Strongest Hastings Ever?

THERE are now 104 entries to the Hastings Masters, which runs from December 28 to January 5 at the East Sussex town's Horntye Centre.
The full list is below, but a key statistic is that 43 of the players (chess-results.com says 40, but it is wrong!) have some form of Fide title. Of these, nine are FMs, five are IMs and 18 are GMs.
If you rank a tournament by the number of grandmasters playing, I suspect this may be the strongest ever Hastings. Naturally I accept there are other ways to rank tournaments ...

1	GM	Howell David W L	410608	ENG	2676
2	GM	Edouard Romain	633429	FRA	2653
3	GM	Van Den Doel Erik	1003720	NED	2589
4	GM	Sengupta Deep	5008352	IND	2564
5	GM	Stany G.A.	5029104	IND	2526
6	GM	Korneev Oleg	4156803	ESP	2524
7	GM	Kiriakov Petr	4119231	RUS	2502
8	GM	Gormally Daniel W	406465	ENG	2497
9	IM	Petrov Martin	2911086	BUL	2497
10	GM	Panchanathan Magesh Chandran	5007429	IND	2479
11	GM	Swayams Mishra	5028183	IND	2479
12	GM	Williams Simon K	404454	ENG	2461
13	GM	Arkell Keith C	400270	ENG	2453
14	GM	Flear Glenn C	400165	ENG	2440
15	GM	Fishbein Alexander	2000377	USA	2435
16	GM	Hebden Mark L	400084	ENG	2433
17	GM	Cherniaev Alexander	4117301	RUS	2419
18	GM	Lalic Bogdan	409081	CRO	2414
19	FM	Murphy Conor E	421669	IRL	2407
20	IM	Wadsworth Matthew J	415804	ENG	2401
21	GM	Abbasifar Hasan	12501000	IRI	2392
22	IM	Petrov Vladimir Sergeev	2902940	BUL	2355
23	FM	Willow Jonah B	438804	ENG	2355
24	IM	Bates Richard A	403555	ENG	2342
25	IM	Rudd Jack	405736	ENG	2331
26	FM	Grieve Harry	426520	ENG	2299
27		Terentiev Sergei	11600152	LAT	2292
28	WIM	Yao Lan	8610835	CHN	2281
29		Stoyanov Viktor	450308	ENG	2272
30	FM	Ratsma Midas	1032283	NED	2270
31	FM	Lyell Mark	402354	ENG	2265
32	FM	Wall Tim P	401641	ENG	2218
33	WFM	Lehaci Miruna-Daria	1234765	ROU	2214
34		Ratnesan Ranesh	439339	ENG	2213
35		Keetman Maaike	1033697	NED	2203
36		Brouwer Dennis	1018060	NED	2202
37		Brozel Sacha	429317	ENG	2188
38		Gallagher Daniel Gh	436550	ENG	2171
39		Anderson John	405353	ENG	2163
40	WFM	Sucikova Svetlana	14923653	SVK	2160
41		Graham David B	408131	ENG	2152
42		Fishbein Mitch	30922917	USA	2151
43	FM	Eames Robert S	408743	ENG	2150
44	FM	Gutierrez Carmona Juan Alejandr	5106770	MEX	2146
45		Boino Claudio	1901133	POR	2146
46	FM	Thompson Ian D	405205	ENG	2141
47		De Boer Bas	1050729	NED	2138
48		Unnikrishnan Midhun P	5074940	IND	2135
49		Ryzhkov Vjacheslav	4198484	RUS	2134
50		Patrick Chaski	1728849	SWE	2131
51		Brown Thomas	1801430	WLS	2116
52	CM	Persson Andreas	1707957	SWE	2112
53		Hutchinson Paul A	411558	ENG	2112
54		Price Gwilym	443980	ENG	2110
55		White Stuart A	407747	SCO	2106
56		Okhai Shabir	445134	ENG	2103
57		Willson Ollie	424714	ENG	2082
58	AIM	Pekin Tolgay	6305440	TUR	2080
59		Sugden John N	402001	ENG	2065
60		Comellas Blanchart Jordi	2291096	ESP	2064
61		Balaji Aaravamudhan	436224	ENG	2050
62	WIM	Flear Christine	602604	FRA	2035
63	AIM	Rice Chris B	404446	ENG	2027
64	WFM	Anuprita Patil	5012635	IND	2025
65	WFM	Norinkeviciute Rasa	12801925	LTU	2018
66		De Coverly Roger D	405213	ENG	1986
67		Mcnally Richard J E	422738	ENG	1967
68		Pavlov Mikhail	44126573	RUS	1955
69		Burrows Nick	432105	ENG	1952
70		Spanton Tim R	404802	ENG	1951
71		Ortiz Sanchez Luis	24581160	ESP	1947
72		Howell Oliver W	435929	ENG	1928
73		Thorpe Thomas	1802437	WLS	1924
74		Byrn Carsten	1406345	DEN	1919
75	AIM	Fryer David W	406384	ENG	1913
76		Jukes Sam	1803182	WLS	1906
77		Jennings Richard	2404435	SCO	1903
78		Ruane Brendan J	430218	ENG	1882
79		Metcalfe Charlie P	443883	ENG	1867
80		Garnett John S	410829	ENG	1865
81		Flynn David	410594	ENG	1853
82		Siddharth Gopakumar	5053463	IND	1848
83		Miller George	343114090	ENG	1845
84		Wilson Matthew R	423459	ENG	1837
85		Gisbert Mir Alejandro	22253653	ESP	1835
86		Drastik Penelope	3214850	AUS	1821
87		Shivika Rohilla	45015414	IND	1744
88		Zheng Harry Z	460982	ENG	1704
89		Khoo-Thwe Louis	1538756	NOR	1690
90		Sandhu Manvith	458872	ENG	1673
91		Brouwer Willem	1067958	NED	1662
92		Cresswell Mike J	470139	ENG	1662
93		Kearsley Raymond J	470562	ENG	1624
94		Mineev Sergey I.	34200720	RUS	1588
95		Zheng Jerry Z	460990	ENG	1565
96		Abbasifar Baran	22518223	IRI	1531
97		Stoyanov Boris	456462	ENG	1504
98		Kumar Sanjit S	468142	ENG	1501
99		Ratnesan Radha	442828	ENG	1477
100		Krovvidi Raja	488275	ENG	1465
101		Liu Tianyi	8627894	CHN	1307
102		Boudjelaba Mohamed	7939787	ALG	0
103		Snape Ian L	404489	ENG	2196
104	CM	Faulks Nick	8800103	BER	1900