A two-day Electronic Music Dance Festival with 6 stages spread over an event site made up of engineered and temporary structures on a freeflow crowd basis whereby once any specific venue was at capacity, crowds either queued for access or were informed to go to another stage.
Effective crowd safety strategies, combined with a robust command and control system and crowd safety training was designed at the request of the event security provider.
Previously the crowd safety advice (by a local advisor) was to lock exits, when a venue reached its occupant capacity. The dangers of this were communicated and replaced with effective crowd management strategies, queue systems, a well-briefed event crowd safety team, designs, which minimised density and better use of information. The result was a request for a comprehensive Crowd Management Plan for the 2014 event.
2014 saw the introduction of a new permanent venue with in the event site. The venue would house stage 2 and whilst it could hold a occupant capacity of circa 9000 persons at 0.5m2/person, the thoroughfares leading to and from this venue had already historical crowd density issues in normal conditions without adding a further 9000 persons to this location.
A comprehensive crowd management plan was provided, site meetings, visits and ongoing consultation between the Event Producers and Event Security/Crowd Safety team ensured the significant crowd hazards were identified, with appropriate control measures implemented for a safe and successful event.