How Many Protestors Were there at the Canberra Freedom Convoy Protests?

In early February Canberrans were greeted to a strange site, a small convoy of several hundred people clogging the streets, blaring their horns.

They flew upside down flags to symbolise Australia was in distress. And they were armed with a confusing mix of conspiracy theories ranging from paedophile cabals to sovereign citizens waving misquoted constitutions.

The protests grew over the week till Saturday the 12th of February when the “millions march” arrived. All week the protestors had said a million people would show up in Canberra.

But come Saturday though the protests were large, police estimates put the numbers closer to 15'000 - 30’000 than one million.

And then something curious happened.

“There’s two million people here fake news, I hope you report on that.”

“I never thought I’d be speaking to a crowd of one million people”

“We have 1.7 million people.”

Protestors and their leaders adamantly insisted that there were one million people. Some claimed that the police had recorded 1.2 million cars entering Canberra. And when asked to produce proof claimed the police had now hidden the report.

The AFP officially estimated 10’000 cars and as yet no one has produced evidence of this 1.2 million claim.

So, what is the truth?

This is quite simple to answer.

According to crowd management expert Prof Keith Still the max safe density for a crowd is 5 people per square metre. This is shoulder to shoulder crowds.

The total area of the federation mall where the protests occurred is 32’000sq metres. Therefore, the maximum capacity is a little more than 150’000 people.

Credit: Prof Keith Still

But it is worth noting that the density in the crowd was rarely if ever at shoulder to shoulder levels.

For there to be one million protestors in the federation mall there would have needed to be 30 people per square metre. In other words impossible.

And yet through the day the million number was repeated again and again. And when legacy media estimated the crowd size it was treated as a conspiracy to hide their true numbers.

Credit: www.Mapchecking.com

To Canberran’s the spectacle was farcical. A city of barely 400’000 people was being told it’s population had tripled or quadrupled overnight without any major traffic jams, or supply issues.

And yet the protestors believed it.

Looking into the eyes of the people on the ground you could see a blind fanaticism, an all-encompassing belief that one million people had come.

The number had taken on a mythical importance to them. They needed one million people to turn up to validate their idea that they were a silent sane majority.

Even as electoral numbers and polling proved again and again that, mask mandates, and lock downs were supported by most Australians.

But for the protestors a divorce from reality had already become the norm for their movement.

A divorce that allowed freedom loving hippies to march arm in arm with gun toting fascists. It allowed people to talk about how they respected everyone’s choice only to turn around and cheer threats to media and demand people be stripped of face masks.

For the protestors there were only two options on the 12th. Realise they were a fringe. Or to deny reality and craft a new one.

One where one million people were somehow able to squeeze themselves into an impossible space.

https://www.gkstill.com/Support/crowd-density/CrowdDensity-1.html