# Cubs World Series celebration ranks as 7th largest gathering in human history (?) **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 4, 2016, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cubs-world-series-celebration-ranks-as-7th-largest-gathering-in-human-history/770652 "2016-11-04T21:49:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2016, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cubs-world-series-celebration-ranks-as-7th-largest-gathering-in-human-history/770652/21 "2016-11-05T03:49:28Z")
This list must be wrong. Surely the largest crowd in history was the crucifixion of Jesus, with all of the time travelers attending. ---
**Author:** ![SeaDragonTattoo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@SeaDragonTattoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SeaDragonTattoo)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2016, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cubs-world-series-celebration-ranks-as-7th-largest-gathering-in-human-history/770652/22 "2016-11-05T04:18:36Z")
Yeah, they’re counting everyone lining the route all the way from the ball field to Grant Park. But I sure don’t believe that number. The entire Metropolitan area of Chicago and surrounding suburbs is 10 million. I know Metra (the suburban rail service) was overwhelmed all afternoon, based on news reports and facebook posts from family of mine who went and used Metra. I know the CTA was nuts based on other friends who posted pics. Getting there wasn’t so bad because people trickled in over many hours starting at 4-5am, but everyone tried to leave within just a couple hours. I was perfectly happy watching the live coverage on four channels from my couch. Those people are nuts. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2016, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cubs-world-series-celebration-ranks-as-7th-largest-gathering-in-human-history/770652/23 "2016-11-05T04:25:47Z")
> [@Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](#): > > I’m hoping that the CTA (public transit in Chicago) publishes ridership numbers for today. That might at least give an order of magnitude to attendance. Their numbers always have a huge range, though: Twenty-five or -six to four hundred thousand. It’ll keep you up nights wondering how they come up with that stuff. They don’t even know what time it is. ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Downtown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Mr\_Downtown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Downtown)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2016, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cubs-world-series-celebration-ranks-as-7th-largest-gathering-in-human-history/770652/24 "2016-11-05T04:27:33Z")
On any weekday, 150,000 people ride Metra. CTA normally carries another 800,000. So let’s **very** generously estimate they both managed to carry twice that today. Still less than two million, much less five. I live about 1000 feet from where the rally was held. The traffic and crowds looked little different to me from Lollapalooza. Maybe the kind of numbers we used to get for July 3rd fireworks. ---
**Author:** ![buddha\_david](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee7513/32.png) [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2016, 7:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cubs-world-series-celebration-ranks-as-7th-largest-gathering-in-human-history/770652/25 "2016-11-05T07:01:53Z")
> [@Temper70](#): > > [Cubs World Series celebration ranks as 7th largest gathering in human history](http://www.fox32chicago.com/news/local/215601786-story) That list omits a ton of events. According to [Wikipedia’s list,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_peaceful_gatherings_in_history) there were Arba’een pilgrimages in 2009-2015 ranging from 10 to 26 million, plus a few other Pope-related visits in the Philippines, plus a couple others. The Cubs parade barely makes the top 15, assuming the estimates are anywhere accurate. ---
**Author:** ![Francis\_Vaughan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/francis_vaughan/32/3093_2.png) [@Francis\_Vaughan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Francis_Vaughan)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2016, 7:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cubs-world-series-celebration-ranks-as-7th-largest-gathering-in-human-history/770652/26 "2016-11-05T07:58:07Z")
As a matter of comparison, the attendees at the Sydney Harbour New Year’s fireworks is estimated at 1.6 million. Spectators basically line the entire eastern harbour. It is huge. (The harbour is one of the worlds largest, we are not talking a small area.) > **[Map of NYE vantage points on Sydney Harbour | Sydney New Year's Eve](https://www.sydneynewyearseve.com/vantage-points/)** > > Find the best spots to watch the Sydney New Year's Eve fireworks on the official Vantage point map The public transport system runs literally thousands of extra services. There are significant road closures to cope with the need to move lots of people on foot. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2016, 8:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cubs-world-series-celebration-ranks-as-7th-largest-gathering-in-human-history/770652/27 "2016-11-05T08:38:03Z")
Where would they have found bathrooms for 5 million people? ---
**Author:** ![jsquire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ce73a5/32.png) [@jsquire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsquire)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2016, 9:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cubs-world-series-celebration-ranks-as-7th-largest-gathering-in-human-history/770652/28 "2016-11-05T09:22:29Z")
One annual event that brings out huge crowds of spectators is the Boston Marathon. Estimates sometimes go as high as 1 million, and there’s no way that’s right. Let’s suppose people are shoulder-to-shoulder along both sides of the route for all 26.2 miles. That’s a massive amount of people…and calculates out to 185,000. Now, the first 10 miles of the course doesn’t have anywhere near that kind of spectator presence. The last 6 to 10 is mostly shoulder-to-shoulder, and Cleveland Cirvle and the last 2-3 miles has people standing 3 and 4 deep. On the whole I’d say an average year couldn’t possibly have more than 250,000 spectators, and a heavy turnout year like 2014 maybe 300,000 to 350,000. And that’s for what amounts to a 26-mile long parade. Basically, a million of anything is a lot more than most people comprehend. ---
**Author:** ![buddha\_david](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee7513/32.png) [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2016, 9:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cubs-world-series-celebration-ranks-as-7th-largest-gathering-in-human-history/770652/29 "2016-11-05T09:29:15Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > Where would they have found bathrooms for 5 million people? Plenty of alleyways and dumpsters in Chicago. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2016, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cubs-world-series-celebration-ranks-as-7th-largest-gathering-in-human-history/770652/30 "2016-11-05T14:35:50Z")
> [@jsquire](#): > > One annual event that brings out huge crowds of spectators is the Boston Marathon. Estimates sometimes go as high as 1 million, and there’s no way that’s right. > > Let’s suppose people are shoulder-to-shoulder along both sides of the route for all 26.2 miles. That’s a massive amount of people…and calculates out to 185,000. > > Now, the first 10 miles of the course doesn’t have anywhere near that kind of spectator presence. The last 6 to 10 is mostly shoulder-to-shoulder, and Cleveland Cirvle and the last 2-3 miles has people standing 3 and 4 deep. On the whole I’d say an average year couldn’t possibly have more than 250,000 spectators, and a heavy turnout year like 2014 maybe 300,000 to 350,000. And that’s for what amounts to a 26-mile long parade. > > Basically, a million of anything is a lot more than most people comprehend. I’ve been to games in Michigan with crowds of about 100,000+ paid attendees. It has a capacity of 107K, but games up to 115K have been played there. I would actually say it was surprising how little room 100K+ people seemed to take up. It’s not a small stadium, but it’s a lot smaller than I had envisioned in my head. I have no trouble believe 10x of this capacity showing up at a major even like this. Now, as I said above, 50x that stretches credibility, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the number was in the 2 million range. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2016, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cubs-world-series-celebration-ranks-as-7th-largest-gathering-in-human-history/770652/31 "2016-11-05T15:05:08Z")
[Here’s a little page on crowd densities](http://www.gkstill.com/Support/crowd-density/CrowdDensity-1.html). It looks like 1-2 people per square meter is a safe crowd density. So we’re looking at a mass of people taking up 500K - 1 mil square meters for one million people (as a conservative estimate in my opinion–it looks to me like crowds are packed tighter than that from the pictures I saw.) For one million people, we’re looking at a square 700-1000 meters on each side. Obviously, people are not going to be in a perfect square, but that should give a ballpark visualization. Five million still seems high but, like I said before, 1-2 million I have no trouble believing, especially as the estimate is for the whole route. Hell, I might even believe 3 million. ---
**Author:** ![Count\_Blucher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2016, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cubs-world-series-celebration-ranks-as-7th-largest-gathering-in-human-history/770652/32 "2016-11-05T16:19:50Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > Where would they have found bathrooms for 5 million people? “You know, that’s honestly the lightest shade of green that I’ve ever seen the water at Belmont Harbor…?” “Yeah. And whats with all those fish dying…?” “Must be the excitement.” “Yeah…” ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2016, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cubs-world-series-celebration-ranks-as-7th-largest-gathering-in-human-history/770652/33 "2016-11-05T16:30:06Z")
I would assume they put out port-a-potties for an event such as this. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cubs-world-series-celebration-ranks-as-7th-largest-gathering-in-human-history/770652.md?page=1)