The park permit was for sixty-thousand people. They expected about eighty-five to end up coming. At the rally itself, they guessed attendance had reached about 150k.
(A Comedy Central executive joked 'ten or fifteen million'. Stephen Colbert tweeted six billion.)
Today, attendance at the Rally To Restore Sanity And/Or Fear is being generally agreed upon by various news outlets as having exceeded 215,000 people, with some estimating as high as a quarter of a million.
To give you an idea:
And by 'filled' I mean 'crammed shoulder-to-shoulder to the point of total immobility in every direction'.
AmericaBlog's John Aravosis about sums it up:
"In my 25 years in DC, I've been to a lot of the biggest rallies, save the Million Man March and the Pro-Life rallies. I have never, ever, seen anything this big. It was wall to wall people. You couldn't even walk across. It took us half an hour to go across maybe 100 feet. I have never seen anything like this.
That picture, extended down, would be about three screens as long vertically. The open spaces you see in the middle are the barricade of media trucks, first-aid tent, and the DC police's mobile observation tower -- all completely overrun.
Picture from the circling helicopter:
Which should likewise span about three screens to the left.
There weren't enough jumbo-trons or speakers in the area for people to see or hear VIDEO of the stage. People stuck on adjacent streets GAVE UP AND WENT TO BARS TO WATCH IT ON TV.
After the close of the rally, most in attendance decided the best course of action was to join an impromptu parade down Pennsylvania Avenue. In the hours directly preceding and following the rally, DC Transit Authority reports that the metro system was 'overwhelmed' and 'crippled' by the unexpected volume.
This thing was EPIC in scale.
(A Comedy Central executive joked 'ten or fifteen million'. Stephen Colbert tweeted six billion.)
Today, attendance at the Rally To Restore Sanity And/Or Fear is being generally agreed upon by various news outlets as having exceeded 215,000 people, with some estimating as high as a quarter of a million.
To give you an idea:
And by 'filled' I mean 'crammed shoulder-to-shoulder to the point of total immobility in every direction'.
AmericaBlog's John Aravosis about sums it up:
"In my 25 years in DC, I've been to a lot of the biggest rallies, save the Million Man March and the Pro-Life rallies. I have never, ever, seen anything this big. It was wall to wall people. You couldn't even walk across. It took us half an hour to go across maybe 100 feet. I have never seen anything like this.
That picture, extended down, would be about three screens as long vertically. The open spaces you see in the middle are the barricade of media trucks, first-aid tent, and the DC police's mobile observation tower -- all completely overrun.
Picture from the circling helicopter:
Which should likewise span about three screens to the left.
There weren't enough jumbo-trons or speakers in the area for people to see or hear VIDEO of the stage. People stuck on adjacent streets GAVE UP AND WENT TO BARS TO WATCH IT ON TV.
After the close of the rally, most in attendance decided the best course of action was to join an impromptu parade down Pennsylvania Avenue. In the hours directly preceding and following the rally, DC Transit Authority reports that the metro system was 'overwhelmed' and 'crippled' by the unexpected volume.
This thing was EPIC in scale.
