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February 3, 2005

It Just Doesn't Add Up

I am always amused as I watch a group of young college students trying to squeeze as many people as possible into either a small foreign car or a phone booth, only because I used to be one of those crazy young students. Something more recent was reported on Benny Hinn's website in the last few days which reminded me of this. Last January 21-23, 2005, Benny Hinn had one of his gigantic conferences in Bangalore, India, and his ministry reported an attendance total for the three days at 7 to 7.3 million people in a cordoned off 215 acre section of Jakkur Airport.

I have been to some very large outdoor events over the last forty years which included a concert in the early 70's at Watkins Glen, NY (600,000 attended) before my becoming a Christian, and a few events of 300,000. My own testimony involves setting up similar events on a smaller scale but still large enough to know the logistics and crowd dynamics required to put on an event of this size. I have seen how the counting of large gatherings can be somewhat difficult when the news services reported various estimates of the crowd size. When I began to think about this large gathering in India, something just did not add up here so I began doing a bit of research into crowd dynamics, crowd safety and crowd measurements, to get some idea of what was involved in determining how many people were at a specific event.

We viewed the videos available on the Benny Hinn Ministry website of the event showing the crowds from many different angles as well as the grounds before the event was even setup and in addition, I have pictures of the Jakkur Airport without anything set up.  The event site according to the video looks immense, as if you could put millions onto the site with little problem at all. But, pictures can be deceiving if you do not understand the dynamics of filling a site with people.

If you have a 55 gallon drum in front of you and you have 100 gallons of water that needs to be put into that drum, there is no way that you can put anything more into it than what the container can hold. The same thing applies to acreage; if you have only 1 acre then you can only put so many things within that area before you have reached full density. There are only so many square feet within that acre to put so many bodies.

That 7.3 million number just keeps rolling around in my head as I try to fathom the logistics of forcing 100 gallons of water into a 55 gallon drum. I began to figure out the math, using the commonly accepted crowd measuring methods used all over the world to count the numbers of people:

The basic idea is simple: figure out the area occupied by the crowd and divide by how dense the crowd is. You can then either determine crowd density yourself (a lot of work, but very accurate) or use two commonly accepted crowd density statistics developed by Professors of Journalism instead (much less work, but less accurate):

• An extremely tight crowd seen at rock concerts: 5 sq. ft. per person

• A tight crowd where people are shoulder to shoulder but still comfortable: 7.5 sq. ft. per person

• A loose crowd where people can move about freely without having to say "excuse me.": 10 sq. ft per person (Hallmark News)

After closely looking at the videos of this event conveniently provided by the BHM, I realized that in most of the site, the people were seated either in chairs (approx. 300,000 as reported by BHM) or on carpeted ground throughout the rest of the enclosed area. This actually increased a persons personal space needs to 12.25 square feet rather than the 10 sq. ft. per person normally accepted (I sat down and measured my space for an average 5'10" person). I used this as my baseline figure to begin the mathematical journey toward the 7.3 million number that is being reported.

An acre is 43,560 square feet and the number of people that can be placed within this area is 4356 without aisles or walkways; just crammed (like sardines) together. In the same conditions crammed together in a 215 acre area only 936,540 people can fit, rather uncomfortably, without the ability to move about freely. This many people returning to these cramped conditions for 3 nights totals 2.8 million; still not 7.3 million as reported by BHM.

However, when I looked at all the pictures provided on the video, there definitely were proper safety regulations in place, more than adequate aisle space, space taken by the many projection screens, 400± vendor booths, many hundreds of portable toilets, (I don't know if the parking spaces for 100,000 cars was on the 215 acres but if it was this reduced the space for people considerably) the first aid or hospital area, and the staging area for the main venue and choirs. All of these factors reduce the area by approximately 25% for people to sit and watch the event, cutting sharply into the total numbers for the three nights. This changes the estimated total numbers to about 702,405 for the maximum for each night totaling 2,107,215; a far cry from the 7.3 million reported by BHM.

All of the above mentioned are estimates that are more than generous, only because of the many other parameters involved with large crowd control which would reduce the numbers yet even more. Crowd control takes a number of other factors into consideration, such as crowd movement, human characteristics and behaviors, spatial analysis and safety considerations, all of which play into the total design of the site and limit the numbers of people.

Unfortunately, the videos speak more for the reality of a much reduced number that we have already arrived at, with special seating, all the safety factors, and the other logistical placements, we might even have to look at reducing the numbers by even half for each night. I took the time to count the numbers in each section, approximately 800, times the number of sections throughout the fenced in area of the event, 48, with a total estimate of nearly 300,000 plus an overflow area that was set up for about 50,000 and the numbers keep reducing rather that growing toward that magic 7.3 million. Something just does not add up here.

For the purpose of consistency, I am not even considering the eyewitness accounts that are on file or the Indian based news releases that actually report the numbers closer to the 300,000 per night or even mention that the event organizers report a total of 2.2 million for the three nights. I was hoping that using simple math would give an adequate picture.

If my estimates are even close, then someone at Benny Hinn Ministries needs to re-examine the numbers being reported. Giving them the benefit of doubt, I could even see the possibility of nearly 3 million total for the three days, just based on the mathematics alone. But as you look closer, and given all the factors (215 acres divided by the number of people occupying their personal space) and now including all of the outside reports, the numbers are reduced by the reality of all of the factors in play.

You may be asking why this is even important to anyone. I hope that this brief demonstration will at least arouse curiosity, enough to cause someone else to ask Benny Hinn Ministries the same questions that I now asking about the "real numbers" here and why anyone would give a number so large it could not even be explained logically. These numbers just do not add up unless you stack the people like chord wood. Maybe 2 plus 2 does equal five and you "can" put 100 gallons into a 55 gallon drum, or maybe we need to find out the what is behind the 7.3 million numbers being reported today by Benny Hinn Ministries.

Steve Muse, Eastern Regional Watch

I want to give credit to Bud Press of Christian Research Service for all of the hours of research involved in helping me put together this commentary. All of God's blessings to him for his dedicated work and above all, his friendship.

I viewed the daily broadcasts on Benny Hinn's website for the week of January 31, 2005 through February 4, 2005 and specifically Wednesday's broadcast which gave me the information I needed to make my assessment.

Edited 03/03/06.

Please send us any comments at: smuse@erwm.com