In the scene at the skating rink, it's pretty obvious that they couldn't afford enough extras to completely fill the stands. If you look closely (freeze-frame may be necessary) you can see that some of the seats are filled with cardboard cutouts of spectators. It's most noticable before the girl comes out to skate.
On the DVD the director John Frankenheimer talks about how expensive this scene was with over two thousand extras. He didn't mention that so many of them were cardboard.