As venues and events have been reopening around the world following widespread pandemic shutdowns, several incidents have unfortunately occurred involving unruly crowds of fans. Last summer, groups of ticketless fans broke into Wembley Stadium in London during the Euro 2020 Final, although thankfully no one was hurt. In November, however, 10 people were killed and many more were injured during a crowd surge at Astroworld Festival in Texas.
The most recent tragedy of this kind took place last month at Olembé Stadium in Cameroon, a new venue that was hosting its first event: a soccer match between Cameroon and Comoros in the Africa Cup of Nations. Eight people were killed and another 38 were injured when fans surged into a gate outside the stadium as they attempted to gain access.
According to Paul Foster, Founder of OnePlan and crowd management advisor to INTERPOL, several factors were to blame for this. First, it was the first time in 50 years that Cameroon — a country that is very serious about soccer — was hosting the Africa Cup of Nations. “There was a lot of excitement,” he explains, “and it was predictable that a lot of people were going to turn up,” but the organizers weren’t well prepared for it.
Another issue, similar to what happened at Wembley, was the advertising of reduced stadium capacity due to Covid restrictions. Olembé Stadium has a capacity of 60,000, but it was only being filled to 80% capacity. “Now everybody then knows there's 10,000 empty seats, so they know if they can get in, they probably won't get spotted,” says Foster. “Advertising to people that you're limiting your capacity is sometimes a very bad thing.”
Beyond advertising empty seats, he notes that the venue should have never opened with a near-full capacity for the first event. “You should start with 10,000, then 20,000, and you gauge how the stadium operates and build up slowly,” he says, which is standard protocol in places like the US and the EU. “The place that’s going to have a real problem with this is Qatar for the Football World Cup,” he adds. “Most of the stadiums are untested at full capacity until the World Cup. They're going to have a massive challenge with this.”
Foster also emphasizes that when it comes to venue safety, there needs to be more of a focus on issues that begin outside of venues and stadiums. The problem at Astroworld “started outside, because people were able to breach the perimeter and were very excited as they hadn’t been to anything in a while,” he explains. “They knew there was space in the venue — that venue was not over capacity by a long shot, but areas were poorly managed.”
Foster points to another example outside of sports and live entertainment: the January 6th Capitol Riots. Another perimeter was breached by unruly crowds because “problems outside weren't resolved and there was such pressure that they were then able to get in,” he says.
The pandemic has added a layer of complexity to the topic of venue safety, and it’s important for organizers to recognize fans’ increased anticipation and excitement around finally returning to in-person events and prepare accordingly. Even though major incidents are — fortunately — uncommon overall, Foster notes that there are a lot of near misses that aren’t reported on or talked about enough after the fact.
In a near miss situation, “there's always this kind of mentality of ‘we got away with it. Let's just move on. We don't want to talk about it again,’” says Foster. “It's never, ‘okay, something bad nearly happened, do we need to change something?’ It’s really about recording and analyzing the near misses.
“Most crowd management issues in the past have generally occurred at venues which have been well established, and that might have been some of the case at Wembley. ‘I might be busier, but we host events all the time.’ What’s different about this time? People have just been locked down for 18 months? England have just got to a final for the first time in 50 years? What’s the attitude and behavior going to be? How's it going to be different?”
One way he recommends facilitating crowd flow and preventing issues at post-pandemic events is to effectively manage Covid-related verifications. Organizers should think about everything related to these protocols including where to set up the Covid checks, what they plan to do with people who test positive if they’re offering onsite tests, and how they plan to handle people who turn up without proof of vaccination or a negative test.
He suggests implementing a system that allows people to submit their Covid pass for verification before they even get to the venue and giving people alternatives away from the stadium. “Let them know that they won’t get in without a ticket, proof of vaccination, or whatever the rule may be,” says Foster. “’Here are your alternatives. Go to this location (which is away from the stadium) and experience the game.’ If you don't have an alternative, they will just gather near the stadium, and that's a problem.”
If things do start to get out of hand, Foster emphasizes the importance of not letting the situation escalate and spotting issues early. Once a problem arises, organizers should turn their efforts towards “turning off the tap,” as he calls it.
“You can run a bath, walk away, and come back to see that it’s overflowing,” he says. “What's the first thing you do? Turn on turn off the tap or pull the plug out? Probably turn off the tap. The problem is that if you pull the plug out, the water still keeps coming. It’s the same with crowd management — you instantly look at where the problem is, and you’re trying to fix it by moving people around. But actually, there's still loads of people kind of coming in and coming towards the issue and making the issue worse.
“So my view is, I turn the tap off first. Don't let anybody else come near the area, control that, and then you can deal with the situation close by, because otherwise you might just be battling against something which is just very quickly getting worse and worse. So don’t just focus on where the issue is, but just look a little bit wider.”