It's great to read this article by UKCMA member, Adam Robson MSc Crowd Science. which argues that we should continue to put more effort into Crowd Management to reduce the need for Crowd Control. "Whilst, simply put, Crowd Control, involves doing things ‘to’ the crowd, Crowd Management can be seen as doing things ‘with’ the crowd." Read more, here 👉https://lnkd.in/eUcYgQ2X Great work, Adam! 👏 #crowds #crowdprofs #crowdcontrol #crowdmanagement #strongertogether
Dear Adam, thank you for the interesting read. I think that the assumption that security and police can only do crowd control by force is a stereotype. With enough experience in dealing with people, both police and security can manage crowds without force in the context of crowd control. Furthermore, it would be necessary to define what is meant by crowd management and crowd control. If we see crowd management as a planned and prepared measure for recognized problem areas and crowd control as an unplanned measure for problem areas that suddenly arise, then all of the above have the same possibilities in principle. How these options are then implemented is then up to the commander, section manager/area manager/supervisor and is of course also based on their experience and training. And of course, it is true that the education and training of the police for many years was designed to enforce crowd control measures with all means. But I wouldn't go so far as to say that only a crowd manager can handle crowds appropriately.
Thank you United Kingdom Crowd Management Association . Really appreciate your comments.
Jay Morrish
10mo
Well thought out article mate, interesting read. Hope you are keeping well.
Event Safety & Crowd Management specialist. Chair of Global Crowd Management Alliance
10moFurther to previous comments, I'd like to introduce another aspect of this issue for consideration. The basis of Crowd Management is proactive, advance pre-planning based upon the demographic & predicted behaviour of the audience in relation the attraction that brings them to the event. Whereas Crowd Control is an unplanned reaction to a situation with very short-notice decisions taken to restrict crowd actions. The missing factor from the discussions (in my opinion) is the budget. We can't put a price on safety but when the police decide to use powers to close roads, bring in mounted officers & riot squads, the considerable cost is not used as an argument against solving the problem quickly and efficiently. Conversely, a Crowd Manager engaged by an event organiser is tasked with assessing the risk to the event based upon the aforementioned demographic of the audience, the attraction, location and available facilities. From that they have to predict the infrastructure needed such as signage & barriers plus numbers of security within a fixed budget. Reactively bringing in extra resources during the event is rarely an option. So the skillsets & costs needed for these differing disciplines must be recognised & clearly defined.