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Understanding and managing crowds

This is an excerpt from Managing Sport Events 3rd Edition by T. Christopher Greenwell,Leigh Ann Danzey-Bussell,David J. Shonk.

Facility managers need to understand crowd dynamics and the relationship of crowding to facility design and management. Fruin (1984) reports that good crowd planning and management improves the public’s enjoyment of events and encourages attendance. It also reduces crowd-related accidents, their associated liability claims, and the possibility of more serious and costly incidents. This management skill is critical for both the patron and the manager. Crowd management has been defined as those measures taken to facilitate the movement and enjoyment of people (Berlonghi 1994) and safely guiding people from point A to point B (Marinho 2020). Berlonghi contended that properly managing a crowd reassures people that they will get what they paid for and that they will return home safely. Crowd management is about influencing movement (Marinho 2020) through tactics like security personnel, cones, stanchions, barricades, bollards, and signage. Managing crowds starts with knowing the size of the crowd expected, the venue capacity, ease of entering and exiting without obstruction (Macarthur 2020), and consideration of traffic patterns in relation to pedestrian traffic and parking (Briggs 2022).

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