A study published in Nature reveals that the collective motion of large crowds can be predictable once a certain density is reached. Through observing crowds at a festival in Pamplona, Spain, researchers found that crowds could be treated as a continuum, like a fluid, with density reaching up to 9 people per square meter. Surprisingly, they discovered that dense crowds exhibited spontaneous oscillations, even without external stimuli like pushing. Comparing footage from the festival to a tragic event in Germany in 2010, the authors suggest that their findings could help anticipate dangerous crowd behavior in confined spaces, offering important insights for crowd management and safety.
https://phys.org/news/2025-02-spanish-bulls-festival-reveals-crowd.html