Stadiums have signs though? Clearly lit pathways, signs, and directions to all the exits. I'm pretty sure it's the law to have those (at least for fire codes). I would be highly surprised if people followed their nearest neighbor instead of moving in a direction denoted by the signs and pathways prescribed.
I visited Venkateswara Temple in India, which gets some 50~100k visitors daily. The main takeaway I got was that it doesn't really matter what the path is -- you don't get a say in the matter. The flow of the crowd moves you along, and that's all there is to it.
You have people pushing from all around you (in a vague general direction), and next to no space to actually influence your movement -- and the lack of choice in the matter is fairly incredible. The pushing stops coming from any particular place, it just becomes some indeterminate feeling of pressure forcing you along.
I'm quite positive you could easily be crushed by it, getting caught between a pole somewhere in the path, and with no external factor to influence the crowd (a wall is clearly visible, a pole is not), simply be pressed against it indefinitely.
A stadium probably isn't an intense, but likely similar -- once you're in the stream, the only thing that matters is stream.
Eventually, you're suddenly ejected from the stream and have to figure things out for yourself again.
> the lack of choice in the matter is fairly incredible. The pushing stops coming from any particular place, it just becomes some indeterminate feeling of pressure forcing you along.
You can experience this in total safety any day you want by riding a subway during rush hour in a populous city.
Yes, but when you're in a packed crowd even these may become difficult to see for any individual. Think no real room to move freely, maybe not even 1' in any direction other than "forward", the direction in which the crowd is clearing. Some people see them, hopefully, and those are the ones that determine the direction of the crowd's flow. Which may be towards a specific exit and not to all exits.
