Do you want a crowd of fewer, but more interested people, or do you want a crowd of people who are neither doing anything nor learning?
According to me, if people aren’t doing anything nor learning - they won’t show up to any events. And by default the crowd will constitute of fewer people. People who are interested will always stick around or for a relatively longer period of time.
I get that we do need to focus on educating people but how do you educate people who don’t want to be educated? You’re forced to make do with what you get, and in that case, I think I’d prefer a smaller crowd, where everyone is really interested.
There is always a way. Even if they are not educated, they should be informed about what’s going on. There is no entropy with a small crowd. The more people you inform about what’s happening, the more get to know about it. They may not be as interested as you are but they know something. 1 in 100 maybe really interested. But if you stop informing people about what’s going on then you are accumulating knowledge and retaining it. What’s the point of that?