Crowd Engineering: The secret to successful event operations

As our festivals, concerts and sporting events get bigger, being able to move freely and safely is a significant challenge facing Event Planners and People Movement teams around the world. In this article, we’ll discuss how you can strategically plan for events by determining how to move people through an event space to maximise profit, keep people safe, avoid any issues and enhance overall pedestrian experience. Read on to discover how the world’s most advanced pedestrian simulation software, Oasys MassMotion, was used for an Event Centre in Canada. 

Events have a beginning, a middle and an end, or, arrival, in-event, and departure, in people movement terms. The three activities of an event are engineered behind the scenes to ensure people’s safety and that operations run smoothly. Event Planners use software like MassMotion to carefully and precisely determine how crowds behave in the event environment. This process is carried out in the early design stages of a project to inform decisions about infrastructure and in the case of an event, where fan zones, restrooms, concessions stands, and queue lines should be positioned. 

Crowd engineering expert and People Movement Lead at Arup for the United Kingdom, Brett Little, shared insights on how to move tens of thousands of people through a major event to maximise revenue and reduce the risk of disasters with The Wall Street Journal. In the video presentation, Brett explains, “If no one knows what we do, we do a good job,” highlighting the significance of the work his team carries out in the early design stages of a project. 

Many have successfully adopted MassMotion into their project workflows, helping them avoid expensive real-world trials, minimise the risk of future redevelopment work and save valuable design time. A great example is the design of an event centre in Canada by consulting engineering practice, Entuitive. The team were guided by the four steps of MassMotion (create, simulate, analyse, revise) to model the ingress, intermission and egress of the stadium. Ultimately, Entuitive was able to leverage their analysis from the model to optimise the amount of space available in the stadium. They were able to effectively optimise the space to include revenue-generating services such as concessions, retail, and seating, all while collaborating with the design team and project stakeholders effectively to keep user experience at the forefront of all decisions.

Central to achieving a fast return on investment, MassMotion’s capabilities are continuously growing to ensure we meet your requirements. Whatever space you focus your strategic planning in, MassMotion is your go-to software for precise and effective pedestrian analysis. 

Get in touch today to speak to the team about Oasys MassMotion or go to the product page to find out more.