Matt wrote a few months ago about the Convention looking to fill 3,000 volunteer slots. This made sense – close to 5,000 delegates, plus spouses and friends, members of the campaigns, media, protesters, various groups with their programs, rallies and functions. Volunteers provide important input: not just at the Convention helping people navigate between the venues but also ahead of time getting things set up.
But now, it appears that there is a call for 10,000 volunteers. Color me confused. You can see the video here. Ever since I saw this, I’ve been scratching my head about where to even put 10,000 volunteers, not to mention what they would do.
The major areas in Philly where the convention will be held are in Center City and the arena. No one is walking between the two venues, since it’s about 4 miles, and there’s no guidance yet about transportation off SEPTA. SEPTA runs a train every 8 minutes and buses every half hour. It’s possible that the bus frequency would increase and volunteer ambassadors would be needed at the stations. In addition, the delegations will likely have buses between the two locations. But at the stadium area, there isn’t much besides the stadium, and other stadiums. So, that’s a limited number of necessary volunteers.
In Center City, where the Convention Center is located, there will be other venues nearby (offices, restaurants, etc.) There will be security checkpoints, and a lot of people. You can see the likely area in the map on the right. If you’ve never been to Philadelphia, this area is primarily office space, retail, restaurants and bars, and some housing. According to the Center City District, in 2010, about 215,000 people worked there. So they’re looking at adding 10,000 people? Huh.
If you’ve got any thoughts on why so many people would be needed, please share them in the comments.
My impression was they always needed 10,000, but when I posted, they already had 7000 names, so they needed 3000 more.
Why they need 10,000? Who knows. But I just checked, and they had 10,000 in Charlotte in 2012, and somewhere between 10 and 21,000 in Denver in 2008.