendance because of the lack of a big draw and the rainy weather that made it tough to park campers, not to mention 10,000 airplanes.

Let's take a closer look at the 2010 numbers - and the years before. This year's number - estimated by EAA - is 535,000. That's about 75,000 per day on the grounds. Visitors attending multiple days are counted multiple times.

It's a drop of 7.4 percent from last year, and while it's the lowest, it's still in the range of the previous four years.

But all of these years are still significantly below the previous years when the longer event often covered two weekends.

And 37 percent off the all-time banner year (855,000) of 1998.