While overall attendance of the American Solar Energy Society’s (ASES) National Solar Tour in 2010 is expected to grow to 160,000 from 150,000 last year, some things can’t be helped. Overall, the tour includes nearly 700 events this year and two, which took place last weekend, experienced unexpected hardships that reduced attendance compared to last year.

The Michigan Alternative & Renewable Energy Center, part of Grand Valley State University, held the MAREC Open House & Solar Tour of Muskegon. It was the first year that the MAREC center hosted the event, said Kim Walton, the event organizer. She had projected that 50 to 100 people would participate, but fewer showed up. Still, “It went pretty good—we had rain—which didn’t help. But we had 40 people attend and we toured 10 sites.”

The guided tour was offered for free and featured a solar installer from Basic Solar, a local company, to discuss the technologies used at the 10 sites included in the tour. Stops featured PVs (thin-film and crystalline), solar hot water, solar heating, wind turbines and fuel cells, among other things, Walton said.

She explained that some of the systems are about 20 to 25 years old. One of the tour’s goals was “to show people that solar energy isn’t really all that new and used more than people are aware of.”

In addition, Louisville Solar Week kicked off this past weekend with a solar-power conference in Louisville, Ky., which was poorly attended.

“Last year, attendance was over 200,” said Denis Oudard, who organized the solar week with the Kentucky Solar Energy Society. “We had abysmal attendance, nobody came. We didn’t have the attendance we were hoping for.” The event drew “perhaps only 25 people,” Oudard noted.

Competition from other events, including equestrian games and a Sierra Club event likely reduced attendance at the conference. Still, the Louisville Solar Week isn’t over yet.

“We have the [solar] tour next weekend, and we’re hoping to have more attendees this weekend,” Oudard said.