Initiators and Fuel

       Through my time spending at the NMSU soccer games in noticed a couple of interesting things. What is interesting is how crowd dynamics work and what factors determine crowd loudness and excitement.  There seems to be two factors that decides the crowds excitement and loudness; these two factors i will call "initiators" and "fuel".  Initiators are a series of events or actions that occurs which starts the excitement or uproar of the crowd, while the fuel is the factor that determines the extend of time the uproar or excitement lasts.        

       There is several types of imitators.  Some common ones I observe at the soccer games, were big plays happening on the soccer field like having a goal being scored, which gets the crowd in an uproar.  However, initiators are not solely tied to what happening on the field, rather many initiators come from the crowd itself.  These could be a subset of the crowd starting a chant like last week when the baseball team showed up to the game.  Other initiators I observed were a dispute between two opposing fans.  Also, when Pistol Pete showed up to the games, he initiated a lot of excitement within the crowd.  The last initiator I observed was when the facilitators (people who worked there) gave out prizes for cheering and being supportive.  These prizes include gifts cards to food places, soccer balls, and T-shirts.   

       The last factor i will talk about is what i call fuel.  Fuel is the measure of loudness and length of loudness given off by the crowd.  Fuel is directly proportional to the makeup of people within the crowd, meaning the age occupation or sex of the crowd may determine who the crowd will react to the Initiator.  This was seen in many of the games, when the college students section who not take part in the cheering or excitement by Pistol Pete being the initiator, but they were extremely will  to cheer and chant when the baseball team that attend the game was the initiator.  The one unanimous initiator that the whole crowd responded to was when a great play happen on the field they were observing.  Also the prizes were a great source of initiators, but were dependent on what item was offered.  The college students only cheered for a gift card or a T-shirt, while only the little kids would cheer and chant really loud in hopes to receive a ball.  

       The loudness of the crowd is all greatly proportional to the number of people within the crowd.  For example the college student would only react or cheer if there is a large number of them while adults would cheer not depending on the number of them.  Because of this the loudness and number of people is not a linear function but rather rather an exponential function.  This has to due to peer pressure, at most of the soccer games many of the college student did not want to draw attention to themselves, but as they increased in numbers they felt more comfortably to express themselves because they were with people they felt comfortable around.