If you attended the University of Wisconsin at Madison in the past 15 years or so, you may have seen the “Jump Around” event at home football games in Camp Randall. If not, here’s one. In 2003 evidently there was some concern on the part of stadium officials as to whether the structure could handle the semi-synchronized jumping of tens of thousands of people, and the activity was banned for at least one home game until engineers analyzed the stadium design and determined that it would be alright; details here.
I lived in Madison when I was a little kid in the late '70’s, and my dad remembers a similar situation happening back then with the marching band performing a particular song (possibly their borrowed/modified Budweiser theme, “When You Say Wisconsin…”) and the stadium fans dancing in unison. He said that stadium officials back then similarly shut down the activity, analyzed the structure, and then said “have fun” when they decided the stadium could take it without collapsing.
I can’t find any internet reference to the events my dad mentions. Is he misremembering something from another stadium, or what?
Maybe I just couldn’t see it in the video, but they appeared to be jumping completely randomly. Considering this, I can’t see why they thought the structure would have problems with this. I can imagine that jumping in unison might be a problem.
I lived in Madison in the mid 70s and went to most home games, although my seats were not in the upper deck. You could see the upper deck shake as everyone stomped to the Budweiser song, and I remember hearing rumors about the school being concerned about the safety of it. However, they didn’t stop it. It was one of the most entertaining parts of the game. I also enjoyed the beginning when the drum major would lead the band out on the field and bend over backwards so that the tip of his hat would touch the ground. If I remember correctly, the drinking age was 18 so there were lots of people worse for wear at the games. The atmosphere was interesting at the time. Someone a couple rows ahead of me was smoking marijuana during the game, one of the ushers came down to talk to him and ended up sitting in the aisle and sharing it with him.
They stopped Jump Around for a game back in 2003 because that’s when they were starting to build the suites that now lines the east side of the stadium.
My grandparents had season tickets (which my parents inherited and then sadly gave up in the Don Morton era). The seats were under the upper deck and while I don’t remember the stadium shaking, I do remember being convinced that the upper deck of the stadium would collapse on us eventually.
In terms of unsafe behavior in the student section, I remember body passing, which had been stamped out by the time I got to sit in the student section. In my time there, marshmallow tossing (pennies or other objects as ballast) was the bad behavior being actively shut down.