If you’re organising a large scale event, one of the things you simply have to get right is crowd control. Whether it’s a music festival, a sporting event, or a conference, people want a safe and enjoyable experience and a large part of that is down to effective crowd control. Luckily here at MA security, we’re masters of event security, having carried out security for multiple super-events throughout Victoria and New South Wales. So today, we’re going to share with you our 3 top tips to ensure best practice.
You can never have enough signage
At large scale events, signage is key. People need to know where they’re going and how to get there. Whether that’s the toilets, the entrances/exits, or the bar you don’t want thousands of people milling around aimlessly because it’s likely to cause problems with flow. However, and in addition, signage also helps staff as it makes it easier for them to give directions to anyone who has lost their bearings.
Efficient crowd flow is vital
Any well-organised and well-run event will have good crowd flow management and this is vital. The last thing you need is a bottleneck of people who are all looking to be somewhere. With this in mind, it’s best to ensure that entrances are separate from exits and that people are moving from point A to point B in one direction. An experienced security firm like us will be able to advise you on the most logical way to achieve this as well as providing you with the relevant equipment to help. This includes barriers, retractable belt stanchions, screening, and ropes.
Speedy processing and queue management
Unfortunately, an inevitable part of any event is queuing. In general, it’s fair to say that people are usually pretty tolerant when queuing. Most people will see it as a part of the process or experience and will be pretty relaxed about it. However, it’s when you have unnecessarily lengthy queues or queues that don’t ever seem to move when people become frustrated. For this reason, speedy processing is vital. As such always ensure you have sufficient-well trained personnel to be able to carry out this task. If you have to carry out searches, ensure that staff understand their job roles so that they can be both thorough and fast. Ensure that they are polite. The last thing a festival goer wants is to be queueing for what seems like an eternity only to get to the front of the queue and to be spoken to in an abrupt manner. A smile and a ‘sorry for your wait’ goes a long way!
In addition, have someone constantly monitor queues. That way if a queue does appear particularly lengthy and slow-moving, you can either throw some more staff at it to clear the backlog or look to open up another line.
Whilst there are more detailed steps you can take for effective crowd control management, if you implement these three strategies, then there’s no reason why you can’t have a safe and successful event that people will want to return to time and time again.
For further information on effective crowd control, or if you are thinking of running a large event and need security help, then come and talk to the experts at MA Security. Contact us on 1300 020 406 to find out more.
