Crowds on Demand, a Los Angeles-based company specializing in orchestrating rallies and public demonstrations, says business is booming under Donald Trump’s presidency. CEO Adam Swart revealed on Friday that requests for paid protesters have surged 400% this year compared to 2024.
Swart explained the shift in demand during an interview, noting his company is often misunderstood but insists their services remain lawful and transparent.
“We don’t comment on specific protests, but generally the range can be from the low hundreds, the low one hundreds, into a few hundred,” Swart said. “It really depends on the location, the duration and any challenges, for example, cold weather or early morning. You guys at ‘Fox & Friends’ know all about getting up early in the morning. We tend to pay people more [for] that.”
How the Pay Works
While Swart avoided citing exact hourly wages, he admitted certain factors raise compensation.
“It’s hard to give you a specific figure… If you’re organizing a conservative demonstration in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, that would be a higher pay rate — or a left-wing demonstration in rural Mississippi, that would be a higher rate, because finding and identifying those people is harder and that might be a more tense environment in those particular locations, as you would imagine,” he explained.
His company’s website boasts of organizing “passionate demonstrations, rallies, flash-mobs, corporate PR events, and light-hearted events such as paparazzi, brand ambassadors, and PR stunts.” But Swart stresses their work is limited to peaceful expression.
“There is a lot of misinformation online,” Swart said.
Do Paid Protesters Believe in the Causes?
One lingering question is whether these demonstrators truly care about the issues or are just collecting a paycheck.
“They genuinely share these beliefs, and I’ll put it this way, right? I’m asking your listeners, your viewers right now, if you got paid a couple hundred dollars, probably mostly your viewers lean conservative, would you guys go to a BLM protest for a couple hundred dollars?” Swart asked. “I bet most of your viewers are shouting into their TV screens, ‘No, I would not do that’, right?”
“So whether it’s conservative, we provide — there’s a lot of misinformation that we only work for the left. We work for the left and the right, but always on the side of common sense and generally on the side of the underdog. So we, a lot of conservatives, use our service because, a lot of times, there’s a case where hippies with a trust fund are out there protesting, but conservatives are more likely to have jobs and families, so actually they require a little bit more of an incentive to turn out to a demonstration.”
Who Hires More Protesters: The Right or Left?
Swart admitted demand depends on who holds political power.
“So we tend to be hired by the oppositional party, right? So, in the sense of right now, we are getting more requests on the federal level from Democrats, as you would imagine. But for example, in liberal states such as California, we are often brought in by conservatives because we are an outside-the-box strategy, right?” Swart said, emphasizing that requests “depend on who’s in power.”
Are Protests Ever Truly Organic?
The rise of manufactured demonstrations has sparked debate over authenticity in American political discourse. Swart rejected claims that his company erodes democracy.
“The reality is, Lawrence, people have different incentives for coming out there. There’s no such thing as a truly organic protest, Lawrence,” he argued. “Everybody has a reason for being somewhere, whether they’re flexing on Instagram, flexing for politics, staffer, or being compensated. So I don’t think there is such a thing as truly organic.”
