I’m old too, but I recall how much fun it was at my favorite college hangout. You had to get moving the instant you felt like you’d need to pee, because it could take 15 minutes to work your way over to the bathroom. Empty, that trip takes 15 seconds.
Good times
It’s because of stories like this I have this odd quirk where I scope out escape routes and non-obvious exits (i.e. not the front door) whenever I am in any large crowd situation like a concert. Of course, it may not help if I can’t react quickly enough and the rush of humanity pushes up against me, but the planning passes the time while waiting for the opening act.
It’s a perfectly good instinct, as most people just try to go out the door they came in through. Along with everybody else. Of course, when I was lying in bed trying to sleep last night I was thinking about all my favorite bars and what deathtraps they are. (Not from overcrowding, but the one we go to most often has two exits that basically go the same place, which is a narrow, dark flight of stairs to street level.)
People get that excited over Columbia football? What was the big celebration – they lost by less than two touchdowns?
Kidding…
I think there’s a law in California now that before any show or concert can begin, an annoncement has to be made to the effect of “Please take a moment to locate all the exits around you, in case of emergency.” For the last couple of years I’ve heard this at every performance, at every venue.
University of South Carolina, sorry. Yes, they suck at football too, but they really, really care about it.
Another old guy here, but even when I was young I *hated *crowded bars. While the “Freshman Bars” and the “Frat Bars” were packed to the gills, my pals and I had a little spot off the beaten path, where we could always get a seat, that had cheap beer and a killer jukebox.
Good times, indeed.
I do this, too. I think it’s because I read so much zombie/post-apocalyptic fiction 
Wrong Columbia. The University of South Carolina is in Columbia, South Carolina, and this past weekend their football team, the Gamecocks (affectionately referred to as the Cocks, who were ranked #19) beat Alabama (who was ranked #1). That’s the first time they’ve ever beaten a #1 ranked team.
I honestly expected to read that rioting fans burned Columbia to the ground afterwards.
I’m trying to eat my leftover turkey and stuffing here, not snort it out my nose.
When I read threads like this, I often think that my claustrophobia is not exactly an illogical fear (I always know where the exits are, too, and am very unlikely to be found in a bar at five times capacity).
Apparently you’re an expert in judging crowd dynamics?
I’ve been told that it’s not uncommon to slip the fire marshall some green to look the other way–or at least it was ten years ago. YMMV.
Yeah, it’s crazy how some places make laws that save lives and all. Such a weird coincidence that the most deadly US nightclub fire ever was in the 40’s and we haven’t had one that bad since - I wonder why that was? Luck, I guess. Couldn’t be that we figured out some of the stuff that kills people like Raid kills roaches and made it illegal or anything. Because then we’d be assholes. Just because we could, theoretically, fit more people in if we all held our breath, that’s an awesome reason to do it.
Yes, it has been 7 years since the Rhose Island “Filling Station” nightclub disaster. I wonder how many bars like this have firetrap construction, exit doors that open inward? Plus, with that many drunks, many would die from smoke inhalation. A disaster waiting to happen.
Pitting fire code violations?..how lame has The Pit gotten.
Well I thought that’s what I was asking. If you can get more than double the number of people in there that its rated for, people can still get drinks and (presumably) reach the toilet, I would still need to ask if there was something wrong with the rating passed down to this bar…the idea that a place can be full as in “its dangerous how many people are in here and there is not a stampede” and you can still double the number, it just don’t feel right.
And yet incidents like the “Station” fire show that it is in fact highly dangerous.
The limitation isn’t how many people you can physically fit, it’s how fast you can get them out. If the available exits only allow you to safely evacuate X people, then X is the max capacity of the building even you could comfortably fit a lot more.
In addition to what Mogle said the available bathrooms also contribute to a venues capacity. If you have a stadium sized venue where all the walls are built of doors which open outwards but you only have one mens bathroom stall and one womens bathroom stall you will probably have a pretty low capacity. While that doesn’t relate to fire safety a venue is expected to be able to provide bathroom facilities for the amount of patrons in it’s capacity.
Og forbid someone gets sued when a bunch of people die in your establishment. That’s just crazy.