Today, event planning has become as much about managing people as about running events. Venue managers and staff are now realizing their duties to provide crowd management for safe and fun experiences of people at events.
Being in a crowd during festival celebrations, conferences, or sporting events can present unexpected situations and behaviors. Attendees may not know how to act in a self-disciplined manner. Some may get excited by the atmosphere and energy and some may even indulge in violent actions.
The outcomes of a poorly managed crowd can be detrimental – people can get injured and many lives can be lost. That may further result in people having less trust in your future events.
So, if you wish to minimize the risk of these occurrences, have an effective crowd management strategy in place. Try considering these crowd control tips as laid by experts for your upcoming events and ensure complete safety of everyone, VIP guests to your staff –
- Understand Your Audience
Depending upon the kind of event you are organizing, you may attract different types of crowd. For instance, if you are organizing a business conference for investors in the oil and gas industry, you can expect a sober and elite class of people; whereas if it is a music concert, you have to be prepared to handle a fanatic crowd. So, first understand what sort of attendees you are hosting and try to gauge their general temperament, preferences, and reasons for being there.
- Limit the Number of Access Points
While you need several access points at your event for allowing smooth inflow of people, you do need to maintain just the sufficient number of entry points ran by well-trained security individuals to ensure safe and legal entries. All this gives you better control throughout the event and cuts off access for unwanted people or their chances to invade the premises.
- Install Lots of Signage
Your attendees have to navigate around crowded premises and a venue that they have never visited before. Thus, to help them go in the right direction, use plenty of signs that are large enough to be read from a distance. Some of the common signboards you can use are the designated smoking areas, workshops, restrooms, restricted and staff-only areas. Installing them can help you keep the venue organized and prevent the attendees from getting astray around.
- Hire Event Security Services
If you are hosting a big event, there has to be probably a large staff presence. That not only consists of your event planning team but also the event security personnel. These individuals can either be provided by the venue or hired as third-party service.
These folks are largely responsible for keeping the peace. And, because large gatherings can become chaotic in no time, they are designated to look after check-in lines, registration areas, and across the venue to manage the crowds the best.
