Crowd control at public events is so important, but it’s amazing how many organizers don’t seem to be able to get the hang of it. My husband and I went to an event a few years ago that was organized really well so maybe we got spoiled – they set up simple barricades at the entrance and exit and despite there being tens of thousands of people there we didn’t have to queue at all to get it – it was a constantly moving stream of people heading in. And coming out, even though every one was leaving at the same time again there was no queuing – we just walked out, hopped on one of the waiting shuttle buses and were back at the car in 10 minutes.
On the other hand we went to a firework display in November and they had rubbish crowd control, there were just some guys standing around telling people where to queue – there was only a few thousand people there and it took us 75 minutes to get on one of the shuttle buses. There were times when we were stood in the queue without moving for 20 minutes at a time. People were also jumping the lines – because they had people leaving the park and people waiting for the buses going through the same exit there was nothing to stop people walking past the line and then just ducking in near the top! Some simple manned stanchions or closed of velvet rope areas would have prevented that.
Even though we really enjoyed the display, we wouldn’t go again because it was just too much like hard work getting out of there!
