So, what was the final tally? Way back where I was it was difficult to hear what was being said on their garage band speaker set-up. I thought they said 6200+, my wife thought she heard 6600+.
Interesting about the total because they made it seem like they pulling people off of the street to make the number, so I thought they were right at 4500 or so, and there were a fair number of unclaimed shovels around us in the prestigious "yellow" section. But then they announced 6 thousand something. Either they were trying to buy time to fix their PA problems or maybe they wanted to beat the record by as much as possible to prevent potential me-to's like DC or NE from breaking it. Of maybe they just applied the standard MLS add another 50% attendance bump. As Lew commented, Chuck Reed was uncharacterisically effervescent in his speech. He's probably never seen so many people show up for a community event like this in San Jose. And of course the stadium is a nice feather in his cap.
I thought I heard 6254 or something like that. Got lots of photos with my 3 year old daughter shovelling away! It's a great sign that they can get 6000+ to wait around for 2 minutes of entertainment. Let's hope the media cooperates here.
Fun event, and really well organized. We were trying to figure out going into this how they were going to organize so many people digging for two minutes each. Nicely done, and nice touch to have free water and granola bars for everyone. Now they just need to get all 6256 of those people to buy season tickets! We also were thinking they should have made up t-shirts and sold them (or even given them away). Would have been a very popular item.
We had to leave as soon as we finished shoveling to get to my son's game. Got to the car, and started to exit the way we'd come in, but that was blocked. So was the next entrance. There was only one exit from that lot, and no way to know which way to go -- no signs or arrows, nothing. Since we left right away, it wasn't a problem for us, but I wondered how horrendous it was for others. Though if a lot of people were just hanging out until the game, maybe there was no traffic jam. It was pretty clear that there were a lot of details that had not been thought through, like signage. Plus: you had thousands of people hanging around for hours and nothing to sell them but tickets? (We would have at least bought a hat!) But there were no serious oversights, and lucky for the organizers, the crowd was really low key, patient, and willing to go/do whatever.
It's unfortunate that in all the speechmaking at the groundbreaking today, no one remembered to recognize Soccer Silicon Valley for their efforts in getting the team back and the stadium built. I'm sorry Don, Colin, et al, that the FO forgot to mention you guys. We all know what you did and are happy you gave us back our Saturday soccer. So THANK YOU for making this day possible.
Yes, I thought that was a gross oversight, or more accurately, snub. Who was instrumental in retaining the name, colors, and history of the team for San Jose after the relocation? Who was always putting out the call when fans were needed at all the council meetings regarding the stadium? I really think Kaval needs to hear from the fans regarding this. president@sjearthquakes.com
Agreed. We thought that it was going to be a complete disaster. Even showing up later than we wanted (11:15), we had no problem getting into the correct line. Nice touch with the music and I had no problem with the speaches. Even getting out was no problem (there were two exits). Great job Quakes!
I was hoping someone up by the stage would yell something to the effect of "What about SSV?", since we were way back by the goal. Kind of hope this omission was just an unfortunate oversight.
Thinking about the 6,256 total. It sounds like they ignored the unmanned shovels and counted all 6,000+extras. The record was broken. Guinness got paid. Everyone went home happy. Plenty of people left with extra shovels. Now is the time to beg if you wanted one, but couldn't attend.
Could be the way that it went down. They could have just told Guinness that people had RSVP'd for the unmanned shovels, and they're going to come, but they are just "late". I mean the whole "dig two minutes" requirement thing and everything, it's obvious someone is just making this stuff up. But I still think that it was a great idea. And the organization was not too bad, considering that there isn't exactly a blueprint for doing mass groundbreakings. Also agree that it's unfortunate that there was no mention of SSV.
Not true - it had nothing to do with the shovels, there were people counting with clickers at each colored gate entrance. I was talking with someone in line who's boyfriend works in ticket sales, and she told me how it worked. There were two counters for each line, and they each counted how many people went onto the field through the gates. The lower count from the two of them was the official one, and the Guinness Record Official was the one collecting the totals and was also walking around observing the people doing the clicking. Having said that, of course the "counters" could have just padded their numbers but I really doubt they had to. As I said, we saw lots of people who brought their own shovels, so if there were 6000 shovels provided and let's say there were 300 shovels not used, that just means there needed to be 500 people who brought their own. There could have been that many, I personally saw about 200 or more in line before we went in (there was a "walkup line" where everyone had their own shovel and waited to see if they could get in).
Might have been a whole different story if it rained in SJ on the 21st like it did here today (Mon., 10/22). Instead of kids flinging rocks and dirt, we would have observed kids flinging mud on people getting mad about it, in between wet, crying kids getting mud flung on them by kids having fun getting away with flinging mud all over wimpy crying kids.
Sounds like we missed some fun then... (Yellow line, ended up second row from the Coleman Ave end line within the 6 yd box)