Okay, so, I’ve been messing around with this idea of counting people at big events. You know, to keep track of how crowded it gets and make sure things don’t get out of hand. It’s actually pretty important stuff.

I started digging into this a while back. I mean, think about it. Huge crowds can be a real headache, right? But how do you really know how many people are there? That’s where this whole thing started for me.

First, I tried a bunch of different ways to get a headcount. I started off super basic, just trying to manually count folks as they walked by. Yeah, that didn’t work out too well. Too many people, too fast. I tried using clickers like bouncers use at bars, but my thumb got tired, and I still lost count. It’s way harder than you think!

Then, I figured, there’s gotta be a better way. So I started looking into some tech stuff. Cameras seemed like the obvious choice. I set up a few at one of the local fairs to test it out. The idea was to record the entrances and exits and then somehow count the people in the videos.

That was a whole other learning curve. I tried some free software I found online, but most of them were pretty rubbish. They’d count one person as three or miss people entirely. It was a mess.

  • Setting Up: I hung up some cameras at different points.
  • Recording: Got hours of footage of people coming and going.
  • Software: Used some basic video tools to watch and try to count.

I did stumble upon some better software eventually. It cost a bit, but it actually worked! It used some kind of fancy algorithm to detect people and count them up. It wasn’t perfect, but it was way better than anything I’d used before. I was like a kid with a new toy, testing it out everywhere.

After playing with it for a while, I started to see some real potential. I could see how many people were in a specific area at any given time. I could even see where it was getting too crowded. It was pretty cool to see it all laid out like that. I even used those heat map things so you could see the flow of people like some kind of weather report.

The next step was to make it useful. I started working on a simple display to show the numbers in real-time. Nothing fancy, just a screen showing the current count and maybe a little warning if things were getting too packed. I tested it out at a few smaller events, and it actually helped! The organizers could see where they needed more staff or where to put up extra signs to guide people.

What I learned

Honestly, the whole process was a lot of trial and error. But I learned a ton. I figured out that you can’t just rely on any old system. You need something that’s at least a little bit accurate. And even then, you need to test it out and tweak it.

So, yeah, that’s my little adventure with counting people. It’s not exactly rocket science, but it’s definitely something that can make a big difference at events. And who knows, maybe one day, this kind of thing will be everywhere, making sure everyone has a good time without getting squished like sardines.