To see just how big of a difference between Pre-Reno and after Reno, I went over the numbers and here's what I came up with...
In the whole month of August there were...
20 qualifiers and 390 entrants for an average of 19.5 players per event
In the whole month of Oct (up to last weekend) there were...
29* qualifiers and 135 entrants for an average of 4.65 players per event
* There were two numbers missing which I assume means that there were two qualifiers that didn't have anyone show up. I counted those two in the count instead of changing the number to 27.