The Main Event
31st August 2007)
Keywords: simulating people, simulating crowds, simulating crowd dynamics
Understanding Crowd Dynamics
By Dr. G. Keith Still - The Main Event (published Nov 2005)
“The accident was caused by inappropriate crowd behaviour” is an all too common an excuse for problems that result in personal injury. When accidents occur one of the first thing to blame is the crowd behaviour - obviously. But what site factors affect the crowd’s behaviour?
Imagine the mood of the crowd kept waiting outside a venue that fails to open on time or the frustration of long, unmanaged queues for concessions and toilets. Badly managed car parking (one of my personal boiling points) and poor signage can badly affect the mood (and subsequent behaviour) of the crowd. How much can we influence the appropriate behaviour of crowds in our event management and safety plans?
Over the last five years we have run a series of workshops around the world on “understanding crowd dynamics” and reviewed hundreds of events from the local village firework display to the three million pilgrims attending the “stoning the devil” ceremony during Haj (the annual pilgrimage to Makkah in Saudi Arabia). There are many common features to crowd safety that are worth highlighting as these can significantly improve safety and have a direct affect on both profits and appropriate crowd behaviour.
There are two main elements to the problems of crowd dynamics. The physical elements (we call these the hard issues) and the behavioural elements (these are called the soft issues). Hard issues relate to physical layout, location of facilities, provision for adequate means of ingress/egress, planning for emergency responses and process and procedures. Soft issues relate to communication, behaviour and management effects on the crowd. Post mortem analysis of crowd disasters (see www.crowddynamics.com/main/crowddisasters.html) show that both hard and soft issues contribute to the major crowd disasters. A review of these problems can help improve crowd safety in general. Sadly there is little in the literature that helps event organisers understand the nature of the crowd and how both hard and soft issues need to be considered in the overall safety planning of events both large and small.
One of the main failings of the many sites we’ve reviewed is information and communication systems. Poor signage not only confuses and frustrates people but, in the event of an emergency, can cause frustration that leads to crowd violence.
There are four main behavioural groups:
Group I | Violent types who, for their own gratification, find violence attractive |
Group II | Imitators of Group I but not instigators of violence |
Group III | Reactionaries – who react violently in response to a situation (ie: not getting in to the ground) |
Group IV | The vast majority of spectators who abhor violence |
Frustration can give rise to Group III behaviour and therefore how frustration manifests itself and how it may be controlled is an important element in understanding crowd dynamics and managing crowds safely. When levels of frustration increase beyond reasonable levels it can result in crowd violence.
It is important to distinguish between what is and what is not within your power to change. We can examine the different types of reaction to a frustrating event. For examples: excessive queueing, bad weather, delays on public transport. Frustration often arises out of trying to change an uncontrollable circumstance. Careful site design, assessing queueing times, ingress and egress rates and facilities provision all help reduce frustration. Many of these elements are under our control.
When dealing with an uncontrollable circumstance (such as the weather), you do control one thing: how you communicate with the crowd.
“We are sorry but there is no further information at this time” is an announcement that keeps the management in contact with the crowd. No announcement can increase frustration so consider talking to the crowd, keeping people informed of the situation even if there is no change in the circumstances.
When dealing with crowds you should consider the hierarchy of human needs (first proposed by Mastlow in his book “Motivation and Personality” 1970). These, in order of importance, are as follows:
Food, drink, temperature regulation, toilet facilities, rest, oxygen.
Safety, protection, security.
Affection, involvement, trust.
Being part of the group, esteem and self esteem.
Respect, recognition, self respect
Knowledge, order, understanding
Self actualisation, Max personal development
If you use the above as the crowd’s fundamental requirements you can construct a checklist. How many of the venues are designed around these basic human needs? Where signage towards the toilets is ambiguous are we creating unnecessary frustrations? Many issues of communication can be solved using simple techniques – such as putting a distance on the signage (Toilets 200m this way ->). Frustrations shapes crowd behaviour and event organisers should try to reduce crowd frustration at every possible opportunity.