flash crowds

Noun

flash crowd (plural flash crowds)

1. A large audience for a sporting event that is unexpected because of large numbers of game-day ticket sales rather than advance tickets.
   • Sure, you'll get trapped once in a while with a flash crowd. Like the first time Satchel Paige pitched in Cleveland. We thought we'd get 55,000, and we ended up with 78,000.1972, Bill Veeck, Edward Linn, Thirty tons a day, page 24
2. A crowd that forms suddenly.
   • The mall riot was the first successful riot in twenty years. “The police can get to a riot before it's a riot,” said McCord. “We call them flash crowds, and we watch for them.”1971, Larry Niven, Flash Crowd
3. (obsolete) The fashionable public.
   • To see the Hurst with tents encamp'd on, Look around Lawrence's at Hampton, Join the flash crowd (the horse being led Into the yard, and clean'd and fed); Talk to Dav. Hudson and Cy. Davis.1880, Henry Downes Miles, Pugilistica: Being One Hundred and Forty-four Years of the History of British Boxing