Most recent numbers I have heard for the eclipse are 3019 in for Salukicon/Eclipsecon at the Student Center, 30,000 on the SIUC campus at one location or another with about 13,000 of those located in Saluki Stadium. I estimated about 400-500 on the town square and have heard estimates of a total of 40,000 in town. 200,000 came to southern Illinois back in 2017 but I doubt we will see the same numbers when final figures are calculated as this year's eclipse passed over many more populated areas than did the 2017 eclipse
I thought this year was waaaay more crowded than 2017 at least in Carbondale. Restaurants were packed and many seem to sell out. It was impossible to get a table anywhere on Sunday or Monday. Perhaps there were less people here on the actual day of the eclipse or more specifically in the 2 hours before and after the eclipse but in the 48 hours leading up to the eclipse i thought were literally thousands more people than in 2017 - when people seemed to show up 2 hours before and leave 2 hours after.
ReplyDeleteI hope you are right. I did see visitors start coming in on Friday and had a few still come in the store as late as Thursday. Thai Taste had two hour waits for a table on Sunday and Monday nights.
ReplyDelete