In October Choice Mutual, an end-of-life burial insurance company released the results of a nationwide survey of over 3,000 individuals that, among other things, asked where in their home state would they want their cremated ashes to be dispersed or scattered.

According to one article I read, the impetus for this survey was the discussion, explained here in a July Funeral Director Daily article, about a public discussion among the University of Nebraska Board of Regents.  As it turns out, the University of Nebraska is planning on improving the playing surface at their football stadium and one Regent suggested building a columbarium under the playing surface.

Turns out, that according to the Choice Mutual survey, that sporting venues carry with them a strong popularity with the public in many states for being a site of cremated remains disposition.   As it turns out historic venues such as Fenway Park in Massachusetts, Memorial Stadium at the University of Michigan, and Indianapolis Speedway in Indiana all were the top picks for their respective states.

The top state picks for each state and the survey overview can be viewed here.  Here are four items named in the overview as key takeaways from the survey as to generalizations where respondents would like their cremated remains to be dispersed:

• Areas of Natural Beauty
• Sports Arenas
• Urban and Historical Landmarks
• State-Specific Preferences

Some of the Landmarks or State Specific Preferences included the following:

• Missouri — The Gateway Arch
• Texas — The Alamo
• South Dakota — Mount Rushmore Monument

Related Article — Here is a recent article (November 14) from ESPN writer Andrea Adelson titled “Even in death college football fans want to be at their favorite stadiums”.  The provided link also has a short video interview of Ms. Adelson and ESPN show host Paul Finebaum discussing this phenomena.

Tom Anderson
Funeral Director Daily

Funeral Director Daily take:  Legalities aside, the idea of placing cremated remains in a cherished place rather than in a cemetery that one has never visited seems to resonate with many people.  Whether it be the Alamo, The Gateway Arch, a state park, or an athletic venue seems to bring “connection” in death for many.

And, when you couple that with some of the amounts being spent by the consumer for what I would call “Premium Cemetery Memorialization”, you start to wonder if some of these public areas, including college campuses, should create some type of park-like area for state-of-the-art cremation memorialization.

The following is an exerpt from Service Corporation International’s (SCI) CEO Tom Ryan in response to a question about consumer behavior in the area of cemetery space sales from the SCI Earnings Call of February 13, 2024:

(Ryan:)  “So I think on consumer behavior, if you take the high end, we continue to see the high end going strong. And some of that average price and remember, these are over $80,000 sales. But to give you some perspective, we probably had about 400 of those that averaged around, call it, $200,000 sale, back in 2019, around that era. We’ve almost doubled the number of contracts. So going from 400 contracts at that level to 800, slightly up on the average too. And so that seems some pretty significant growth and continues to look strong. And again, we’ve always said that probably correlates best with housing and stock market. And I’d say if there’s anywhere we’re not seeing as robust in activities we like, it is at that lower end”. 

Outside of the idea of premium spaces at existing cemeteries, I don’t think this phenomena of the amounts of money people will spend for memorialization at their “preferred venue” is thought about much.  Maybe a company like Better Place Forests is really on to something and ahead of the game with their development of “conservation forests” for this purpose.  As noted above from the survey, “Areas of Natural Beauty” are seen as a desired dispersal area and Better Place Forests has already made the investments to be able to serve those that choose that option.

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