Pub Crawls at a Bulgarian Nightlife Resort: A Case Study Using Crowd Theory

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This is a pre-print version of:

Tutenges, S. (2015) Pub crawls at a Bulgarian nightlife resort:

A case study using crowd theory. Tourist Studies. Epub ahead of

print.

Pub Crawls at a Bulgarian Nightlife Resort:

A Case Study Using Crowd Theory

Abstract

Drawing on the classical crowd theories of Tarde, Le Bon,

Durkheim and Canetti, this paper examines pub crawl crowds

at the Bulgarian nightlife resort, Sunny Beach. The paper

argues that there are elements in classical crowd theory

which can be used to advance the current research on

tourist crowds such as those at pub crawls. The main

strength of the theories lies in their ability to bring us

close to crowd dynamics in their lived immediacy: The flow

of emotions, collective attunement, the role of guides, and

patterns of destruction—these are some of the issues that

the theories can help us understand. A major weakness of

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the theories is that they exaggerate the irrationality of

crowds while neglecting the background conditions of crowd

activities. The paper is based on fieldwork among Danish

tourists and guides in Sunny Beach. The key data come from

45 in-depth interviews and observations of 14 pub crawls.

Key words: Tourism, youth, crowd theory, affect, ritual,

ethnography, alcohol.

Many young people spend a substantial part of their leisure

time amidst teeming, throbbing crowds in commercialized

enclaves designed for large-scale celebration such as

nightlife resorts, music festivals, and inner-city areas

with high concentrations of bars and nightclubs (Chatterton

and Hollands, 2003; Ravn, 2012). A wealth of research

projects has been conducted in such entertainment zones,

but only little has been written about the effects of

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crowds on the behavior and experiences of individual

partygoers.

This paper explores a theoretical tradition that

hitherto has been largely overlooked in the research on

tourism and nightlife. This tradition is commonly referred

to as “crowd theory” and it had its heyday in the late

nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The paper

revisits the classical crowd theories of Gabriel Tarde,

Gustave Le Bon, Émile Durkheim and Elias Canetti and it

takes the form of a case study of pub crawls organized by

Danish travel agencies at the Bulgarian resort, Sunny

Beach.

Let it be clear from the outset that classical

crowd theory—particularly the work of Le Bon—has been

attacked by a wide range of scholars; indeed, the criticism

has been so massive that the issue of the crowd has been

marginalized in several research areas, including those of

tourism and nightlife (Borch, 2012). One line of criticism

argues that the early crowd theories are flawed with

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racist, sexist, classist, and anti-democratic statements.

Another line of criticism is that they are based on little

data, skewed data, or both. Finally, they have been accused

of downplaying the socioeconomic background of crowd action

(e.g. Waddington, 2008).

In spite of these criticisms, recent years have

seen several influential scholars argue that we still have

a lot to learn from classical crowd theory (e.g. Maffesoli,

1996; Latour, 2005; Thrift, 2008; Borch, 2012). For

example, Pau Obrador Pons and his colleagues (2009) argue

that the work of Tarde is relevant in the study of tourism

because, as they put it, “we need to take seriously the

emotional productivity of the mass in mass tourism and to

actually think about how a ‘mass’ functions” (p. 9). The

suggestion is not that the classical theories should be

accepted en bloc, or that they should replace more recent

theories (Borch, 2006). Rather, the suggestion is that the

old theories are worth revisiting because they contain

valuable but partly forgotten ideas about how humans react

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when they come together in large numbers. In particular,

the theories shed light on the semi-conscious, self-

organizing, and autotelic aspects of crowd activities, such

as the flow of emotions and other stimuli that lead up to

and cause collective excitement (see Borch, 2006: 96-97).

The paper highlights four key notions from

classical crowd theory and aims at demonstrating how they

can be used to advance our understanding of excited tourist

crowds such as those at pub crawls. The notions in question

are those of suggestion, crowd leaders, group mind, and the

urge for destruction. Although its focus is on classical

crowd theory, the paper also draws on more recent

developments in the study of crowds and affects in order to

qualify the analysis and illustrate where the old theories

may contribute to the newer ones.

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The Phenomenon of Pub Crawling

Pub crawls, also known as beer crawls, bar tours and

circuit drinking, is a type of ritual which basically

consists of a group of people consuming alcohol as they

visit a range of drinking venues over one night. Pub crawls

are particularly commonplace in college towns (Dodd, Khey,

and Miller, 2012), as well as in tourist destinations that

cater for a young crowd (Bell, 2008).

In tourist destinations, pub crawls are usually

organized by travel agencies and their guides who lead the

participants from venue to venue and organize games,

drinking competitions and collective dancing (Andrews,

2005). These are highly commercialized events which offer

“drinkatainment” (Jayne, Holloway, and Valentine, 2006) for

the participants as well as those watching them. Pub crawls

generate money, primarily through the sale of tickets and

alcohol, and they also serve to make tourists acquainted

with each other and with their guides (Andrews, 2005: 253).

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In a study of British stag tourists in Poland,

Thomas Thurnell-Read (2011) describes the activity of pub

crawling as a form of collective walking, filled with

laughter, irreverent banter and boisterous behavior which

allow the participants to strengthen their social bonds

while exploring the destination they are visiting. In

another study of British men, Anoop Nayak (2006) writes

that pub crawls are an occasion to perform spectacular

forms of excess involving funny happenings and leading to

subsequent stories of “passing out, throwing up or acting

completely out of character” (2006: 819). Indeed, some

degree of “delirium” (Durkheim, 2001: 285) and “orgiasm”

(Maffesoli, 1993: 6) are integral to high-intensity rituals

such as the pub crawl.

Accordingly, pub crawls have received much

negative press attention in recent years (Andriotis, 2010),

and the activity has also been associated with documented

incidents of alcohol-related accidents and death (Tutenges,

2009). However, there is no clear evidence that

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participation in pub crawls is more risky than other forms

of celebration. A study of an end-of-semester pub crawl in

a college campus in the US concludes that participation in

the pub crawl was associated with a significantly reduced

risk of being highly intoxicated (Dodd, Khey, and Miller,

2012). By contrast, a survey study conducted by myself and

colleagues on Danish youth in Sunny Beach indicates that

tourists who participate in pub crawls and other organized

party activities drink more than tourists who do not

participate in such activities (Tutenges, Jæger, and Hesse

2012; see also Quigg, Hughes, and Bellis, 2013; Sönmez et

al., 2013).

Classical crowd theory

Le Bon and Tarde stand out among the early theorists

because of the immense influence they had, and continue to

have, on the study of group behavior (Moscovisci, 1981: 73;

Latour, 2005). The following four concepts are central to

their crowd theories (Borch 2012). First, the crowd is

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believed to destabilize its members through a process of

suggestion and make them do things that they would never do

on their own. Second, the crowd is allegedly controlled and

manipulated by one or several leaders. Third, the crowd is

conceived as a distinct organism with a common group mind.

Fourth, the crowd is portrayed as a destructive being that

is morally and intellectually inferior to the individuals

composing it. Each of these notions will be discussed in

turn in the Results section, but at this point I would like

to introduce the crowd theories of Durkheim and Canetti

which supplement the theories of Le Bon and Tarde in that

they shift the focus from the negative to the positive

aspects of crowd activity.

Durkheim and Canetti describe the crowd as an

autotelic entity, which is preoccupied with the present

moment more than the past and future and driven by inner

principles rather than outer forces. Durkheim (2001) thus

writes that crowd members have a tendency toward “violent

gestures, shouts, even howls [and] deafening noises of all

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sorts” (2001: 163), but this kind of tumult is rarely aimed

at social changes, political reforms, or any other future

goals (see also Maffesoli, 2012: 211). Often, the crowd has

no purpose apart from itself; it is fueled by desire for

physical proximity, collective excitement, and abandon in

the heat of the moment (Durkheim, 2001: 283-285). Canetti

(1984) argues in a similar vein that humans gather together

in crowds in order to transcend the limits of their own

individuality and become part of a larger and more powerful

whole. The co-presence of multiple bodies increases the

capacity for noise, destruction, and creation, blurs the

signs of wealth and status that separate people in everyday

life, and promotes strong fellow-feelings (see also

Collins, 2004). Canetti concludes: “It is for the sake of

this blessed moment, when no-one is greater or better than

another, that people become a crowd” (1984: 18).

After many decades of near neglect, the classical

crowd theory has received something of a revival in recent

years (Borch, 2012). In particular, there is a wide range

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of recent studies which have picked up on and shown the

strengths of the Tardian concept of “imitation” (e.g.

Bøhling, in press) and the Durkheimian concept of

“collective effervescence” (e.g. Wellman, Corcoran, and

Stockly-Meyerdirk, 2014). These studies have significantly

improved our understanding of contemporary phenomena such

as new religious movements and dance events. The present

paper turns to four other concepts from that same era,

namely those of suggestion, crowd leaders, group mind, and

the urge for destruction. Each of these will be explored

more fully below, but let me first outline the methods used

for collecting the data.

Methods

Research setting

Sunny Beach is located on the Black Sea coast and bears a

close resemblance to numerous other resorts around the

world that promote and capitalize on nightlife activities.

There is a long beach, the weather is hot and the downtown

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area is densely packed with hotels, restaurants, bars,

nightclubs, and strip clubs. Such destinations may be

referred to as ‘party tourism’ destinations (Bell, 2008) or

‘nightlife resorts’ (Bellis et al, 2003). They are designed

for hedonistic consumption, collective excitement and mass

transgression (Briggs, 2013).

An important feature of these resorts is the

presence of youth tour operators which, in addition to

flights and accommodation, offer a range of party

activities during the week. For example, one of the leading

Danish youth tour operators in Sunny Beach had the

following activity program in the summer of 2008: Sunday:

Welcome Party. Monday: Pub Crawl. Tuesday: Booze Cruise.

Wednesday: Barbeque Party. Thursday: Beach Party. Friday:

Foam Party. Saturday: return home. Of all these events, the

pub crawl was the most popular both among the guides and

tourists.

Population

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As part of the present study, four surveys were conducted

among young Danish tourists in Sunny Beach. These surveys

all indicated low levels of drug use, but very high levels

of alcohol consumption. The surveys revealed, moreover,

that the Danish tourists represented a broad spectrum of

social backgrounds. Most were students in upper secondary

education, but there were also students from technical

schools, and individuals who had completed their education.

The pub crawls examined for this paper accordingly involved

participants from a variety of social backgrounds. The

average age was around 20 years, the gender ratio was

approximately 50/50 and the majority were Danish. In other

contexts, the pub crawl is a predominantly working-class,

male tradition (Nayak, 2006), but in Sunny Beach the

activity has a broader appeal.

The present study

This study was originally designed with a combination of

quantitative and qualitative methods to explore the

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prevalence and experience of substance use, sex, and

vacation-related health problems among tourists and guides

from Denmark aged between 16 and 26 years (Tutenges, 2012).

The fieldwork was carried out in the summers of 2007 and

2008. At the outset, I had no plans to study pub crawls,

but after a few weeks in the field I attended one and

became curious about the loud and boisterous behavior of

the participants, and also intrigued by the strong emotions

that the event generated in my own being. I got the sense

that there was something important to be learned from the

pub crawls and began to study them in-depth with the

ethnographic methods outlined below, as well as survey

methods described elsewhere (Tutenges, Jæger, and Hesse,

2012).

Data collection

This paper is informed by the abovementioned survey

studies, but the focus is on the ethnographic data which

were collected through observations, interviews and

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informal conversations. I collected the data together with

four research assistants who, like myself, were in their

twenties at the time of the fieldwork. I conducted all of

the interviews and most of the observations. The

assistants’ work mainly consisted of administering survey

questionnaires, but they also helped me conduct

observations at three pub crawls. Observations were

conducted at a total of 14 pub crawls, all of which were

organized by Danish travel agencies. The number of

participants varied from 20 to 600 persons.

I conducted forty-five semi-structured interviews

with a total of 115 Danes (55 females and 60 males); 104 of

the interviewees were tourists, and 11 were guides. The

selection criteria included being Danish and approximately

between the ages of 16 and 26 years. Thirty-eight of the

interviews took the form of group interviews with up to six

participants at a time, while seven of the interviews were

single-person interviews. The group interviews consisted of

friendship groups that were mostly made up of participants

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of the same gender and age; tourists and guides were

interviewed separately. Interviews varied from 15 to 90

minutes and the typical locations were the beach, cafés and

hotel rooms. With the permission of the participants, all

interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed.

Analysis

Ethnographic research is essentially an embodied activity

that involves the researcher’s corporal engagement in the

lives of others (Thurnell-Read, 2011). Accordingly, my

presence and bodily reactions in the field have deeply

influenced the focus of my fieldwork, the way I collected

the data, how I analyzed the data and also my theoretical

preferences. Awkwardness, irritation, excitement and a

strong sense of unity were some of the dominating emotions

that affected me as I was studying pub crawls, and these

emotions are crucial to my understanding of pub crawls and

crowd theory.

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Throughout my stay in Sunny Beach, I wrote down

field notes on a daily and nightly basis, and I also took

time to write down initial interpretations. After

completing the fieldwork, the analysis continued with

repeated readings of the field notes and interview

transcripts and discussions with the research assistants

and other researchers. See Tutenges (2013) for more details

on the ethnographic methods.

Results

This section is structured around the four theoretical

notions introduced in the section on Classical crowd

theory: suggestion, crowd leaders, group mind, and the urge

for destruction. I will introduce and make use of each of

these in turn in order to demonstrate how they can

illuminate the phenomenon of pub crawling.

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Suggestion

When tourists and guides talk about pub crawls they tend to

speak with enthusiasm, and in words that indicate

escalating speed, force and madness. The pub crawl is

commonly referred to as a “crazy” event where people get

more and more “blasted” and “hammered” until everyone is

“going wild” and “running amok”. Field observations have

left us with a similar impression that the participants

become increasingly excited as they move from venue to

venue. Occasionally, the intensity adds up to a veritable

freewheeling of affects with people abandoning themselves

to all sorts of noisemaking and wild behavior. Consider the

following field notes from one of the first pub crawls I

attended in Sunny Beach:

A flyer informs me that the pub crawl will start out from

Sunset Bar. I am late and the place is already swarming with

people as I arrive. I count ten guides in the crowd, two are

carrying a banner saying [name of tour operator] and there

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is also one with a megaphone … The megaphone guy tells us to

get going and to follow the banner. I think we are at least

500 people. The mood is still relatively calm, but there are

drunken shouts and singing now and then. We snake our way up

Flower Street and cross the main road, forcing the cars and

pedestrians to stop and wait. Other tourists look at us,

point their fingers and take photos. We arrive at a

nightclub called Inferno. Here a group of guides greet us

and hand out free shots to everyone. We are ushered inside

and out onto the dance floor. A tall, suntanned guide is

standing on a podium with a microphone in his hand. “Get in

quick”, he says. Everyone is standing really close. The

music starts pumping. “Yeah, that’s the way I like it”, says

the guide with the microphone: “I think this is going to be

the wildest night of our entire lives”. Now he speaks

louder: “GET THEM HANDS UP IN THE AIR. WE ARE GOING TO

DESTROY THIS CITY. THAT’S IT. UP WITH THOSE HANDS”. He

continues shouting commands at us, but pauses as the music

reaches a climax. He is in control now and looks

triumphantly at us. He then yells aggressively, imperiously,

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in time with the beat: “JUMP. SWEAT FOR ME”. People all

around start jumping up and down. It’s an inferno of noise,

stroboscopic lights, artificial smoke and dancing bodies.

The early crowd theorists were intellectually absorbed in

moments like these, when people in crowds loosen their

self-restraints and enter states of exaltation. Several

explanations were advanced, including theories about mental

contagion, magnetism, hypnosis, imitation, and suggestion.

Notwithstanding the vagueness of the term, “suggestion”

became the most popular notion for understanding crowd

dynamics, and this was partly due to Le Bon’s bestseller

“La psychology des foules” (Faber, 1996). In this book,

suggestion is used in a broad and almost aphoristic sense

as a stimulus that may come from various sources such as a

charismatic leader or a symbol. According to Le Bon, humans

gathered in a group are particularly susceptible. They have

little control of themselves and are easily swept away into

states of abandon wherein everyone acts as of one mind

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(2001: 19). Le Bon emphasizes, however, that the mere fact

of assembling is insufficient to start the process of

suggestion. Some preparation is needed. The sudden outburst

in a crowd is “only a superficial effect, behind which must

be sought a preliminary and preparatory action of long

duration” (2001: 47). These words resonate with recent

research into affects and atmospheres, which suggest that

people’s anticipation of an upcoming event—their

preparedness, thoughts and affective expectations towards

it—will have a significant influence over how they feel and

behave when the event takes place (Duff, 2010; Edensor,

2012). Moreover, there is much to suggest that it is easier

to enter states of collective excitement for individuals

who have experienced such states earlier in their lives

(Olaveson, 2004: 260).

The pub crawls in Sunny Beach can be viewed as

ensembles of suggestions that take hold of people in two

phases. Before setting foot at the resort, many will see

pictures or hear stories that associate pub crawls with

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risk, sex, and fun. The media plays an important role in

producing such associations with its sensationalist and

problem-focused depictions of tourists going wild in the

south (Andriotis, 2010). Travel agencies also play their

part with advertisements on the Internet and in brochures

that show pictures of elated pub crawlers and texts full of

praise such as: the pub crawl is the “climax of the week”,

“a must”, “highly addictive”, and “CANNOT BE EXPLAINED,

MUST BE EXPERIENCED!!” Moreover, travel agencies

specializing in youth tours host “warm up parties” prior to

the vacation where people can meet some of their future

guides and fellow travelers and get a taste of some of the

classical pub crawl games. Consider the following field

notes from a “warm up party” held in Denmark:

A guide takes the microphone and calls for some of his

colleagues to come up to the DJ tables, and for the guests

to assemble on the dance floor ... “This will make your

holidays more fun,” a guide says. The guests are divided

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into competing couples. The men get balloons strapped to

their crotches, and they are told to burst the balloons with

the help of their female partners, and without using their

hands. A winning couple quickly emerges, when the woman

bites their balloon. Bang! That’s it. The whole thing was a

little tame, feigned, and awkward. An older, experienced

male guide yells “copulation exercise” and storms up to the

DJ tables. He begins to furiously dry hump another male

guide who has a balloon strapped to him. It takes a little

time before they burst it. That’s how it’s supposed to be

done: in a spectacular and unrestrained manner.

With demonstrations like these, and all the media stories

and advertisements that circulate, most tourists know what

to expect of pub crawls before they participate in one.

They have been attuned to the affects that lie ahead of

them; their expectations have been brought into alignment,

and this is crucial for creating the kind of collective

effervescence that defines a good pub crawl (Durkheim,

2001: 175-176; Collins, 2004: 35). The alcohol the tourists

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consume may contribute to the collective attunement. For as

Frederik Bøhling points out, mind altering substances

“[change] the subject’s capacities to resonate” with

others, and may serve to make the subject “less self-

conscious” and “more responsive to the affective flows” in

nightlife settings (Bøhling, in press).

Le Bon claims that individuals can form a crowd

without being in physical contact with each other (2001:

13-14). There are many contemporary examples of this, such

as Internet-based groups which may not offer face-to-face

encounters, but who nevertheless are closely united in a

common political struggle. Most of the crowd theorists

hold, however, that co-presence is necessary for the

formation of a crowd and for the efficient spread of

suggestions (Rubio, 2008: 52). Tarde, for instance,

describes the crowd as a “collection of psychic connections

produced essentially by physical contact” (1969: 278).

Similarly, Durkheim writes in a passage about aborigines:

“The very fact of assembling is an exceptionally powerful

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stimulant. Once the individuals are assembled, their

proximity generates a kind of electricity that quickly

transport them to an extraordinary degree of exaltation”

(2001: 162-163). Hence, Tarde, Durkheim and also Canetti

are opposed to Le Bon in this question. They hold that

something exceptional and almost magical can happen when

multitudes are brought together in the same place: There is

mutual bodily awareness, strong emotions arise, and the

boundaries between the crowd members become blurred (see

also Collins, 2004: 34). The process of suggestion thus

merges the assembled, transporting them into states that

they would never have been able to reach on their own.

Judging from the data about pub crawls, it is also

my conclusion that proximity intensifies the interaction

between humans. To be surrounded by a large number of

boisterous pub crawlers is a strong experience not unlike

the effects of drugs:

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We follow the two [guides], one of which has a megaphone.

Then they make everyone stop. They chant, ‘Here [the Danes]

rule.’ The flock of people begins to chant along. Our

presence is loud and powerful, and one is left with the

impression that we are in charge. The others are just

observers. We are the active ones, the partiers, the ones in

control. Even I, a sober researcher, feel nearly overcome by

the strong emotions.

The leaders of crowds

Let us now delve into another key notion in classical crowd

theory, that of “les meneurs”, the agitators or leaders of

crowds. Tarde and Le Bon have written extensively about

this figure, and they argue that there can be no crowd

without leaders. A crowd relies on leaders; it wants to be

lead and will dissolve as soon as its leaders are gone

(Tarde, 2007: 15; Le Bon, 2001: 68). Le Bon (2001)

characterizes leaders as “more frequently men of action

than thinkers” (2001: 68) who are invested in the present

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moment more than in the past or future. They possess

“prestige”, meaning an irresistible and “mysterious force”

(2001: 75) which “entirely paralyses our critical faculty,

and fills our soul with astonishment and respect” (2001:

76). In a similar vein, Tarde describes crowd leaders as

evil and physically attractive men with “prestige”, but he

also recognizes the existence of goodhearted leaders (1893:

360).

The guides who organize pub crawls may be

considered crowd leaders, although they obviously cannot be

reduced to the categories of evil, goodhearted or men.

Guides come in both sexes and tend to be hardened

partygoers (Kelly, Hughes, and Bellis, 2014), good-looking

and with insider knowledge of the local nightlife scene and

with “VIP cards” that give free entrance and drinks in a

number of venues (Tutenges, 2013). All of this adds to the

“prestige” that enables them to seduce and excite the

tourist crowds, and this—to seduce and excite tourists—is

one of their key functions. A guide explained in an

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interview that he and his colleagues inform the tourists

before going on pub crawls where and when to meet, what to

bring, and how to behave:

Jakob (guide):“We tell them that they’re not supposed to

wear high heels. They’re told that in their hotels so that

they have a chance to go to their rooms and change. They’re

also not supposed to cover their faces with makeup, because

they’re going to sweat. We want the venues covered in sweat.

You know, this is a marathon!”

When the pub crawl crowd moves through town, from one venue

to the next, the guides make sure that everyone stays

closely together and has fun. They may use a megaphone to

command the tourists to sit down or to live it up while

waiting for the ones who have fallen behind.

Durkheim writes that the inner excitement that

comes from being in a crowd is “bound to seek outward

expression” in violent gestures and noisemaking “that

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intensify even more the state they express” (2001: 163).

The guides are well aware of this mechanism. They

strategically use noise in order to externalize and

intensify the pub crawlers’ excitement:

Researcher: What do you think the noise does to people?

Morten (guide): It pumps up their adrenaline.

Kim (guide): When people are singing and living it up in the

streets, they’re all excited by the time we get to the next

bar. That way, the venues earn more money. People spend more

at the bar when they’re pumped up. It’s really important for

us that we can go around and make noise in the streets down

here. We also get lots of attention and others think, hey,

this travel company is great. I’ll go with them next time.

Inside the venues, the guides also take the lead; they call

people out on the dance floor, show how the dancing should

be done, organize competitions, urge everyone to “run

amok”, yell “cheers” and “bottoms up” and sing their

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incessant “Louder! Wilder!” Everything is carefully

coordinated in order for everyone to reach the right level

of excitement and spend a lot of money on alcohol.

Collins’ notion of “energy stars” provides an apt

frame of reference when it comes to the guides. This notion

refers to individuals embodying high levels of emotional

energy who are able to draw attention to themselves and

stir up emotional energy in others (2004: 132). These

“energy stars” have “an EE-halo that makes them easy to

admire”, writes Collins (2004: 132), and, interestingly,

the guides in Sunny Beach are sometimes referred to as

“rock stars”, “super stars” and “Gods”. Some of the guides,

moreover, have groupie-like followers (male or female) who

do their best to be as close as possible with their

preferred “star” and, eventually, have sex with them.

Note that I refer to leaders and guides in the

plural. According to Tarde and Le Bon, it requires

coordinated effort to (de)control a crowd. One leader is

rarely enough. Tarde (1893) observes that there is often an

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entire organization behind a crowd with a primary leader

who makes the decisions plus a number of secondary leaders

who carry out the decisions. The pub crawl crowds are also

brought to life by a whole range of leaders: At the top of

the hierarchy are the owners of the travel agencies that

host the pub crawls, and at the bottom are the guides who

are in direct contact with the tourists. The tourists may

also fill the role as secondary leaders and assist the

guides in pumping up the mood, for instance by taking over

the megaphone and initiating drinking competitions. The

tourists and guides thus collaborate in pumping up the

crowd excitement; they are co-producers of the ritual

energies, much like the fans at a sports event (Edensor,

2014).

Durkheim and Canetti hold that humans may assemble

and generate crowd ecstasy without the intervention of

prestigious leaders, organizations, or any other external

forces. This interpretation finds support in our data from

Sunny Beach. Tourists are perfectly capable of commencing

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their own pub crawl, or something very similar, and there

need not be trained guides to unite and excite them.

However, many tourists prefer to be led by guides. To quote

a female tourist, it is vital with guides who can ‘act

raving mad’ and help others do the same. What many of these

young tourists want is packaged, ready-to-go effervescence,

and this is what they get on the organized pub crawls.

Group mind

“Group mind” is the third theoretical notion in crowd

theory that I would like to introduce and make use of. The

notion refers to a state in which people have lost their

individuality in favor of a common mind with the same

intentions, thoughts, and feelings. Tarde (1912), for

instance, writes that it only takes a “spark of passion,”

or some other suggestion, and a “confused mass” of

strangers will turn into a “single animal, a wild beast

without a name, which marches to its goal with an

irresistible finality” (1912: 323).

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Indeed, people on pub crawls often act alike, for

example when they yell out the same slogans, sing the same

songs or move to the same beat. Their mood and state of

drunkenness also appear to progress at a similar pace.

Early in the evening, people tend to stay in the same place

and talk with a limited number of people that they already

know. Then gradually they come to move more, talk less, and

mingle with strangers. Many tourists take pleasure in this

collective attuning:

Jonas (tourist): The great thing [about the pub crawl] was

that the DJs played those songs that just worked. The great

oldies that always got us singing along. No one was left

out. Everyone participated and got up and danced on the

tables. The guides were all totally cool with that and made

sure that no one was left out.

Durkheim has written extensively about the pleasure of

being part of a larger whole (2001). He claims that humans

34

gathered in a group tend to feel stronger, safer, and more

carefree. As the solitary “I” plunges into the collective

“we”, an eruption of energy follows that effaces the

worries of everyday life. People are transported beyond

self-centered existence and into a state of “collective

effervescence” marked by turbulent energies, transgressions

and a sense of unity. Collective effervescence is the key

goal in many, if not most, of the rituals that contemporary

youth engage with (Olaveson, 2004; Fjær, Pedersen, and

Sandberg, forthcoming):

Meeting new people, getting close to them, and

emulating their actions is pleasurable—not only because the

new acquaintances may turn into long-term friendships, but

also for the immediate thrill. Durkheim (2001) writes in a

passage about rituals: "The essential thing is that men are

assembled, that sentiments are felt in common and expressed

in common acts" (2001: 287). It would therefore be a

mistake, according to this perspective, to interpret the

pub crawl as an activity with a well-defined rationale and

35

purpose. Pub crawls and other types of rituals often serve

no purpose at all, but simply answer the participants’

“feeling that they need to act, to move, to gesticulate”

(Durkheim, 2001: 283-4).

Canetti (1984) also highlights the pleasures of

communion. He writes that in daily life humans tend to lead

separate lives. They dread the “the touch of the unknown”

(1984: 15) and therefore create safe spaces around

themselves. They build up walls and sleep behind closed

doors. The forces of the unknown are held at a distance,

but at the same time life becomes more cold and incomplete

(1984: 18). However, in crowds – and in crowds only – can

humans find escape from the burden of distance that haunts

them in everyday life. In the midst of a crowd, the fear of

being touched is reversed. People rejoice in the physical

proximity with strangers. They find comfort and relief,

especially “where the density of the crowd is greatest”

(1984: 16). Hence, once a crowd is formed, “it wants to

36

consist of more people: the urge to grow is the first and

supreme attribute of the crowd” (1984: 16).

This love of density is a vital driving force at

pub crawls and other festivities (Malbon, 1999: 71-75;

Bøhling, in press). In general, young partygoers in Sunny

Beach shun the empty or half-empty venues. They prefer

crowded places where they can come into close contact with

both known and unknown peers:

Birgitte (guide): The best thing about a pub crawl is when

we go from one place to the next, and everyone sings and

raises their arms in unison. Everyone stands really close to

one another. That’s a good pub crawl atmosphere!

The travel agencies try to gather as many pub crawl

participants as possible through publicities and

promotions, not only because the number of participants is

proportional to income, but also because larger numbers

means higher levels of emotional energy (Collins, 2004: 61;

37

Wellman, Corcoran, and Stockly-Meyerdirk, 2014). Moreover,

during events the guides try to make sure that the

participants get physically close to each other. They

explicitly disapprove of reserve and restraint, and

encourage mingling, touching, kissing, and sex. Various

games are set up to entertain and facilitate contact. For

example, the gist of the game called “tøjbunke” is for two

or more teams to undress and gather their clothes in piles.

The team with the biggest pile wins. It goes without saying

that teammates come close to each other as they congregate

around their piles, encouraging each other to strip off

more clothes and add to the pile. This kind of communion is

rare in daily life, and many of the participants obviously

enjoy the proximity to undressed strangers. Here are field

notes in which a young tourist explains another game that

is often used during pub crawls:

The guides initiated a game in which you formed a human

train by putting your hands on the shoulders of the person

38

in front of you and moved forward. Vodka bottles were hung

from the ceiling. When you stood under a bottle, it opened

up and you swilled what tumbled toward you. Of course, the

vodka usually just splashed onto your face. It tasted really

awful, but the game was incredibly fun.

Such games are degrading (Bakhtin, 1984). People are

sullied and thus brought down to earth, irrespective of

their everyday status. The distinguishing signs that

separate them in daily life become blurred. The beautiful

and the ugly, females and males, all are urged to lower

themselves and partake in collective acts of cheerful

indecency.

The urge for destruction

The early crowd theorists held common that the most obvious

and important characteristic of the crowd is its propensity

for destruction. Tarde (2007) was a fervent advocate of

this view. While admitting that crowds may contribute to

39

the public benefit (2007: 43), he generally focuses on the

most threatening examples of crowd behavior such as riots

and revolution. He believes that single individuals are

superior in all respects to gathered individuals. This, he

argues, has to do with the suggestibility of humans. Once

assembled, humans lose possession of themselves and become

subject to the erratic whims of the group. The lowest

instincts are awakened, passions override reflection, and

even the most cultivated of men are driven into savage

destruction.

A case can certainly be made that the pub crawl

crowds in Sunny Beach have an inclination for destruction.

Pub crawlers of both sexes occasionally take pleasure in

destroying things such as glasses, bottles, and furniture.

They sometimes fight, hurl abuse at passers-by, and sing

provocative songs about their own might. However, their

destructivity is generally aimed inwards, at their own

bodies, rather than outwards, at other people. They are, in

my interpretation, not the evil monsters that Tarde

40

depicts, but rather boisterous pleasure-seekers who enjoy

the thrill of minor destruction and risk-taking behavior.

Pub crawlers often lose control of their bodies

and better judgement, not simply because they ignore how

much alcohol they can handle or because they have been

pressured into excess by guides. Many of the young tourists

want to lose control. To fall, vomit, break things and wake

up the next day with hangovers should not be misinterpreted

as mere side effects of heavy drinking; these are not

unexpected accidents, but central aspects of the

festivities. Accordingly, many male and female tourists

have expressed that they deliberately seek to get “dead

drunk” and “run amok” at pub crawls. They want to move far

beyond everyday routines into states of excitement,

abandon, and some degree of (self)destruction.

The Danish youth tour operators and the drinking

venues in Sunny Beach allow, promote and capitalize on such

excesses. Compared to Denmark, there are few restrictions

at the resort: Minors and very drunken people can easily

41

access and buy alcohol at bars and nightclubs, even though

it is against the Bulgarian law; stripping and dancing on

tables is accepted; and there are rarely any complaints

when hordes of pub crawlers blow into whistles late at

night, yell through megaphones, run out on the main road to

block the traffic, or expose buttocks. In addition, the pub

crawls often include several hundred participants and,

following Le Bon, this in itself facilitates wild behavior:

“the individual forming part of a crowd acquires, solely

from numerical considerations, a sentiment of invincible

power which allows him to yield to instincts which, had he

been alone, he would perforce have kept under restraint”

(2001: 17). Thus, the crowd has an empowering and at the

same time de-civilizing effect, which enables individuals

to behave in manners un-heard of in everyday life. Consider

the following notes from a particularly wild pub crawl

where participants exhibited their force in a playful and

yet violent manner:

42

A rickshaw tries to get through the mob but has to stop.

People grab it. A girl repeatedly jumps up on it, even

though the driver angrily tells her to stop. Another

rickshaw gets invaded by five Danes. We are headed down to

Jump Bar. A guy thrusts himself against a billboard, and a

fence that flanks the promenade is toppled.

Tarde and Le Bon interpret the crowd’s bent for destruction

as a consequence of its megalomaniac, evil, and drunken

nature. Canetti, on the other hand, offers a more subtle

analysis of the destructiveness. He argues that humans

gathered together are deeply skeptical towards anything

blocking their way and preventing them from growth. They

therefore knock down fences, doors, and other constraints

in order to make room for more people, more life, and more

intensity. Members of a crowd feel free from the burdens of

distance that haunt them in everyday life, and they want

others to partake in this freedom (1984: 20). Canetti

notes, moreover, that the crowd seems to take special

43

pleasure in destroying objects that can produce a lot of

noise: “The noise is a promise of the reinforcements the

crowd hopes for, and a happy omen for deeds to come” (1984:

19). Hence, the singing, yelling and whistling at pub

crawls can be interpreted as a strategy to attract

likeminded others, to sound alive and powerful, and to

scare away enemies (1984: 31).

The guides and tourists stir up destructive forces

during pub crawls, but they also try to avoid uncontrolled

escalation. Various strategies are used to contain the

excesses: Rowdy people are talked into their senses or

handed over to security staff; the ones who fall are helped

back to their feet; the injured are brought to the

emergency room; people who pass out are brought to their

hotels; there is counseling available for the ones who cry;

and so on. The (self)destructiveness of the pub crawlers is

not driven by death wishes or nihilism. Rather, it is a

pursuit of ‘controlled loss of control’ (Measham, 2004:

343) and all the risky fun that this entails.

44

Conclusion

Ecstatic crowds loom large in the present era. Just think

of street protests, sporting events, music concerts, and

Cancun during Spring Break. Indeed, a case can be made that

a defining characteristic of the age in which we live is

the tendency for people to gather en masse for comfort,

adventure, and the excitement that comes from the close

proximity to many human beings (Le Bon, 2001: 8).

Therefore, theoretical tools are needed that can help us

analyze contemporary crowds and, as demonstrated on the

foregoing pages, such tools may be found in the classical

crowd theory.

The paper has revisited the work of four crowd

theorists who mutually challenge and supplement one

another: Le Bon and Tarde concentrate on elucidating the

personal and interpersonal dangers of crowd dynamics, while

45

Durkheim and Canetti bring insights into the pleasures and

benefits of crowd activity. Through the combined use of

these thinkers it is possible to avoid the pitfalls of

either demonizing or glorifying crowds and arrive at a more

nuanced account of the behaviors and experiences of crowd

members. The strength of these theories lies in their

ability to bring us close to the lived immediacy of crowd

dynamics. The flow of emotions, collective attunement, the

role of leaders, and patterns of collective destruction—

these are some of the issues that Le Bon, Tarde, Durkheim

and Canetti can help clarify. These scholars thus offer a

theoretical program that sheds light on the turbulent

foreground of crowd dynamics, something which speaks

directly to current debates within neo-vitalism (Maffesoli,

2012), micro-sociology (Collins, 2004) and affect theory

(Duff, 2010; see also Borch, 2006: 96).

The paper has explored four key notions from

classical crowd theory which, so it is argued, have a great

deal to offer in the study excited tourist crowds such as

46

those at a pub crawl. The notion of suggestion can be used

to shed light on the stimuli that lead up to and cause

crowd excitement. Suggestions may come from both human and

non-human actors, which push people towards certain actions

and feelings. This process of suggestion is always a

“messy” one because it involves a multitude of conflicting

forces: It amounts to “a kind of relationally established

power” (Bøhling, in press) that operates at a semi-

conscious level (Thrift, 2008: 38) as “a set of flows

moving through the bodies of human and other beings”

(Thrift, 2009: 88). Crowd members are moved by these flows,

but also actively contribute to them through their own

performances (Duff, 2008: 388). Importantly, moreover, the

suggestions generally start doing their work long before

the crowd is gathered (Edensor, 2012). In the case of pub

crawls, participants usually arrive at these events with a

good sense of how they are supposed to act and feel. They

have been attuned to the ritual energies that lie in wait

for them, and this collective attunement is vital for the

47

build-up of strong emotional energies. A ritual gathering

that lacks a common focus and a shared mood is tame; it

provides little or no arousal (Collins, 2004).

Thrift argues that it is crucial to scrutinize how

affective dynamics can be strategically tailored towards

specific ends, such as profit-making (2008: 89). The early

crowd theorists arguably had a rudimentary understanding of

how crowds can be manipulated, but the notion of “le meneur”

is helpful for understanding how charismatic human actors—

what Collins calls “energy stars”—can destabilize crowd

members and steer them towards specific behaviors and

experiences. As for the pub crawl crowds, these are usually

led by whole teams of guides who strategically make use of

crowd dynamics, music, dance, and alcohol so as to create

the affective explosions that most of the pub crawlers have

come for. The result is a highly commercialized form of

effervescence which is focused on the purchase and

consumption of alcohol (Andrews, 2005).

48

Drawing on Durkheim, Collins claims that

successful rituals are those that fill their participants

with emotional energy and a sense of unity (2004). The pub

crawls in Sunny Beach generally succeed in this, which is

why the tourists and guides like them so much. The notion

of group mind may have a mystical ring to it, but it aptly

captures the very real experiences of fusion, exhilaration

and meaning that can well up during good pub crawls. These

experiences have many resemblances with what Durkheim

(2001) and several neo-Durkheimians (e.g. Olaveson, 2004)

understand as quintessentially religious experiences; the

concept of group mind can help us understand them.

Following Canetti, pub crawlers’ bent for

destruction may be interpreted as more than mere youthful

carelessness; it is (also) a way to express joy, make

noise, get attention, grow in number and create density

(1984: 31). Sometimes the destructive energies spin out of

control and lead to fights and other forms of harm.

However, most pub crawlers prefer to avoid serious harm and

49

take measures to protect themselves, for instance by

looking after their friends. What they want is regulated

tumult, not complete chaos. They want to connect with and

tap into the orgiastic forces in life, but prefer to retain

some degree of control over these forces.

There certainly are elements in early crowd theory

that are outdated. Critical reading and careful filtering

is required when using old theories. Obviously, for

example, racist, classist and sexist prejudices have to be

vigorously rejected. Moreover, there are aspects of crowd

action that remain outside the analytical scope of the

early theories. For example, these theories may

legitimately be criticized for exaggerating the

irrationality of crowds while downplaying or ignoring the

background conditions of crowd action (Waddington, 2008).

This theoretical limitation is reflected in this paper,

which de-emphasizes such characteristics of the pub crawl

participants as their ethnicity, psychological profile,

gender, educational level, religious beliefs, economic

50

situation, and family background. The paper also contains

very little information on Danish society, tourism in

Bulgaria, consumer society, postmodernity, or any other

contextual factors which may contribute to a more

stereoscopic explanation of the behaviors of the young

tourists in Sunny Beach. Drawing inspiration from early

crowd theory, the paper has focused on analyzing pub crawls

in their lived immediacy more than their background.

Acknowledgments

Warm thanks are due to the Professors Margaretha Järvinen,

Christian Borch, and Michel Maffesoli for their generous

help with this paper. Warm thanks also to the anonymous

reviewers and to the research assistants, Sanna Schliewe,

Tine Reinholdt, Pernille Bouteloup Kofoed, and Ida

Ravnholdt Poulsen.

51

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