630,000 is estimate for Movement crowd
May 29, 2003 Last weekend's techno music festival on Hart Plaza drew a three-day audience of about 630,000, city officials said Wednesday. It was the fourth year for the techno fest, which draws fans from around the world and was renamed Movement this year after three years as the Detroit Electronic Music Festival. The attendance figure might appear meager compared to those of the DEMF, which notched crowd estimates of 1-million plus. But Lucius Vassar, Detroit's director of civic and corporate affairs, cautioned against comparing the figures. This year's crowd was not necessarily smaller, he said -- it's that the city aimed for a more realistic count. "The numbers put out in the past, based on what I know about the plaza, seemed to be unreasonably high," Vassar said. "I think it's important that accurate information be given out." Crowd counting, which at Hart Plaza is conducted by Detroit police, is notoriously tricky -- "more art than science," Vassar said. The 630,000 number should appease those who have questioned the DEMF figures. If packed elbow-to-elbow with bodies on every square foot of the park, the 14-acre Hart Plaza could hold about 220,000 people. Accumulating a number of more than 1 million over three days would require huge turnover. Vassar and others familiar with Detroit entertainment said that whatever the precise number, the Memorial Day weekend techno show remains Hart Plaza's biggest annual music festival, topping the crowds for such events as the Downtown Hoedown and the Labor Day jazz festival. http://www.freep.com/entertainment/music/date29_20030529.htm
