Crowd Management

Tia Leoni Lewis
Mar 8, 2016
2 min read

What is crowd management?

Crowd management must take into account all the elements of an event especially the type of event (circus, sporting, theatrical, concert, rally, parade, etc.), characteristics of the facility, size and demeanour of the crowd, methods of entrance, communications, crowd control, and queuing.

How does crowd management work?

You will be in charge to keep the safety of the audience at bay. Making sure everything is secure and safe during the gig is on. You keep into consideration of all of the possible hazards such as slipping hazard from drink that people may have. This however may occure more for a festival but this could be in a big arena or a outdoor festival.

You will also need to take into consideration these points:

Crushing between people.
Crushing against fixed structures, such as barriers.
Trampling underfoot.
Surging, swaying or rushing.
Aggressive behaviour.
Dangerous behaviour, such as climbing on equipment or throwing objects

The hazards above are things that could be caused because of the crowd.

The list below shows the things that could arise because of the venue itself.

Moving vehicles sharing the same route as pedestrians.
Collapse of a structure, such as a fence or barrier, which falls onto the crowd.
People being pushed against objects, such as unguarded, hot cooking equipment on a food stall.
Objects, such as stalls, that obstruct movement and cause congestion during busy periods.
Crowd movements obstructed by people queuing at bars etc.
Cross flows as people cut through the crowd to get to other areas, such as toilets.
Failure of equipment, such as turnstiles.
Sources of fire, such as cooking equipment.

You will assess all of these risks before the gig begins. This will include making sure that all of these hazards are enforced so that no one will get hurt and that nothing is going to go wrong during and before and after the gig. This is just precautions to make everyone safe, including band members. Not only band members but also staff members that will also need to be kept safe before during and after the gig.