The organizers of the Twilight Concert Series are disputing previous estimates of crowd size and reasserting their position that the shows are a safe, responsible public service.
The Santa Monica Pier Corporation hired a professional service to count attendees at the June 22 opener. While the performer and public safety officials talked about a crowd of 60,000 people, the report concluded about 25,347 individuals were at the show.
Digital Design & Imaging Service provided the report that was compiled the night of the show. The company used a helicopter to gather high resolution aerial imagery of the crowd and said their estimate had an error rate of 6.8 percent or 1,733 people based on crowds that might have been inside area restaurants, under the pier or in poorly lit areas.
According to the data, about 7,015 people were on the Pier for the show. Some of those people were inside the established concert area (about 4,009) while others were waiting in line or spectating from outside the concert area borders. The TCS zone has a capacity of between 3,500 and 7,000 people depending on the configuration.
In a press release accompanying the release of the data, Santa Monica Pier Director Jay Farrand said organizers knew the opening night show would be large due to online RSVPs.
“As soon as we noticed a spike in RSVPS due to Khalid’s sudden rise to fame in the weeks before, we shared the info in our weekly public safety meetings with the Police and Fire Department,” he said. “All of us take the safety of these events very seriously and while there was nothing we could have done about his last-minute rise in popularity, the fact that there were no major injuries or public safety incidents despite the large crowd speaks to the good work and planning done by all of our public safety partners. It also speaks to the kind of audience that is drawn to the Santa Monica Pier and the Twilight Series.”
Following the June 22 opener, Police Chief Jacqueline Seabrooks called the show “irresponsible” and said the size of the crowd would have prevented public safety officers from responding to an emergency.
Farrand said both the June 22 and June 29 shows concluded without any major incidents.
“After some controversy about size of last week’s Twilight Concert crowd we’re happy to report that the 2nd event of the season went smoothly with a mellow crowd having a terrific time,” said the release.
The scientific survey of the June 22 show is in contrast to past crowd size estimates. In previous years, the Santa Monica Fire Department has provided crowd estimates and the first two shows of 2016 were estimated to have drawn about 35,000 people per week.
