Calculating a Minimum Attendance Number for the 9/12 DC Tea Party

vanity | 9/12/2009 | speelurker

[speelurker]

I've put together a Google Spreadsheet with a calculation of a minimum number of people who could have attended today.

Density Calculation Spreadsheet

This is based on analyzing what the camera that was looking down Pennsylvania Avenue saw throughout the event. Here's a snapshow when it's empty:

Here's an analysis of the width of that street using Google Earth:

[Albion Wilde]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-01-19-crowd_N.htm

Based on that map, we absolutely, completely and totally filled their 240,000 area, and partially filled their 940,000 area, and that is not counting the 100 to 200 thousand who remained on Pennsylvania Avenue throughout the event.

[wastoute]

We entered The March at Federal Triangle where we got off the subway somewhere around 10:45 I guess (sorry didn't look at my watch). Pennsylvania Ave. was FULL when we go there. I don't know how far it extended in either direction but I got the impression that the front of the march was probably already at the Capitol and God knows where the back was. I figure Pennsylvania Ave. was full end to end with spillage at both ends. Figure out how many folks that is and you may get a fair estimate that will still be low because as has been pointed out there were probably hundreds of buses that unloaded on the Mall.

I think the organizers werent' ready for that many folks. The Capitol Police (who were very friendly and supportive) had cordoned off the area immediately adjacent to the building and heard them say that area was only allowed to have 80,000 folks. They would only let 1 person in for every one that left when we tried to get in there. At that point there were more people in the overflow areas to the right and left than were in the central area. That doesn't even include the folks that were back around the reflecting pond. I think we have to deal with several numbers here and there may have been over a million on Pennsylvania Ave. but when folks got to the Capitol building if you weren't in the first 200,000 you couldn't hear the speakers or see anything so there were almost that number of folks milling around up and down the mall.

Anyway, that is my take on it. I don't think you can compare crowd sizes here with prior Mall crowds because this crowd was actually down around the Capitol.

Μολὼν λάβε

[speelurker]

An update for those watching this thread. The spreadsheet is currently estimating a total attendance of ~450,000.

[Political Junkie Too]

It's really quite a simple process.

First, you have to establish the baseline. Let's say the baseline is MLK's speech at the Lincoln Memorial in 1963. That crowd was estimated to be 200,000 people.

Can the 9/12 crowd be bigger than the MLK crowd? Absolutely not.

Second, we have the Louis Farrakhan million man march in DC in 1995. According to Wikipedia, the National Park Service estimated the crowd at 400,000. Boston University researchers put the crowd at 850,000, and the BBC estimated the crowd at 1.9 million.

So clearly, the largest modern protest in Washington that can be larger than the MLK crowd is another African-American protest. The 9/12 turnout must be smaller than the Million Man March.

Third, we have the Obama inauguration. This crowd was estimated to be about 1 million. Safe territory. (Note: Johnson's inauguration was estimated to be larger, even larger than the MLK speech, but Kennedy's 1965 inauguration was an emotional event for everyone.)

So now that we have the benchmarks for crowd size, it's evident that the 9/12 event has to fall below 200,000.

The ubiquitous "thousands" would be the desirable MSM accounting for this.

-PJ

[states_rights_gist]

My husband & I attended the event. We got to freedom plaza at 9:25 and it was pretty full then. We stood around for about 20 minutes and then the a large portion of the crowd in front of us started moving down Pennsylvania Ave, we were nowhere near the beginning of the crowd. We walked a block down Pennsylvania and then got over on the sidewalk to watch people going by around 10:20am (the march wasn’t even supposed to have started until 11am. We watched people for 1hr & 20min and the crowd coming down Pensylvania was still thick & showed no signs of thinning, so we joined the crowd again. We met a couple guys at an intersection that were doing an estimate of people - and said that at 11:30 there were over 400,000 that had passed them. They had been at that intersection since 9:30 & that there were already people ahead of them when they stopped to count. We finally got up near the the crown at the Capitol around 12:30 & there were still people coming up Pennysylvania. So at minimum I can verify a thick crowd of people were walking from the Freedom Plaza to the Capitol for 2.5 hrs.

[speelurker]

Now that’s really interesting. If I plugin 150 minutes instead of the 90 minutes suggested by the video, the total that marched goes up to 387K. Very encouraging.

That makes the total estimate jump to 718K.

[norton]

Can the 9/12 crowd be bigger than the MLK crowd? Absolutely not.

Because...?

[Political Junkie Too]

Agenda.

-PJ

[norton]

Sarcasm?

[Political Junkie Too]

Yes.

Question: How do you compare how the MSM (CNN) took a snap poll of Obama's Congressional speech showing 67% now supporting Obama's health care reform, with how the MSM takes snap crowd counts at events like 9/12?

Do you think they had an agenda to inflate the poll numbers? Could that same agenda drive the MSM to deflate conservate rally numbers?

-PJ

[EDINVA]

I was one of those who didn’t text .. I never text! So they can add three more to their count.

[Capagrl]

One phenomenon that I have never experienced with such power, was a wave of cheering rushing from a long distance behind me up to and past me. It was actually frightening with its noise level and speed. You actually could feel it as well as hear it. Was really incredible. I have never felt or heard anything like it at professional football or basketball games.
Me, too!! THAT was powerful! I live near Penn State and always enjoy the, "We Are..." followed by, "Penn State!" that breaks out spontaneously and is ALWAYS answered. That's the closest I've ever come to something like this. I was laughing and calling it an enthusiasm wave.

[norton]

You mean like how can a 'respected' polling group stack a poll two to one in favor of the result they want to get?
How can an entire industry lock "tens of thousands" into the history books within about an hour of the protest start time?

Absolutely.

Just like I believe that the next/current campaign calls for more and more articles of the "dark place", "gun toting fringe racists", and Beck fans as backward hicks editorials.

Two problems.
One; I missed the sarcasm tag, and, Two, We've been fighting both the bias and the deceit for a long time now and it won't change until there is absolutely no dry land for them to stand on.

PS: Local Sunday paper dedicated three columns, about five inches long, to Obama's 9/12 campaign speech, and one column, same length, to the Tea Party - which they identified only as a protest.

[Political Junkie Too]

Two problems. One; I missed the sarcasm tag...

Sorry about that. Sometimes I assume too much about the clear intent of my posts (having been here so long).

-PJ

[luckybogey]

My personal best estimate is around 1M. This is based on living in DC area for 20 years and reviewing available overhead photos. AJ Strata estimates over 1 M.

http://strata-sphere.com/blog/index.php/archives/10545

[BunnySlippers]

I agree.

[Norseman]

Here’s another way to calculate the parade numbers:

Take the number abreast in the parade and assume a marching speed and a time elapsed and you can calculate how many people pass a given point (the beginning of the parade route) over that time period.

For example, I would put the number abreast, conservatively, at 30, since that would allow about one yard per person, more than enough. Posters here have claimed it took nearly an hour to go the mile up the street at the slowest pace, so that’s one mile per hour or 1760 yards per hour.

I would also assume one yard between rows on average, which again seems conservative given the pictures of the crowd. so that means that 1760 rows of marchers passed per hour.

Another poster claimed the parade lasted 2.5 hours, but assume 2 hours to be conservative. Thus, we have 30 marchers in a row x 1,760 rows per hour x 2 hours = 105,000 people.

I was surprised it was that high, as I think the numbers are quite conservative. In this format, with a calculator, you can play with the assumptions. For example, going with the 2.5 hours, you run the number up 25% to 132,000. Then assuming an average speed of 2 mph, you double that to 264,000 and if you increase the number per “row” to say, 40 (not unreasonable given the pictures I’ve seen) and you’re up another 1/3 to 352,000 (40 x 1760x2 x 2.5).

Then assume nowhere near everyone marched and it’s easy to see how you could get close to a million. One thing appears certain, the 60-70,000 estimates originally publicized are bogus. The parade could be 20 abreast, take 2 hours, go at the snail’s pace of one mile an hour, and it would be 70,000 people just in the parade itself.

[Norseman]

One more thing. The only “variable” I didn’t play with was the distance between “rows” which I left at 1 yard. It’s pretty hard to stroll along if people are packed tighter than that, but if the crowd was dense enough that they had to shuffle down the street to avoid stepping on one another, then there could have been more than 1760 rows per mile.

If you can reach out and touch the person walking in front of you on the back, you’re about a yard apart. Maybe someone who marched has some insight on this aspect of the density?

[norton]

Sometimes it's hard to tell and other times you only wish.
Having been here only slightly longer.
:)

[LindaPA]

I was there for the entire March… it was one of the largest in DC. We had befriended the Capital Police and spoke to them all day.

At 2:30 PM the Capital Police told me directly that they were being told we reached approximately 1.2 million by 1:00PM and that we far exceeded what the city had expected. They would periodically state that DC & the Metro were taken by surprise by such a massive crowd.

In addition, they made comments about how this was one of the best crowds, especially given the numbers, and that they did not mind being out today. The police are probably being constrained by politics, because we are not hearing any of this in the media… also very sad.

BTW: It was also mentioned that after the Inauguration, Obama supporters trashed the mall… after the 9-12 March; we left the Mall perfectly clean… no trash. Obama’s supporters cost us tax dollars from the first day, the 9-12 Marchers saved tax dollars… any surprise.