Expert Explains the Hidden Crowd Engineering Behind Event Venues | WSJ Pro Perfected
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- čas přidán 27. 07. 2024
- From music festival lines to concession stand menus at stadiums, nearly every square foot of major event venues are designed to prioritize safety and boost revenue. Crowd control is vital for all key stages at an event including arrivals, halftime and departures.
WSJ spoke with an expert on how to move tens of thousands of people through a major event to maximize profit and avoid disaster.
Chapters:
0:00 Crowd control
0:50 The arrivals curve
1:42 Crowd psychology
2:13 Art of the queue
3:35 The concession stand
4:35 Departures
Pro Perfected
Experts in engineering and design break down a ubiquitous problem, examining how the world is built and what can make it better.
#Safety #Concert #WSJ
Can Paris save the Olympics? on.wsj.com/3zMHnKk
Can Paris save itself?
So how do we apply this to January 6... 😅
What is the first African city in the Dakar rally? Paris
Can't even save itself from muslim
France is ever more divided than us
I don't think people comprehend how incredibly dangerous crowds can be when not carefully controlled and influenced by well planned processes and design. The Halloween crush in Korea killed 159 people in just minutes, and there was no stopping it from happening until it was far too late. This is such an important and underappreciated type of design and psychology, glad to see content focusing on it.
Actually horrifying. I was almost at that but decided last minute to hang with friends somewhere else instead. The thought of not being able to move and people screaming, fainting and dying next by you with no way out is terrible. I’m so thankful for that last minute change of plans.
yes! i was also thinking about Korea’s halloween indecent
Just couple of days ago in India a stampede happened killing 121 people just because of the lack of preparation for crowd control
I know people can comprehend that based on historic events that killed people due to crowd crushes. There are dozens of cases sometimes with hundred of deaths.
Indonesia 2022 - 133 die in a crowd crush at a football match
India 2013 - 115 die in a crowd crush at a religious festival
Ivory Coast 2013 - 60 die in a crowd crush after a fireworks event
Mecca 2015 - 2300 die in a crowd crush during the Hajj pilgrimage
England 1989 - Hillsborough disaster 97 die in a crowd crush during a football match
People know about crowd crushes
Similar thing happened in Germany during Love Parade in Duisburg, 2010. 21 People died because they locked off ways to exit the area and were crushed in tunnels. This lead to one of the biggest cases in court where they had to rent fair halls for the trial. There’s even an english Wikipedia article. It ultimately lead to very strict guidelines for events in Germany.
We needed this guy at the Travis Scott concert. That’s a lot on his shoulders to make sure the flow goes to plan.
People were hopping over fences and barricades designed for crowd control. It only works if people respect it. Kind of like rule of law, which apparently doesn't apply to politicians or cops.
Unfortunately, Travis Scott concerts still have Travis Scott.
We need this guy in America
Travis Scott needed to be cancelled for what he did. Yet he still is touring and still gathering crowds. Speaks volumes about him and his fans.
Crowd crushes happen way more often in other countries. In South Korea a few years ago well over a hundred people died at a Halloween celebration
One of the highlight of living in London is how terrific the crowd management is here. Wonderful work, thank you for your service!
Can't have a good queue without a good whinge :P
2 people died 18 months ago in a crush at the Brixton O2.
I noticed that too while in London they are serious about crowd control
@@anomalousresultthat was because they used to brake the rules by (allegedly) selling extra tickets/ allowing people in without them - an act was playing that was very popular so lots more people turned up to an area not designed for it.
@@anomalousresult Yes the security services took bribes to allow more people in than were permitted
I work in the events industry and let me tell you A LOT of thought and work goes into tiny aspects of crowd management. Even the specific size and shape of the pit barrier. Where I used to work we had people on towers at music shows just monitoring how the crowd was moving and behaving from above to try and spot potential issues before they developed.
Of course there have been some recent high profile disasters, but these underpin how important this subject is. Crowds have a mind of their own and can make people behave very differently.
Sadly things have gone wrong a lot before people started planning this better. Brings to mind a Pearl Jam concert imat Roskilde festival in 2000 where 9 people were crushed due to a stampede. This lead to better crowd control during festivals, like the inner ring in front of the stage for "early bird" fans.
@@MartijnPennings The Who at Riverfront Stadium in 1979 comes to mind.
@@MartijnPennings Videos of disasters like this one are actually shown in some of the training we do. When I did pit barrier installation training they showed multiple videos of crowd crushes and broke down in detail what caused them and how better safety precautions could have prevented them. As I said, it’s really hard to predict how a crowd is going to act on any given day and it’s affected by things like the weather, any delays to the schedule, alcohol consumption etc. Once it gets out of hand there is very little you can do, so our best shot is trying to avoid mistakes of the past.
I think the worst recent example was the Astroworld crush. But the Brixton academy crush was very shocking and sad too.
I thought this was Vox. I love this type of video.
there is another video by wendover productions also on crowd control, i think you will also like it
such explainer videos are what usually keep me on youtube
If this was Vox or Wendover, it would have actually explained it and given useful info beyond “you can leave a park from several directions.”
@@christophergaspar6520 This was a good video, but I agree that the Wendover one is great. He's one of my favorite content creators and always explains things really well.
I AM GOD THE LIVING APOCALYPSE PITY TO THE NATION APOCALYPSE FOREVER PLAYBOY JR YOUR GOING TO REMEMBER ME
You heard? Perfect time for this video. Multiple reports from X showcase a chaotic scene as fans stormed more than one location for a chance to watch the football match. South Florida reporters like Safid Deen were on location, and caught the moment when authorities were forced to shut down the gates, preventing patrons with tickets from entering the stadium.
I absolutely love when places are designed well for flow of traffic and control. a decent amount of people have no spatial awareness and its a pet peeve of mine. Im also not a fan of those more aggressive people and having clear and organized queues can make it a breeze. Love the pen idea, literally herding animals lol. This guy is a Human herder! Can we get this guy into grocery stores? because they need a lot of work.
The point about revenue was interesting... Venues have a financial incentive to have efficient traffic flow yet so many fail to invest in a good system, including grocery stores!
@@martinnester9094 grocery stores are designed to funnel people through as many possible areas while they find their bare essentials to try get them to buy stuff they dont exactly need. they have opposite incentives, keeping people longer means more profit. youd be amazed how much thought actually goes into grocery store design, to you it seems clumsy but its actually intentional.
@@flyingrat492 totally, that's why the most common bought items are so spread out. I meant their parking and queueing systems could use improvement.
If you go into a store in the UK where there are 2, 3, 4 servers, people will NOT queue at each server. They will unconsciously create one queue threading back through the store. This way the queue steadily feeds each server, everyone has waited in one line and no one receives preferential treatment. Simples. Note that you will not see anything like this in France, Italy, Spain etc...
On grocery stores, the thing you are missing is that the bad design isn't a flaw, its a feature, its designed to make you go down new aisles and double back, because it increases that chance that you impulse buy.
There's an art to any task you can do, no matter how small or big it is.
Edit for those of you commenting, this is a common expression "There's an art to XYZ." You must not have heard it before, but it's a legit saying in English.
The definition of art is weird. To me there's art, which usually stems from creativity and exists only to make people feel certain emotions or convey a message. Be it through painting, animation, music. But it doesn't serve any purpose. As an artist myself I need to make sure that we artists don't contribute anything useful to society.
I think this is more really clean problem solving, which I find impressive all the same, but I wouldn't call it art.
I think you mean a science. Art is subjective but science is objective, and crowd control isn't based on opinion.
@@casmatt99your right he is saying facts but it’s more so social crowd engineering
Caling this art is same as calling maths, art. I mean sure if you want to.
@@nevin8604this is a common expression in the US. Replace it with “skill” and maybe it makes more sense to you and others who are not familiar with the expression.
Japan comiket has some of the best crowd controls I’ve seen and experienced. Multiple ways of transportation to get to the venue, ultra organized line to get in, and multiple ways to get out when the event is over. Plus the majority of Japanese are very disciplined when it comes to lining up. I saw people help strangers to keep their belongings together when the others have to go use a restroom.
In India people trample over one another to catch the train.
The occasional story comes out about over crowding and people being crushed. Imagine how many times it would happen if we didn’t have people like him. Well done 🙏🏻
One crucial issue overlooked in this but is vitally important is how do you safely and efficiently evacuate large numbers of people safely and quickly in the event of en emergency. That is also the job of engineers.
In Germany in arenas we usually build (depending on amount of people) two passageways to the left and right of the stage which are at least 3m wide for the people on ground level, so they can just go straight ahead and out. For everyone not on the ground there are emergency exits when standing up and going up the stairs and out. It also does depend on whether you have a standing or a seated crowd. For minor accidents/incidents you also may not want people to evacuate, in case your power went off for example, you still have emergency lighting and letting them evacuate then, you do not have any real control on guiding 10k+ people out.
How could you plan an evacuation of planet earth? You would need a team of engineers
With an emergency, people are not waiting to look at posters, standing in a walking route to talk to each other, or crossing the street to go to a station. They want out and get away, never mind blocking a street or whatever. So people go in the same direction. Still worth a look (or many looks) as mostly the route out of a venue is small, hence why there are emergency doors.
Mind-blowing how every detail counts! 😮
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@@BoliceOcciferStop using drugs😂
Having this video posted a few days before the Copa America final game disaster in Miami is something else
they probably predicted that a disaster was going to happen before that event started
Anyone else here after just witnessing the madness at the Copa final in Miami tonight??
Yes, me! 😂
Let's try the worst and unorganized method. Opt to close lanes artifically. Mix in language barriers and bad communication. Et voila.
Yeeeep!
That was beautiful.
Thank you for sharing a tiny glimpse of your profession, and thank you for keeping us safe.
Intriguing to get a glimpse into how much strategic planning goes into handling crowd movement at major venues. The careful choreography to keep people safe, satisfied, and revenue flowing, is truly commendable.
Crowd control is so important in events to keep everyone safe and everything flowing smoothly. When I worked at my local 10k I got to see it in action at the finish/expo. Crowd crushes scare me with how easily they can happen with no way to stop it, so I respect and appreciate the crowd control engineers very much!
The crowd for the start of the event can trickle in and it's relatively easy going, but when the event is over, that's when the real issues are present.
Conmebol, the Charlotte stadium, and miami stadium needed to watch this before the copa America started.
Fascinating stuff! I never knew I wanted to know about queues, but as it turns out I did. Thank you for broadening my knowledge WSJ.
It is really interesting, kind of taping into math and human psychology at the same time, look up Queuing Theory if you are interested in the subject.
@@bluecko72 oh, thanks. I will have a look on that!
One time I was at Disney and I marveled at the psychology of the lines. You think you are almost to the ride but nope, it turns. But you feel you are making progress.
Jump to the fireworks time, I thought I was smarter than their line system and tried to fight against the traffic. It was stupid and I should have realized they knew the best way to clear out.
This is very insightful. These are the kinds of planning that are done behind the scenes that we barely get to know but are very integral to having a wonderful experience!!
Great content. We'd recently attended The Killers concert at newly opened Co-op Live venue in Manchester (UK), the construction of which was led by Arup. The capacity is 25K but we were amazed how easy and quick it had been to get in and out. Noted how many of features he mentioned were in play.
i recognized the "hybrid waiting line" that there is in Marrakech airport. I've never seen this thing before. Wondering if it is new ?
The hybrid waiting line is quite common when going to the security check at some airports. @@mariannegiroud8131
The holy mosque in Makkah is also a perfect example of crowd control engineering. Amazing video.
The holy mosque, unlike many modern places that experience crowding, has dealt with this challenge for hundreds of years. It's very impressive. But then only 1km away a butcher shop will erupt into a screaming match every 30 seconds to figure out which customer is next.
Love this!! So interesting. I never think about all the planning that goes into pulling of a successful event. More event planning and coordination content please !!
LOL this just popped up into my suggested right after the COPA AMERICA final in Miami 2024. The organizers should have all prepared on this
This is about to blow up.
I'm amazed to see how 'profit' and 'money' are highly prioritized in crowd engineering. Not surprised, just amazed.
I love this and am so grateful for people like Brett. I think event planning is the most important and valuable aspect of an event. Disorder and lack of planning destroys every
Event. I’m glad there is becoming a respected science of crowd control
I went to the volleyball at Earls Court in 2012. On arrival, the morning session was leaving and the mass of people in the front of the venue was incredible. As we had a young child with us, we deliberately left before the end of the afternoon session to avoid the rush - no crowds but got home to find out that the game we were watching had turned around and into a classic after we left 😢.
Kudos to crowd managers. They have to see the venue and surrounding area and try to predict what people will do. What a fantastic video!
great timing considering what happened at the copa final tonight!
as a small event organizer i never thought about it, all we think is how people movemnet in event venue and not the outside of venue...thanks for the insight
This is really relevant after whatever happened in PA today.
Amazing. The work you never appreciate or notice if it's well done but so important.
wow! been planning event for a while and when you thought you knew everything, come this guy. thank you brother!
You can tell how well thought out an event is by how well their queue lines are. Loved his explanations and the visuals.
Very interesting
That was incredibly intriguing 6 minutes!! Absolutely love the science and the thought behind it!
My respects to you sir, and others like you!
Security at Hard Rock café did not watch this video. Argentina vs Colombia its a mess
I never even thought about this! Super fascinating
Watching this video made me realize how much almost every big festival I ever went to here in Brazil completely disregarded any of the good practices in line management
And then you have the Argentina-Colombia "soccer" match in Miami last night 😉.
These guys are really important.
MORE OF EXACTLY THAT PLEASE!! ❤ crowd engineering is interesting.
the waiting in pens thing blows my mind. You're telling me you're having a huge sports crowd wait for a traffic light for a few cars to pass? Where I live, the few streets around the stadium are closed off temporarily. So it's not the whole city obviously, but it gives just enough room for people to disperse in different directions
i assume it would be more helpful to have the traffic light so people would enter the train station in batch
The issue is that Earls Court Station is RIGHT there and there's not really anywhere else to go unless you happened to be staying in the immediately surrounding area. The road was basically just an excuse to create breaks in the flow of traffic of people leaving the stadium without anyone noticing that they were doing so.
I'm pretty sure that the road was closed. The real issue is that the station entrance is narrow, about the width of the sidewalk, so there was never any sense in allowing everyone to pile up at that entrance. It could turn into a lethal crowd crush very quickly.
@@ReallyRealBenMills why would they need to wait for the traffic lights if the road was closed, though?
I suspect that the traffic was allowed to keep flowing to make people stop.
Having a real threat like being run over by a vehicle is a good way to keep patience levels high.
Plus, the feeling of "fairness" that everyone will eventually get their turn helps as well.
@@TPixelAdventures The purpose of the pens was to regulate the width of the crowd before the entrance did it the hard way. They weren't waiting for much actual traffic, but that's also the best way to clear access for emergency vehicles should the need arise. Barring the movement of emergency vehicles and event vehicles, they most likely didn't wait for the traffic lights, but instead, had event personnel letting groups out of the pens in sequence to smooth out the flow.
I remember reading a reddit comment about how outrageous it was that top-tier event managers get paid what they do. Like buddy, you have zero clue what goes into a real event.
This makes me understand and appreciate the art of crowd control.
Intro animation is lowkey amazing
I find this stuff so interesting, one thing we did in dc is when our ballpark opened we redesigned the metro station nearest the park to have the ticket barriers at the top of the escalator to prevent a crush at the bottom.
I actually noticed this! Not like I called it out, but first thing I thought in comparison to NYC was: the pay stations are up here?
I love how I was able to see this in Taylor’s Concert both in SG and Japan. ❤
i am so amazed how well the people organizing a huge participations of an event. i myself have been an event organiser, but never thought this idea on my mind before
Great video i learned a lot from it
Thanks, WSJ for this informative content. I will definitely share this with my friends
More videos like this please. I found it fascinating. Thank you.
I was in the queue at this year Wimbledon and it was my first major event. I was very impressed about the organization. 20.000 people out there and there were not one hassle, no overwhelming. As it was just a couple of hundreds. Lines in the food courts were flowing. I was bit nervous when departing thou. They made us waited at the traffic lights, I thought it would be some squeezing or something but it was so smooth too. Everybody put a distance. The crowd was very civil. It is important too.
Just watch Loveparade disaster 2010 to understand why this mans job is so important!
There was an even in Germany (Duisburg i believe; techno festival.) in which the crowd was channeled through a narrow tunnel with those incoming and those leaving overlapping. This lead to people pushing each other and several deaths. Shows how important this kind of work is, and getting this detail right.
Love Parade 2010, theres a lot of videos on it
Crowd management is absolutely critical for any large event. It’s fascinating seeing a professional break down the designs and explain the rationale behind their choices.
Seen a dangerous situation in Edinburgh with an overcrowded platform, a fight broke out and people were almost falling onto the track trying to get out of the way. There were about 15 transport cops in the ticket office but none on the platform and none on the trains. Crowds can be dangerous anywhere but especially on a train station platform. 😬
Saw this after the copa america disaster and embarrassment in america, what a coincidence
F1 needs to hire this guy!
This showing up in my feed as I still wait for the Copa América finals due to crowd control issues accessing the stadium
Thank you, people like Brett!
Such underrated artform. Major respect to people in the field of event logistics planning!
This was aaaaawesome! Super cool stuff
was yesterday in the euros final in berlin and the management was incredible
Fascinating!
The picture at 0:20 was from Rock im Park, a music festival in Germany, which is the absolutely worst organized event I have ever attended. It became worse after COVID for some reason, and keeps getting worse every year. This year was a new highlight, when after Green Day finished playing and the field was emptying, the crowd was filling the street and for some reason did not move at all. It took forever to walk a relatively short distance, and once we cleared the crowd we saw that there was no obstacle or anything that would have been a reason for the crowd to move this slowly. It was absolutely fascinating how this happened. My only explanation is that people wanted to move in both directions simultaneously, causing everyone to bump into others approaching them, slowing everything to a crawl.
Brett needs to work with the Formula 1 Canadian Grand Prix organizers. I have been to the race there for the last 3 years in row and the crowd control gets worse every year. A normal 15 minute walk from the track to the Metro station takes almost 2 hours after the Grand Prix, the organizers doesn't even have any sort of crowd control, everyone is just free to do whatever it takes to get in and out of the race track, its actually scary.
I went to an Arena concert in Berlin, one day before the show they did a numbering for all standing tickets, where you'd queue up and get a numbered wristband, so on the day of the show they also made little "pens" with barriers around the arena, sorted from 0-100 etc. That was really cool actually, bc you didn't have to arrive super early, still had time to check out merch stands and other activities, the area right in front/towards the streets didn't get too overcrowded and and the entry process was also super smooth and organized 👌🏼
This was really interesting! I know crowd management is tough but this was really insightful
they needed this at the copa America final
Was at 50,000 Finsbury Park last weekend, crowd management on leaving was really good.
they did this at the taylor swift reputation stadium tour i went to in 2018. it was great i actually felt very safe at the end of the concert, especially given that there were 70,000 people there! excellently planned.
Meanwhile here in India, 120 people died in a relious event due to bad crowd management
This is useful knowledge. Thank you.
i do event planning drawings in nigeria and this has been so helpful and educative.
My main takeaway from this video is the bottom up beer tap. Still mind boggling!
0:51 Shout-out this guy's hand writing skills!
I didn’t know I needed to know this. 😅
My husband is a retired police captain, so I appreciate this man’s logic, physics, and psychology all rolled into one job. Pragmatism at its best. ❤
i went to wembley stadium for a sold out concert and i thought the way they handled the crowd was extreamly distressing. when you first get out of the venue you don't know why you can't just go in any direction, you get funneled somewhere but you're not sure exactly where (i think many people in the audience haven't been to the area before), you also can't move forward and people keep coming out of the venue pushing from behind. i saw so many people pass out in the crowd. i only went there once, so maybe things are usually different but i still remember how unsafe i felt.
This is one of the most British video I've seen. They love those queues! Super interesting
good work Brett, i like the way you think
Or escalators that empty into an area of equal size where people are expected to wait, like train station platforms. People reach the end, get off, and often just stand there or stop to get their bearings. During busy times, people getting off have no where to go and a crush starts forming as more people are dumped into the area off the escalators.
Ticketed events could assign arrival times up to the event start time. They could even charge a premium to choose your arrival time. Miss your arrival and you automatically get added to a post event start arrival.
was there 2012, it was really a relatively comfortable walk
It would be interesting to see what would change if this changes from how to make money to what would change to give the best satisfaction to the visitors
Entrance to Hyde Park events is usually well managed. Marble Arch Station has often been closed early on the nights of busy events, but we’ve been caught in a few pedestrian ‘squashes’ when leaving via the south east exits. Safe transiting of the crowds across the roads near these exits often seems to have been neglected.
Wowwwww meaning the Eras Tour i attended at SG was organized following the notes given in this video
That’s truly amazing
Logistical stuff like this is super interesting
WSJ has such a serious paywall on their news site, I'm surprised their videos aren't all members-only too.
Great video!
Thank you for sharing.
I think WSJ keeps the inquisitive marimba music industry in business all on its own.
Silverstone F1 is prime queue management 👌
Had to look up what was meant with tailgating & American football! In the UK it means to drive too closely behind another car.
What *does* it mean?
This is so interesting - things a layman never would think about.
I was at green day in Manchester’s old Trafford cricket ground a few weeks ago, it was shocking, the ticket gates were fine but after getting in there was the merch stand with hundreds of people queueing infront of one of the entrances, and exiting after the concert was awful, thousands of people and there was poor signage, small exits as well as big exits, it was just a mess, people were climbing up into the disability area to get out