There have been many ingenious methods which journalists have employed to estimate crowd sizes over the years, though many boil down to guesswork, backed up by figures produced by local authorities or event organizers. Even police figures are used to determine crowd size, though how can a journalist decide upon the correct figures to use when reporting on an event of huge proportions?
*Concerts and musical events.
*Riots and demonstrations.
*Spectacles
*Sporting events.
*Public mourning.
Concerts and musical events.
It is likely that outdoor musical events will attract more people than have bought tickets. While figures can easily be gleaned from the organizers, this should include those members of the public who will just turn up in the hope of buying tickets.
If you look at past events such as Woodstock or the famous Isle of Wight concerts, the percentage of people arriving for these events could never be estimated in advance. What made the figures more authentic was the observance of those outside the set arenas, and adding these as a proportion. Another means of establishing figures is to ask the police, since they will be aware of increased traffic to a given venue.
Riots and demonstrations.
While estimates are easily gleaned from authorities, these are rarely accurate. Attending the event in person and reporting upon it becomes easier when you judge the amount of people on the scene. No-one is going to count heads, though local police and officials will be able to tell you whether the stated figures expected have been exceeded and by how much.
Often the quantity of people is judged by estimation which is inaccurate and a journalist needs to find some kind of accurate measure which will reflect the size of the demonstration and strength of attendance in terms of ambiance, controllability and police expectations. These figures can also be determined if the journalist is able to see footage of the event, and estimate the area in which the event took place, and use a mean average number of heads per square meter.
Spectacles.
A crowd gathering for a well known spectacle will be easier to estimate. Tickets will have been sold and will be for sale. Organizers will be only too happy to divulge ticket sales and expectations, plus having to provide adequate insurance cover for those attending will have set parameters to work within. Talk with organizers to establish the number of paying spectators, and then gage the area outside of the paying area to see how many potential non paying spectators that area would house.
Sporting events.
Sporting events are well documented. The sports organizers and the local police will be aware of numbers, to which can be added any unexpected overflow. Journalists will also see at a glance if turn-out has produced disappointing figures.
Public mourning.
One of the hardest sizes of crowds to judge is the spontaneous crowd who turns out for something as sad as public mourning. Journalists can estimate size of crowd through experience, though in events such as the death of the Princess of Wales, even the authorities and police had no idea of the extent of the crowd who would line the streets to mourn the Princess. Journalists have gone to thorough lengths to provide accurate figures of crowds even measuring the area of the route in question and dividing this by an estimated 2 square feet per person.
On the grand scale of things, this will never be totally accurate, though estimating in this manner is easier when you know the route and the width and depth of all spectator areas. Great variances will apply between different journalist's coverage of each event, though often these can be common sense figures based on known quantities, adding the possibilities as a percentage.
Although crowd counting is an impossible task, by using police and authority figures and the journalist's own experience of the events in question, those figures which can be produced will be reasonably within the bounds of acceptable for journalistic purposes.
The most accurate figures will always be produced by those officials with the most experience of events of this magnitude, and these are the first line of defense when trying to produce figures which make journalistic work seem accurate in their reporting of events, which are indeed otherwise hard for an individual to estimate.