It Took Three of Me to Write This, I Think.

Crowd estimating is always contentious. The proverbial wisdom is that supporters of a cause over-estimate the crowd, opponents low ball and the police can't be trusted, even though they do this all the time.

This week I got another perspective. A meeting planner was trying to figure out how many people to expect at an event. The organization had hosted a similar one a few years before her tenure and had told her last time, 400 attended. She asked a friend who had been there — a state employee who was well-known for accurately estimating crowds at the Capitol. He called it 600.

Since she'd only sold 250 tickets, she was getting worried and called the venue. By the way, she asked, how many did we have last time?

The woman on the other end checked her records: 254, she said.

Comments

[Grace Kelly]

So 350 people snuck in?