Guess the Attendance?

June 15, 2009 11:25 AM

How can I quickly and accurately estimate the number of people attending an event or performance?

I work in event marketing / promotions. Part of my job is to complete a report after each event, and each report asks for the estimated attendance. The problem is, I have no idea how to estimate that number.

Are there any 'tricks' or strategies to come up with the number?

Notes: If I could get an exact count, I would. I don't have access to ticket sales (99% of the events are free and non-ticketed). Events are usually 1-2 hours long and 80%+ of the crowd stays for the whole show. I've tried using multiplication (X rows of people times Y people per row) but people are never very densely packed.

posted by steeb2er to sports, hobbies, & recreation (7 comments total)

Figure out the max number the venue will hold, eyeball the crowd and make an estimate. Is it half full? A quarter?

Concessions and parking managers will often have their own estimates. How many cups of beer did they sell? Can you extrapolate that number to the crowd with a reasonable margin of error.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 11:29 AM on June 15

For seated performances, it's a little easier. If you know that you have x rows with y chairs in each, and you divide the entire space into quandrants or whatever seems visually sensemaking, you can eyeball/count how many empty seats (if it's well attended) or full seats (if not well attended).

For standing events, ugh, it's hard, because people move around and some stand closer to each other than others, etc. I usually quickly count the number of people in a standing in one group, then extrapolate to how many such similarly-shaped groups are present.
posted by desuetude at 12:42 PM on June 15

If you've got somebody on the door, give 'em a clicker-counter. Problem solved.

If that's not possible, you'll have to estimate. As long as the people are evenly spread, you can just count the people in a small section and extrapolate from that.

This gets easier the more used to the venue you are. I am generally terrible at making estimates, but for the venues I work at a lot, I can scan the room and give you an instant headcount. A lot of it is just practice.
posted by the latin mouse at 1:20 PM on June 15

Get a clicker. Stand at entrance while majority of crowd comes in. Count.
posted by amelioration at 1:24 PM on June 15

When you look out over your attendees, pick out a couple of 10 x 10 blocks by counting. Then, put your thumb to your eye so as to cover a block. Move your thumb around and count how many groups you can block out under your thumb. (Make some mental adjustments for perspective.)

If it looks like a lot of people, it's generally more than you think it is.
posted by StickyCarpet at 2:11 PM on June 15

Take a photo. Put a grid over it, count the number of people in a typical grid square. Count the number of squares full of people. Multiply.

Get a photo from mostly above or use Photoshop or Gimp to correct perspective first. As for counting the squares, guestimate some of them. This one is crowded, counts as 1.5 squares. This one is nearly empty, 0.2 squares worth of people, etc.

Here's a quick summary of how different professional organizations estimate crowds.
posted by Ookseer at 4:33 PM on June 15

I find an area on the floor that is peopled at about medium density, & I count heads in that clump. Then I eyeball how many times that area could fit into the whole space where people are (leaving out any obviously unpopulated areas. Picking a mid-density spot helps average out the population.
posted by pseudostrabismus at 6:30 PM on June 15