Student’s name : Nguyen Phi Long (Giorgio)

Class : Higher Diploma 2

Tutor : Mr. Anthony Lack

Crowd Management in Major Event: the never out-of-date issue in Events Management.

ContentsIntroduction........................................................................................................1

Main body...........................................................................................................1

Conclusion..........................................................................................................3

References.........................................................................................................3

Introduction

In the developing M.I.C.E industry, large crowds which can grow up to millions

of people are a normal part of any event. However, massive crowd without

proper management can heavily affect the enjoyment of the event, or at the

worst case, lead to crush, injury or even death. From 1999 to 2002, crowd

crush incidents caused 232 deaths at events all over the world, and about

66,000 people were injured (MEDLAW 2003). Recently, in the 24th July 2010, 21

have been killed and around 500 were injured in a stampede at the Love

Parade festival in the city of Duisburg, German. This report will assess the

definition of the term “crowd management” and its crucial role in managing an

event as well as maintaining the image of the host country.

Main body

Abbot (2000, p. 105) pointed out: “…crow management includes the

facilitation, employment and movement of crowd…’’. At the broader point of

view, PAFM Management (2008) indicates that :” Crowd management: The

planning of, and the work performed by ushers, ticket takers, peer group

security, medical teams, and facility management to provide the safety and

security for the general public attending events.”. All in all, the task of crowd

managers includes assessing all possible dangers caused by the crowds and

preventing them from happening through planning process (Bowdin 2001).

According to OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration), the

process of crowd management can be broken down into 3 elements: planning,

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Crowd Management in Major Event: the never out-of-date issue in Events Management.

pre-event setting up and during the sales event. The chart below clearly

demonstrates tasks break down for crowd managers at each stage:

Obviously, a successful event, resulted from an excellent crowd management

strategy, can deliver a big gain to both organizers and the host city. In

contrast, of everything goes wrong, disaster will take place and cause

devastating long-lasting effects on the host cities’ image, economy and

political.

Building a “profitable image” to the host location is one of the main purposes

for holding and marketing an event. For example, the government of Duisburg,

Germany holds the Love Parade every year with the belief that such festival

will introduce the totally new face of the city to the whole world, hence, help

“collecting” more tourists and more investment. However, incidents did

happen; so, the images turn to horrible ones and the city converted itself into

a non-recommended destination for both tourist and money (BBC, 2010).

According to a recent article on bbc.com, the Duisburg city government, after

spending million on marketing for the festival, now is dredging the very last

euro in their budget for paying damages to the family of the casualties.

As a result of crowd crush incidents, the organizers and the government are

the main targets for every criticism. In the case of Duisburg catastrophe, the

city mayor had to resign by himself, the police and fire agencies also are held

responsible for it. This event also sparks a dispute among the two biggest

parties the Left Party and the CDU-Green Party.

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Planning

Forecasting the size of crowdStaffing, trainingCreating communication link with local fire, police agency...Preparing emergency plans

Pre-event

setting up

Setting entrances and exits, instruction signs...Preparing public amenitiesDesignating employees

During the sale

s event

Carefully manage the size of crowdKeeping communicating with employees, polices, guards...

Crowd Management in Major Event: the never out-of-date issue in Events Management.

Conclusion

It is obvious that crowd management will continue to play an extremely

important role in the M.C.I.E industry as long as massive events with

thousands of attendants still exist. In my own opinion, each future event

manager must be trained properly in that area as a compulsory subject in

order to prevent any incidents like “Duisburg” from happening.

Words count: 552

References

Abbot, J. 2000. The importance of proper crowd management and crowd

control in the special events industry. In: Events beyond 2000- Setting the

agenda. Proceedings of the conference on evaluation, research and education,

13-14 July, Sydney: Australian centre for event management, University of

technology.

BBC. 2010. Merkel vows 'intensive' probe of Love Parade deaths. [online]

Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/ [Accessed September 15 2010].

Bowdin, G. et al. 2006. Events management. 2nd. Great Britain: Elsevier Ltd.

MEDLAW. 2003. Public safety alert: crowd management dangers. [online]

Available at: http://www.medlawlegalteam.com/crowd-management-

safety.html [Accessed September 15 2010].

PAFM Management. 2008. Crowd management. [online] Available at:

http://mark7341.pbworks.com/Crowd-Management [Accessed September 15

2010].

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Crowd Management in Major Event: the never out-of-date issue in Events Management.

Occupational Safety and Health Administration. 2010. Crowd management

safety tips for retailers. [online] Available at: http://osha.gov/ [Accessed

September 15 2010].

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