Pittsburgh tourism officials work to calm fears over NFL draft crowds

Pittsburgh's tourism chief hopes to ease Pittsburghers' concerns about the NFL draft, saying they shouldn't be scared to come downtown because the daily expected crowd sizes are nothing new for the city.

Jerad Bachar, CEO of Visit Pittsburgh, said he recognizes that there has been confusion over just how big crowd sizes will be for the draft. 

"I think it's going to be chaotic," said Spencer McConnel, who said he was worried about going to the draft because there'd be an overwhelming number of people downtown.

The initial crowd estimates put the attendance total at 500,000 to 700,000. While many people, including McConnel, understood that to mean 700,000 could be in the city for the draft at the same time, the number actually represents adding up the estimated totals for official attendance on each day of the draft. 

"A lot of people think that when we talk about numbers of that size, that they're all going to be on the site at the same time," Bachar said. "That is not the case. All of those individuals are coming throughout the entire three-day festival."

Pittsburgh has hosted similarly-sized crowds to what they expect for the NFL draft before, he said. 

"We're going to have roughly around 200,000 to 250,000 people per day, which is easy to recognize in the context of Pittsburgh. That's similar to the size of audience that we have for the St.Patrick's Day parade. So if you think about the St Patrick's Day parade really hosting it three days in a row, it's going to be something like that."

The parade draws anywhere from 200,000 to 350,000 people, according to Visit Pittsburgh.

"So, it's easy to manage the size of the [NFL draft] crowd that we're expecting on each particular day," Bachar said. 

Their estimates are based on what the NFL has provided as attendance figures over the past three drafts.

The true number of attendees could be lower because of the way the NFL counts attendees. A source familiar with the city's draft planning told KDKA-TV that if you leave and come back, you are counted twice. The numbers could be complicated for this draft because it is spread across two rivers, forcing many people to enter security a second time, where they could be counted a second time. 

KDKA-TV reached out to the NFL to ask whether they are making changes to how they count attendees this year, but did not hear back.

The same source, who is familiar with the city's draft planning, told KDKA-TV that they expect the draft to draw 100,000 to 200,000 people a day. 

KDKA-TV asked Steve Farago, the NFL's director of event operations, about the estimate.

"Potentially tens of thousands, not a specific number, again, because the draft is a free event," Farago said. "You know the nature of the crowd is free-flowing, right? Some people come in, leave, right? So, you'll see people populate and then repopulate the site over the three days."

Bachar recognizes that traffic will have to be managed, but he said they have done a lot to make sure people can get to the draft easily and move around downtown easily.

"So we really encourage people just to plan ahead. Don't be afraid about coming down, going downtown," Bachar said. "It's really going to be an exciting time for people to really celebrate everything Pittsburgh."