Is the yo-yo contest bigger than what it used to be?

General Yo-Yo
1

I am sort of new to the yo-yo world. (2.5 years ) And I’ve been to a few contests with my son and they are awesome. We have yet to attend WYYC but one day for sure.
From the videos I’ve seen and the Nationals I’ve attended. I see the yo-yo community active and thriving.
But for those of you who’ve been in the scene longer and experience the Yoyo Jam era was there a bigger scene back then before the pandemic? Or the recent yo-yo scene is blowing up bigger because of Instagram and YouTube?

2 Likes
2

I can say Nats in Chico during the yyj era was a lot bigger than nats in Vegas.

3 Likes
3

Honestly yoyo as a hobby and the contest scene goes in and out in waves. We have several booms in popularity often corresponding with a global economic event (people often shift into hobbies when things get more stressful)

Just my take I wasn’t into the contest scene when your asking so I have no reference to that aspect but I’ve seen the ebbs and flows of club attendance and purchasing over time.

1 Like
4

A lot bigger but of course it was still not long after the big yoyo boom. But seeing the turn outs in videos from Asia it looks like it is heading that direction with the internet bringing in a lot more interest

1 Like
5

The two big contests I’ve been to are WYYC2012 and WYYC2025. I’d say 2025 felt a decent bit bigger but it wasn’t a massive difference in total number of people there.

I will say that it felt like the proportion of people who were there to compete was a lot higher last year than in 2012. 2012 I think had maybe 150 competitors in 1a and it felt like there were way more last year.

I think UK nats have increased in size by a decent margin since I attended 2011 as well. And in general it seems like some of the scenes that used to be quite small have grown to be rather significant (e.g. Korea and China both have very big scenes now whereas they were comparably small back then). But the already quite big scenes like the US and Japan have perhaps stayed rather stable over that time?

1 Like
6

I saw some old videos and they look like it was a bigger event back in the days. Also in Asia when they had those Super Yo-yo anime and such. Like Hyper Yo-yo era.