[caseysoftware]

Except that they stopped giving estimates over 20 years ago:

"For decades, the National Park Service provided official crowd estimates for gatherings on the National Mall but no longer does.

The policy changed after the Million Man March in 1995, a gathering of black men meant to show renewed commitment to family and solidarity. The park service estimated 400,000 people attended the march, making it one of the largest demonstrations in history in Washington.

But organizers believed they reached their goal of 1 million participants and threatened legal action. No lawsuit was filed, but the dispute was enough to get the park service out of the head-counting business."

Ref: http://www.denverpost.com/2017/01/21/national-park-service-t...

[dlp211]

Except they didn't give an estimate. They posted a comparison photo.

[13of40]

I wonder if we've had mobile phone saturation long enough that they could measure attendance just by looking at cellular data.

[will_walker]

At the Boston march, networks couldn't handle load - it was the first time I haven't had network access for hours in years. Maybe this wouldn't preclude the network registering my phone's requests (and our phones were reporting signal bars) but it's to be considered that our cellular infrastructure isn't built to handle massive protests at this scale.

[LyndsySimon]

> At the Boston march, networks couldn't handle load

Sounds like the Boston police department needs to order more Stingrays!

:(