Austin Improv

One of the students in Shana's 101 class asked "so, how many improvisers would you estimate there are in Austin right now?" It seems like there are so many ways to answer that and some really elaborate equations that could be created by fancy math/improviser types. What do you think?

If you sort the Austin Improv Forum "memberlist" (top of this page) by "location", you'll find that 299 members are registered in Austin, Texas.

Also, some of those people may no longer be active in the community or may have moved away.

Also also, those listed in Austin followed 762 people who didn't register what city they are in.

So there's that.

The Institution Theater has 61 students and 7 teachers.

If you took the broadest criterion of anyone who's ever improvised, you could add up all the students who've taken at all the schools and add an arbitrary number (20?) on top of that to represent all the improvisers who didn't go through school here. OR if you mean working improvisers, you could assemble the cast lists of every show at every theater for a year and eliminate the names that only appear once or twice.

I'm not doing either of these things. But you could, if you wanted to.

487

Lessee, I'm an improvisor; there's 1.8 million people in Austin; we've got a range!
1 <= # of improvisors <= 1.8 million

#mathhumor #nothelpful

More practically, it seems like you could tally up estimates from each of the Five Families of how many working improvisors are doing shows there.  You'd overshoot with a bunch of duplicates, but I think you'd at least get in the ballpark, no?



--
peter rogers @ netbook | http://hujhax.livejournal.com

APL is a mistake, carried through to perfection.
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I think it was estimated at the last AIC Banquet that there were about 300 of us...but I can't remember who did the estimating and how they came up with that number.

Math!

My official guesstimate is 300-400, counting active students; 150-200, counting only people who have finished a class cycle and stayed in the game.

Even at the low end, that's probably the highest per-capita in the country. \o/

fewer than the stars in the midnight sky, but more than could dance on the head of a pin...

...i don't do math.

Munga wrote:I think it was estimated at the last AIC Banquet that there were about 300 of us...but I can't remember who did the estimating and how they came up with that number.

Math!

i think it's from our ability to hold back a Persian army...

happywaffle wrote:My official guesstimate is 300-400, counting active students; 150-200, counting only people who have finished a class cycle and stayed in the game.

Even at the low end, that's probably the highest per-capita in the country. \o/

That's WAY low.

For example, in the submissions spreadsheet for the Hideout in May/June, there are 230 unique names submitted, if you tally up all the casts' members.

And nowhere close to all the groups in Austin submit to the Hideout schedule (though a lot do!). 74 groups submitted, but I'll wager there's a huge number of performers who aren't represented. Not to mention students.

hujhax wrote:there's 1.8 million people in Austin

WHAT THE WHAT

<checks US Census>

OK, fuck, don't do that to me. It's OK, people, there's still 790,000 people in Austin. Peter must have done his count during SXSW.

Brad Hawkins wrote:

hujhax wrote:there's 1.8 million people in Austin

WHAT THE WHAT

<checks US Census>

OK, fuck, don't do that to me. It's OK, people, there's still 790,000 people in Austin. Peter must have done his count during SXSW.

are we including outlying areas? given the number of improvisors who commute in from Round Rock, Bastrop and other surrounding areas, the sample population might not be constrained to the city limits or Travis County alone...

(fuck, my Census training just kicked back in...)

Well, as a fancy math/improvisor type, I'll approach this from the other side. If a really elaborate equation is what you want, how about:

dx/dt = n(t)*g*s*c + i - o*x(t) - q*x(t)

where

x(t) = number of improvisors at time t
t = time since improv started in Austin
n(t) = number of theaters at time t
g = avg number of graduating classes per theater per year
s = avg number of students per class
c = avg percent of those students that become improvisors in town
i = number per year from out of town
o = rate that leave town per year
q = rate that stop doing improv per year

Of course, I don't know what any of those values are. I'm a mathematician - we don't deal with actual numbers.

it's like the Drake Equation, but instead of proving there's intelligent life on other planets...

...y'know, i'm just gonna leave that set up there. swing away as you will!

The....answer....is....right...at....our....fingertips. We're....so....close. Someone take us home!