TONS of patience. No 'easy' way. Either put them all in photoshop or in 3D.

I have a public speaking engagement this morning....and well I have to render a crowd of people...yikes....it it like 45 minutes away. I just hope the NYT is not there.

can't you just use a bunch of RPC people (either rendered through max or revit, or using archvision photoshop RPC plugin)

I survived the speach....but the guy who followed me did render the crowd speachless. I was just the warm up gig.

What are RPC people? and...I'm using Rhino and Maxwell.....but could try max

It looks like RCP lets you place one person at a time.
The crowd beyond...still appears to be a noisy tiled image.

and....i'm not working at a large corporate firm right now....so I can't just use that license.

I can only think of ways using Maya but I believe there is a script for crowds. Or you can use particles and then use a people shape for the shape of the particles.

though since it is a stadium I would just get a model of one person and Duplicate special with appropriate transform. but then you would have to edit the people so they didn't all look the same. Basically it wouldn't be fun.