Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with crowds

Chow for a Crowd

ottereroticist — Wed, 13 May 2009 16:25:33 -0800

Recipes and tips on cooking for a horde (~200 people). Next month I'll be managing the kitchen for a four-day event for about 200 people. Right now, I need to come up with menus and a food order for simple, delicious meals for a horde.

Emphasis is on fresh, local, organic food (Pacific NW). All menus must include a vegan, gluten-free, nut-free alternative. Budget is reasonable, not tightly constrained.

Diners range from mainstream meat-and-potato types, to adventurous foodies, to whole-food purists. The kitchen is rustic, with propane stove, ovens, and griddle. Refrigeration is limited, as are industrial prep machines (a kitchen-sized food processor is about it, but lots of hands for chopping).

I'm looking for menu suggestions (breakfast/lunch/dinners), as well as general tips on cooking for a large crowd.

What rules of thumb do you use to estimate quantities and simplify/ scale recipes for a crowd? What are some tips for making a rustic all-volunteer kitchen run smoothly? Can you recommend a cookbook with massively scalable recipes, especially for baking? What extra treats and extras can we offer to make our diners extra-happy?

Thanks everybody!

Help me feed a crowd

maxg94 — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 08:48:24 -0800

Help me feed a crowd of people, adults and children, on a trip. Ideas? More inside. We have 16 adults and 35 kids (ages 8-17 years) going on a trip together. I need to put together dinner plans where we all bring things for our communal dinners. We have access to 3 smallish kitchens but with normal size fridge, stovetop and oven. Things to keep in mind: nothing too complicated in terms of time for preparation, appeal to variety of tastes (picky kids), easy to bring from home, not too expensive, no grilling (it's freezing there). In the past we have had: taco bar, ziti and salad, sub bar, lasagne. Looking for new ideas! Thanks.

Source code refactoring website?

zzztimbo — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 12:17:23 -0800

I'm looking for a website where people post source code and then others comment on improvements.

Keep on dancing!

umbú — Thu, 01 May 2008 11:27:21 -0800

What are some examples of "the show going on" under the threat of a riot? I am riveted by footage of the Rolling Stones performing at Altamont, pretending to enjoy themselves on stage so that utter pandemonium doesn't break loose, and James Brown performing in Boston in the wake of the assassination of Martin Luther King.

What are some other examples of musicians (or other performers) going on with their performances in the face of volatile and unfolding circumstances?

Big Time Sensuality

ktoad — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 07:50:02 -0800

What is the largest live crowd to ever witness a couple having sex? I know there are plenty of sex clubs with nightly live performances, and I recall this 2004 story (NSFW), but it doesn't discuss the number of people in the crowd. I'm not planning to attempt a world record or anything, just curious who holds the title. For example, anyone ever engage in the act on the field at halftime during the Superbowl (and Janet Jackson's breast doesn't count), etc.?

Help me remember something I once read about estimation

zachlipton — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 17:44:16 -0800

WisdomOfCrowdsFilter: I read a theory smewhere that there's a peculiar thing that happens when you ask a group of people to estimate something. As I remember it, there's something about the magic number of 50%, but I'm not wholly sure how this works. The idea was basically that when at least 50% of the individuals were estimating properly in some way, the average estimate would eventually converge on the true value, but when less then 50% of the individuals estimated properly, widely divergent values would emerge. Essentially, more then 50% or _something_ produced good estimates, less then 50% produced estimates that were substantially worse than those produced by just one individual. I've spent some time with Google and Wikipedia on Estimation and Delphi methods, but to no avial. Any mifites know what I'm talking about?

Images of people en masse spelling things with their bodies?

cloudscratcher — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 21:48:19 -0800

Desperately looking for images of people en masse, spelling something with their bodies. Or in stadiums, when they make a picture by having everyone hold up a colored card. I've tried the search terms I could think of and run them through the usual suspects... but if you know of such a picture (or a group of pictures) like this, I'd be metagrateful.

A sell out?

dead_ — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 11:48:11 -0800

How does the media predict the number of fans traveling to see an away game? Tomorrow I will be attending the USC vs. Nebraska college football game in LA. Nebraska fans are notorious travelers, and the various media outlets around the country have been estimating the number of Husker faithful who will be traveling to the game.

Most newspapers are saying between 20,000 and 30,000 Husker fans will be coming. How are they arriving at this guess?

It seems like at first they could easily count the number of visitor tickets sold and to which zip code--but this wouldn't paint the full picture, because people like me purchased tickets via eBay, craigslist or directly through a California contact.

So how do they arrive at this number? How can they possibly estimate with any certainty that 20,000 are going to show up?

Hopefully that creepy dancing guy won't be there

emptybowl — Thu, 09 Jun 2005 13:49:54 -0800

Is there any way I can find attendance statistics for amusement parks? Planning a trip to Six Flags here in Maryland. My theory: July 5th would be a good day to go. It's my belief that people are more likely to take off Friday for a 4 day weekend, than a Tuesday, and other's would be lees likely to take a day off, since it's just after a holiday, so July 5th would be less crowded than normal. Everyone else seems to think I'm crazy and that any day near a holiday would be a mess. If no one knows where I can get statistics, I will certainly accept opinions on the validity/insanity of my theory.