"Guesstimating"

Yes, I know today is the 50th Anniversary of Woodstock...I wrote about it last night, in fact!!  But it's also the anniversary of ANOTHER famous concert..."Paul Simon's Concert in Central Park"...which took place on this very date, 28 years ago.  I thought it would be interesting to compare the two.

WOODSTOCK was a three day event, starting on August 15th, 1969, and featuring MANY artists.  It took place in Upstate New York, with an estimated 400,000 in attendance.  Farmer MAX YASGUR, whose field Woodstock took place on, called it "The largest group of people ever assembled in one place" and at that time, he may have been right. That 400k number has never been challenged, to my knowledge.

SIMON'S CONCERT was a ONE day event featuring ONE artist, taking place in New York CITY.  Initially, the crowd estimate was 600,000....one source even estimated it at 750,00 (more on that LATER.)  As mentioned last night I didn't go to Woodstock but saw the MOVIE when it was released the following year.  As for SIMON'S concert, I didn't go to that, EITHER, but it was on HBO "live" and my sister Liz taped it for me (Beth and I didn't have HBO). I then watched the VHS of Simon, and enjoyed it very much, about two weeks after it happened.

Of the two, I enjoyed SIMON much more than "Woodstock." As I mentioned in my Woodstock post last night, I did NOT watch the "Woodstock" movie because I was into that music, but I have ALWAYS liked Paul Simon's music!!  I was surprised to learn, only TODAY however, that the initial estimate of the crowd size for Paul Simon's gig was wrong...they now say "ONLY" 49,000 came!!

This disturbs me.

          * If it was "only" 49,000 then for all of these years, when I thought Simon, BY HIMSELF, surpassed Woodstock's total in ONE DAY...I was wrong.  He did NOT draw 600,000.

          * If it was "only" 49,000 then Paul Simon BY HIMSELF did NOT surpass his reunion with ART GARFUNKLE in the Park, ten years prior to '91!! (THAT concert was supposedly attended by 500,000.) Rather than SURPASS his former partner, if both figures are accurate, Simon drew only one tenth of what the two of them did. (In fact, 49,000 is NOT EVEN one tenth of 500k!!) And that 500k number, to my knowledge, has never been challenged EITHER.

If it was "only" 49,000 for Simon as a solo act then he is NOT more popular by himself than he was with Art, who, BTW, I read today, thinks he was not invited to JOIN Paul again in '91 because it "might have hurt Paul's sense of stature."  (Hopefully, Art was referring to the new stature Paul had found with his two highly successful solo albums PRIOR to the Central Park gig, and NOT to the fact that Art is much taller than Paul.  That would have been a REAL cheap shot.)

          *Finally, if it was "only" 49,000 that Paul attracted in Central Park circa August of '91 then BILLY GRAHAM OUTDREW HIM FIVE WEEKS LATER, when his crusade in Central Park drew an estimated 250,000!! We WERE there at THAT event, by the way and wow, for all these years I thought Paul Simon drew more than Billy Graham, and he didn't!! I'm HAPPY I was wrong, on THAT front. (And knowing the integrity of the Billy Graham people, I'm sure they UNDERESTIMATED their crowd size, to be safe.)

I do not hold Paul Simon personally responsible for the misinformation and the misconceptions it caused for me over these past 28 years.  I've never heard HIM say "600,000" or "750,000." I do not think HE, intentionally, tried to appear that he outdrew Woodstock, the prior gig with his former partner or the great BILLY GRAHAM. But in case you're wondering why I'm not writing about the "Woodstock 2019" festivities starting TODAY, 8/15/'19, but rather am focused on 8/15/'91, well, two reasons: 1.) I blogged about "Woodstock 2019" last night and 2.) There's a big Lesson for all of US in all of THIS. When you are GUESSTIMATING, always guess LOW like the Billy Graham Organization did.

Better to be humble and guess LOW on your numbers, than look like you wanted to inflate your "sense of stature" and OVERguesstimate!!