Report on the TBHL V Survey
Revision 1 - August 6, 2001

Contents:

Introduction
Highlights
Discussion
         Who Responded
         Why People Don't Attend
         Preferred Activities
         Preferrred Location
                  Length of Drive
                  Las Vegas - Yes or No?
                  But Wait - There's More
                  Where Else
                  NEW: Where Else - Follow-on Survey
         Other Issues
Summary
Acknowledgments

Index of Tables
Notes

Introduction

This is a report of the results of a survey of attitudes and preferences about the gathering of Boxster owners known as The Boxsters Have Landed (TBHL). The survey was conducted in order to provide information of help in planning the fifth annual version of that event (TBHL V). The survey questions, format, and percentage responses ("raw" results) can be viewed here.

The survey form was posted on Porsche Pete's Boxster Board, and several other Internet websites frequented by Boxster and Porsche enthusiasts, which resulted in a total of 164 valid returned surveys during the period June 3 - 15, 2001. A follow-up survey regarding alternate locations was conducted between July 29 and August 6, 2001, resulting in 115 valid responses.

The following discussion reports the most salient findings from the survey, and draws a set of conclusions about potential guidelines for planning TBHL V.

The ad hoc planning committee members are Walt Bilofsky, John Cochran (Elga 2.5 & TOF), Paul M. Cordell (Paul in AZ), Chuck Hammersmith (Just Pete), Michael Kleiman (Martin), Chris Kramer (CFG), Steve Kumasaka (macsak), Mark Lysinger and Bill Snider (Billster).

This report was written by Walt Bilofsky and Michael Kleiman (Martin).

Note: Some percentages in the tables do not add to exactly 100% due to rounding.

Highlights:

Why People Don’t Attend

• Distance was the most important factor cited for not having attended previous TBHL’s. Next was unappealing activities.

Preferred Activities:

• The activities most likely to encourage participation are (in descending order): a tech session, scenic group drives, caravanning, a track event, Bob Chapman photo shoot, and a vendor exhibit.
• Well-liked, but not as much, are the social aspects – informal socializing and meeting Boxster Board participants.
• There is a distinct separation between the people who like social and group events, and those who like tech sessions and vendor exhibits and track events. There is a less distinct separation between the tech/exhibit and track people.
• There is no meaningful variance in preferred activities among any demographic subgroup (age, gender, frequent poster, long-time board participant).

Location:

• Participants strongly preferred a location within one day’s drive. This preference was strongest among Californians, especially Southern Californians. Only about 25% of participants were willing to drive more than two days.
• There is considerable preference for a location other than Las Vegas.
• NEW: A follow-on survey indicated a preference for locations roughly in inverse proportion to their distance from the San Francisco Bay area.
• The preference for another location is much less among those seriously considering attending TBHL V, and among Californians.

Other Issues:

• Interest in attending, and participation in previous TBHL’s, is fairly evenly spread geographically, with a bit more in Southern California, and somewhat less in the Rockies and further east.
• Scheduling TBHL on a special weekend like Mother’s Day was a substantial drawback, although a large minority (39%) don’t care.
• Cost, while a mild concern to many, was less important than most activities.

Discussion

Who Responded

Survey responses were received from 164 people. Most are from Southern (27%) and Northern California (21%), followed by Texas/Oklahoma (10%), Northwest U.S. (7%) and the Southwest (7%). 93% are male.

55% are ages 35-50, 21% younger and 23% older.

35% are frequent posters (3+ times a week) on Porsche Pete's Boxster Board. 52% are occasional posters. 13% are lurkers.

59% have attended one or more TBHL’s. 63% drove a day or less, 19% two days, 7% more, and 11% flew (in a plane). 58% caravanned by plan, and an additional 16% met up with a group.

35% are very seriously considering attending TBHL V, and 37% somewhat seriously. 23% would probably attend alone, 56% with a spouse, and 21% with someone else.

51 people said they would volunteer to help with a TBHL near them.

Why People Don’t Attend

We asked those who had decided against attending an earlier TBHL (n=134) how important various factors were. The responses are shown below (Table 1).

"Too far away" was by far the reason most often given as very important (25%). "The only thing preventing me from participating was the distance, and I'm probably closer than many."

Unappealing activities were most often cited (53%) as either very or somewhat important.

But all the reasons asked about - time of year, cost, and lack of family interest – were very or somewhat important to a third or more of those responding. "Mother's Day was a bad choice for this year."

We also looked at the correlation coefficients between these responses. This statistic tells us if any pairs of reasons had a tendency to pop up together. "Family not interested" had some tendency (r=.20 to .31) to be associated with all the other reasons except "Too far". The correlation coefficient doesn’t indicate cause and effect, but one might speculate that it was the uninterested family member that worked to come up with the other reasons. "Unappealing events" also tended to be associated with "Too expensive."

The most repeated theme in the comments was a negative view of Las Vegas (see comments in Location discussion, below).

Cost was mentioned by several: "... seemed expensive for what was received." "Travel agency making a lot of money from this event." "Not concerned about the cost as much as the value."

Other comments about reasons for not attending included distance, limited and/or boring events, having recently or not yet gotten their Boxster, and conflicts with family and work events. "Tough to turn a Boxster trip into a family outing." "With the limited events and Porsche related activities it is hard to get enthusiastic. How many times do you want to drive the Valley of Fire or see Hoover Dam?" "No good Boxster roads." "Not Boxster-focused enough for me." "Mother's Day was a bad choice for this year." "What really held me back was the time of year, due to the weather (heat), and the perceived value."

Preferred Activities

The survey listed a set of possible activities (or conditions) at TBHL V and asked respondents how likely each activity or condition would be to make them want to attend the event.

To summarize the responses, we ranked the events by a preference score. (Note 1). See Table 2, below.

The events that would most influence attendance are a tech session, scenic group drives, caravanning, a track event, Bob Chapman photo shoot, and a vendor exhibit. Around the median in the table, but still a considerable factor, are the social aspects – informal socializing and meeting Boxster Board partipants.

Although our preference score provides an overall ranking, the detailed percentage breakdown of responses (Table 3) contains more information about how respondents feel about the events.

A lot of people felt strongly about the tech session, a track event, and photo shoot. All these would make more than 25% of participants "much more likely to attend". Closely behind were group drives, caravans and vendor exhibits.

The most broadly popular events – with a high percentage of "much more likely" plus "more likely" responses – are group drives (82%), tech session (72%), exhibit (72%), and caravan (69%). "I really enjoyed the Caravan experience, because I got to know new people pretty well over 2 days and nights. And we went through scenic and twisty Southern Utah and scenic Northern AZ to get to LV." "I would not have attended again if not for the caravan we organized in southern Utah. It was the highlight of the event."

Of the broadly popular events, the tech session stands out as having both broad support and the most people (30%) who feel strongly about it. "Greater 'official' Porsche involvement and Gaudin sessions were the highlight of both TBHL's I’ve been to"

The track event, although just below the top group in broad support (60%), was tied with tech session for the most people who feel strongly. "Not having track events is the reason I did not go this year." "I want a track day, even if it's run by a separate company like Tracquest."

Some popular events also had a high neutral percentage, so would tend to appeal to a segment of attendees. For example, the photo shoot had strong support – 26% "much more likely" – but also a high 44% were "neutral".

The social events – informal socializing and meeting Boxster Board people – had good overall support (58% and 59% "much more likely" or "more likely"), but few felt strongly about them, and a relatively high percentage (39% and 41%) were neutral. The comments on social events were favorable:

Next, we looked at the data to examine whether different activities appeal to different groups of people. Our analysis showed two things. First, the correlations, overall, are quite modest. In other words, the various activities appeal to different groups. This suggests that the most appealing TBHL V will be one that has a large number (and wide range) of activities, so as to appeal to as many different types of people as possible.

Nevertheless, the correlations, while modest, are not without a pattern. We saw three groups of activities:

• "Hardware": Technical activities: a tech session, vendors' exhibits of Boxster products
• "Software": Social activities - a scenic group drive, a caravan to the event, informal socializing and the ability to meet more people
• "Tirewear": The autocross or track event

The Software activities tended to correlate better with each other, and the Hardware activities tended to also correlate well. The Tirewear event didn't correlate with either the social or technical ones.

To see if the people divided up along activity group lines, we computed average Hardware, Software and Tirewear responses for each participant. (Note 2) Table 4 shows how the participants divided up, looking at each pair of categories.

Looking at the Software vs. Hardware portion of the table, it is clear that people who like the Hardware activities a lot tend not to care about Software, and vice versa.

For example, of the people that Sofware events make "much more likely" to attend (the first row of the table), fully 67% are neutral about Hardware events, compared to 25% of the "more likely" Software people, and only 6% of the neutral Software people. This shows that people that care a lot about Software events are more likely not to care about Hardware events.

The same pattern holds for the Hardware people vis a vis Software events. Very few people either like both a lot or are neutral on both.

The same pattern holds for the Software vs. Tirewear portion of the table, a bit less strongly.

The distribution of Hardware vs. Tirewear is not as clear from the table. However, since the track event question received relatively high "much more likely" and "neutral" percentages, and because there was a modest negative correlation statistic between these two groups, we tend to view the Tirewear folks as a distinct group.

We conclude that the pattern of the data suggests that there are three broad groups of people that TBHL V needs to appeal to: 1) Software people, who like the social aspects of the event, 2) Hardware people, who enjoy technical things like aftermarket products or a tech session, and 3) Tirewear people, who want TBHL to include an autocross or track event.

Since many people still fall into multiple interest groups, the widest range of activities is needed. The correlation within activity groups shows that the selected activities should be a mix of social events, ones with technical content, and that strong consideration should be given to including a track or autocross event.

Finally, we examined one other matter concerning the preferred activities. We wanted to see if the desired activities differed by demographic group, such as age, gender, whether the person is a long-time participant on the Boxster Board, whether the individual is a frequent poster there, and so forth. When we examined this, we found the relationships to be mostly quite small. This suggests that the same type of TBHL V that will appeal to one demographic group will largely appeal to the others as well, and therefore it does not make sense to try to structure the TBHL V activities to attract any one particular group such as frequent posters.

Comments on other aspects of activities: "Gaudin offering service to visitors is very helpful." "I really appreciate how easy Billster has made the whole process." "[Need an] activity for girls during tech session, pool party or gathering." "Please see that next year's event is 'firmed up' sooner, rather than having 'tenative' events, even the tech session was listed as tenative until very late in the process. No doubt, the best part of TBHL is the 'getting there'."

Preferred Location

Location is a critical issue for TBHL. The survey examined two major location issues: length of drive to TBHL, and whether it should remain in Las Vegas. A follow-up survey provides some indication of alternate location preferences.

Length of Drive

In asking why people had decided not to attend previous TBHLs, being a long distance from Las Vegas was rated "very important" by 25% of respondents, more than twice as many as for the other reasons asked about.

Over ¾ of respondents are more likely to attend TBHL V if it is within a day’s drive. Two days’ drive was a drawback for 40% of respondents, and three days’ was a negative for 76% (Table 5). This suggests that an event needs to be two days’ drive from almost everyone it hopes to attract, and will be much more successful if within one day of major population centers.

Willingness to drive more than a day splits along geographical lines. Southern Californian participants are much less (66%) willing to drive more than a day than people from any other area. Northern Californians (44%) are almost as reluctant. This should be taken into account in considering destinations that are further than Las Vegas is from these population centers.

Las Vegas – Yes or No?

The only question specifically about location was whether the respondent was more or less likely to attend if TBHL V is somewhere other than Las Vegas. 53% were more likely to attend somewhere else, only 13% less likely.

Fully 19 respondents commented negatively on Las Vegas: "Going to Las Vegas once was OK, I would go again if the location changes." "I go to Vegas often enough." "...serious turnoff as a place to visit." "Las Vegas is getting a little stale." "Porsche Parade has figured out [that] people will come year after year if the location changes. We have people that have attended over 20 parades. I cannot imagine anyone going to Vegas over 20 times for TBHL." "It is a puzzling place for a car rally." "Provide more mingling ... The Vegas strip is a loud crowded party, not an enviroment promoting the art of conversation." "Will not attend or participate in another Commercial Las Vegas event." "I would support adding an event elsewhere, but please don't discourage a Las Vegas event by appropriating the TBHL name for an event elsewhere."

There were three pro-Las Vegas comments: "I like Las Vegas. Please don't move TBHL."

A number of comments favored varying the location: "... the event should be rotated among several locations. Variety is the spice of life!" "Move TBHL around - there's no reason to keep it in Las Vegas."

But Wait – There’s More

It would be easy to conclude from the percentages and comments that people overwhelmingly want TBHL V moved out of Las Vegas. Since the original survey failed to ask about specific alternate locations, we examined a number of aspects of the data in order to try to understand more about location preferences.

To better understand what the data mean, we looked at breakdowns of the "somewhere other than Las Vegas" percentages according to how people answered some of the other questions.

For example, we broke down attitudes toward Las Vegas according to how seriously people were considering attending TBHL V (Table 8, below). We found that people who were more serious about attending were still leaning away from Las Vegas, but less strongly.

Of course, this could be interpreted in two ways. Possibly the people who are interested in attending don’t care as much about location. Or possibly the people who are less interested in attending would be more interested if the location were different. And one might conclude that the "somewhat serious" prospects would be the ones most likely to be influenced by a different location.

Another interesting breakdown was geographical. Outside the West Coast (defined as everything west of the Rockies, plus the Southwest), "somewhere other than Las Vegas" sentiment was much stronger, and positive support for Las Vegas virtually nonexistent. Again, this could indicate either a bias against Las Vegas, or simply wanting to have the event moved east.

To test the hypothesis that "people are tired of Las Vegas", we examined "somewhere other than Las Vegas" sentiment broken down by how many previous TBHL’s respondents had attended (0-4). There was no meaningful difference. (Note 4)

To sum up, there is sentiment against Las Vegas as a destination. However, it is less strong among those in California and those most seriously considering attending.

Where Else?

Survey participants had many suggestions for alternate locations. There’s no way to adequately summarize, so here they all are:

• From Southern California: "Los Angeles", "Santa Fe, San Diego, Aspen, ??? Somewhere out west", "Monterey/Carmel, Sedona, Napa Valley", "Park City or other Utah areas, Denver (Estes Park) or other Colorado area, Sedona, New Orleans", "Sedona,Prescott, San Diego, Santa Barbara, Etc. ", "Cambria :-) ", "Anywhere much farther from Southern California would make me a 'no go' I think the farthest away would be San Francisco (and a Sears point driving event?). ", "Southern California", "West Coast, California - lots of destinations but I realize too far for many people", "at least three hundred miles of good driving out of Los Angeles", "Lake Tahoe, Napa Valley, San Diego", "San Diego", "Napa/Sonoma CA (wine country), Cambria/Monterey CA, Sedona AZ", "Santa Barbara, Yosemite, San Diego", "Park City, Sonoma, Sedona, Yosemite, S. Lake Tahoe and Carmel", "Lake Tahoe, Sedona, Beaver Creek or Vail", "Sedona, AZ. Palm Springs, CA. ", "Tahoe,Park City, Sedona", "Denver; San Diego; Lake Tahoe; Cambria; New Mexico", "Park City; Sedona; Monterey; Lake Tahoe", "Tahoe, Sedona, Sante Fe, Monterey, Branson, . . . ", "Don't change the location! It would not be a TBHL event. ", "SoCal", "Northern Ca., San Diego Ca. ", "San Francisco, Grand Canyon", "How about Palm Springs?", "Montery Ca., Palm Springs Ca., Cornado Ca", "In Southern California, but that would be inconvenient for others."
• From Northern California: "It would have to be within 750 miles of SF Bay area.", "New Mexico,Colorado,Lake Tahoe.", "Someplace along the west coast would be great for all of the great roads that border on the Pacific. Another good place would be in the Arizona, New Mexico area for the scenery, Let's get real, Las Vegas has no scenery, just the places you pass through getting there.", "Bay Area", "California", "Utah, Arizona, New Mexico", "Monterey/Carmel, Arizona, Colorado, Utah", "Monterey", "Tahoe, Reno, coast", "How about Tahoe? .", "Colorado Springs, Sedona, Salt Lake City", "SF Bay Area.", "Durango CO, Boise ID, San Francisco CA, Sedona, AZ", "New Orleans, LA; Carmel, CA; Cambria, CA", "San Francisco Bay Area.", "Reno? Palm Springs?"
• From the Northwest: "Colorado", "Tahoe, San Diego, LA area, Utah", "Reno", "Ashland;Oregon(near Cal),Lake Tahoe, Park City;Utah, Jackson:Wyoming, Boulder:Colorado, Durango:Colorado"
• From Western Canada: "Western Canada, N.W. USA", "Closer to the Coast or maybe Reno."
• From the Southwest: "I'd vote for Monterey or Northern California since the drive to and from will be an excellent one.", "Montery or near Laguna Seca", "Tahoe, Colorado, Utah, or New Mexico", "Cool mountains, e.g. Colorado or Utah", "Park City Ut. ", "Colorado, SanDiego, Monterey, Lake Tahoe, Reno, Texas hill country, Moab, Utah, Sedona, Santa Fe. ", "Laughlin, Nevada. Rooms are really nice and a fraction of the cost of Las Vegas. It is located right on the Colorado River. ", "Reno, Redding, Prescott, Bend."
• From Colorado: "Mountains,fun roads, informal environments which promotes getting to know each other, like Park City." "The Rockies have some of the best drives in the country!" "Colorado Rockies, Pacific Coast -- scenery-type places with mountain roads."
• From the Rockies: "Durango, CO: Park City, UT, Lake Tahoe, NV", "A place where we can experience the opposite of Las Vegas' climate and scenery....the mountains or beach or something. A place with 'twisties' and opportunities for pre-event Caravans to experience new routes. Park City (too close to home, but very nice), Grande Junction, Sun Valley, Vail. ", "Mountain or coastal driving", "Reno or Lake Tahoe", "Park City, southern Utah, Arizona, Colorado, California, anywhere in the west other than Las Vegas. ", "further East"
• From Texas and Oklahoma: "Vegas is a good spot. Otherwise, coastal cities appeal to me.", "New Orleans, San Antonio - I'd say Dallas but there's not as much nice driving around here! ", "Anywhere closer to me. :) ", "Albuquerque NM Tucson AZ Colorado Somewhere nearer to Dallas, TX", "Texas", "Colorado", "Denver, Colorado Springs, ASpen, Vail etc."
• From the Midwest: "Closer to Chicago than Las Vegas - Colorado?"
• From the South and Southeast: "Blue Ridge Mountains area", "Somewhere in the central US so that everone may come to it...not just west coasters... Colorado or Utah are first thoughts", "Nashville", "Closer to east coast or midway. ", "Rocky Mountains in Colorado (Breckenridge), Napa Valley, Santa Fe."
• From the East Coast: "East Coast ? Mid Atlantic." "On East Coast or Midwest." Washington, DC." "Closer to Northeast." "New York, Boston, Maine, Florida." "Closer to the east coast.", "In the Rockies, for instance Colorado Springs. Somewhere with twisties!"
• From Guess Who: "Germany :)"
• From Guess Who #2: "Hawaii."

Where Else - Follow-on Survey

A follow-on survey was conducted to determine preferences for alternate locations. Respondents were asked how likely they are to attend a TBHL type event if it were held in 17 of the locations suggested above, assuming their schedule, etc., permits. Table 10a shows the responses received from 115 participants.

The locations are listed in order of average score, the most preferred first. A score of 3 was assigned to a response of "Would attend", 2 to "Would probably attend", and so on.

We believe the geographical distribution of respondents on this follow-up survey closely mirrors that of the original survey. By matching respondents to both surveys, we were able to identify locations for 53% of the participants in the follow-on, and the distribution of this group was almost identical to that of the first survey. It is possible that the other 47% of respondents to the second survey were distributed substantially differently, but we don't think this is likely.

Respondents appear to prefer locations more or less in order of their closeness to the San Francisco Bay area. Probably this has a lot to do with the preponderance of Californians in the survey group - 48% of the original survey and probably a similar percentage in this follow-on. However, non-Californians had to vote for the California locations as well. For example, 66% of respondents said they would attend or would probably attend an event in Monterey/Carmel or Napa Valley.

Table 10a: Willingness to Attend TBHL in Other Locations

Other issues:

1. Attendance vs. Region

Interest in attending, and participation in previous TBHL’s, was fairly evenly spread geographically, with a bit more in Southern California, and somewhat less in the Rockies and further east. (Table 11, below).

The survey response from those areas was also much sparser. Still, there were a considerable number of participants (36%) in those areas. Half of these were from Texas/Oklahoma, and the Rocky Mountain states. Many of them were serious about attending TBHL V, and almost half had been to at least one TBHL already.

2. Holiday Weekends

TBHL IV was held on Mother’s Day weekend. What impact would that have on future events? Fairly important – 25% of respondents would be much more likely to come if TBHL V were not on a special weekend. We view this figure seriously since this is likely to be a "make or break" consideration. 32% would be more likely; 39% didn’t care.

3% were much less likely to come if not on a holiday weekend. Apparently a few people feel that TBHL is a great way to celebrate (or didn’t read the question carefully).

3. Cost

The cost of the event has been a frequent topic of discussion in planning past TBHL’s. Apparently this is a source of some concern, but not as strong as distance or activity preference. Only 12% found cheaper rooms a very important inducement. Most people (51%) were neutral, and an additional 7% felt that less costly hotel accommodations were unattractive.

Of those who in the past had considered attending, but decided not to, cost also ranked relatively low as a reason for their decision.

Summary

In conclusion, we refer the reader back to the Highlights section at the beginning of this report for an overview of our main conclusions. Those central points, along with the supporting detail in the various tables, will provide a very good basis for decisions about TBHL V. At the same time, data analysis is only one small part of planning. We hope and feel that the results we have provided will be a useful springboard for the most successful TBHL yet.

Acknowledgments

We appreciate all who participated and those who helped put this together. We also appreciate all the supportive comments: "Thanks for all the hard work it takes to make this happen." "Thanks for asking for the above info!" "Very glad to see this survey. Hope it helps the TBHL event planning." "You guys work too hard."

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Index of Tables:

Table 1: How important were these factors in deciding not to attend a TBHL?
Table 2: TBHL Events Ranked by Score
Table 3: Which events make participants more/less likely to attend?
Table 4: Respondents Partitioned by Activity Categories
Table 5: Likely to attend if TBHL V is within one/two/three day’s drive
Table 6: "If TBHL is two days' drive from my home" broken down by region
Table 7: Likely to attend if TBHL V is somewhere other than Las Vegas
Table 8: "TBHL other than in Las Vegas" broken down by how seriously considering attending
Table 9: "TBHL other than in Las Vegas" broken down by region
Table 10: "TBHL other than in Las Vegas" broken down by number of TBHL’s attended
New: Table 10a: Willingness to Attend TBHL in Other Locations
Table 11: Interest in attending TBHL V, and previous attendance, by region
Table 12: Likely to attend if rooms are inexpensive

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Notes:

Note 1: A response of "Much more likely to attend" received a score of 100. "More likely" got 30. "Neutral" scored 0. "Less likely" and "Much less likely" got -30 and -100 respectively. The event score is the average of all responses.

Note 2: For each participant, we averaged the responses for all the questions in each activity group. We then categorized the participant as "much more likely", "more likely" or "neutral" in each activity group, splitting the participants up to try to keep the percentages in each category about the same as in the actual responses. Because there were few negative responses, we didn't use negative categories.

Note 3: "n=" indicates the total number of respondents in the category corresponding to this line in the table.

Note 4: The results for attendees of 4 TBHL's are less significant due to the small number of respondents (7) in this category.