I don't think people comprehend how incredibly dangerous crowds can be when not carefully controlled and influenced by well planned processes and design. The Halloween crush in Korea killed 159 people in just minutes, and there was no stopping it from happening until it was far too late. This is such an important and underappreciated type of design and psychology, glad to see content focusing on it.
Actually horrifying. I was almost at that but decided last minute to hang with friends somewhere else instead. The thought of not being able to move and people screaming, fainting and dying next by you with no way out is terrible. I’m so thankful for that last minute change of plans.
I know people can comprehend that based on historic events that killed people due to crowd crushes. There are dozens of cases sometimes with hundred of deaths. Indonesia 2022 - 133 die in a crowd crush at a football match India 2013 - 115 die in a crowd crush at a religious festival Ivory Coast 2013 - 60 die in a crowd crush after a fireworks event Mecca 2015 - 2300 die in a crowd crush during the Hajj pilgrimage England 1989 - Hillsborough disaster 97 die in a crowd crush during a football match People know about crowd crushes
Similar thing happened in Germany during Love Parade in Duisburg, 2010. 21 People died because they locked off ways to exit the area and were crushed in tunnels. This lead to one of the biggest cases in court where they had to rent fair halls for the trial. There’s even an english Wikipedia article. It ultimately lead to very strict guidelines for events in Germany.
In Germany, they sometimes close the nearest subway station after major events. This way, people have to walk to the next station (in either direction) so it automatically disperses the crowd. People in Germany are used to walking so nobody really minds. In some cases, people might even appreciate a nice walk after standing at a concert for hours.
I can absolutely see myself frustrated by this - unless I know the reason for closing the nearest station. Tell people why you're doing things, knowing he reason why makes us... more reasonable.
@@anomalousresultthat was because they used to brake the rules by (allegedly) selling extra tickets/ allowing people in without them - an act was playing that was very popular so lots more people turned up to an area not designed for it.
I work in the events industry and let me tell you A LOT of thought and work goes into tiny aspects of crowd management. Even the specific size and shape of the pit barrier. Where I used to work we had people on towers at music shows just monitoring how the crowd was moving and behaving from above to try and spot potential issues before they developed. Of course there have been some recent high profile disasters, but these underpin how important this subject is. Crowds have a mind of their own and can make people behave very differently.
Sadly things have gone wrong a lot before people started planning this better. Brings to mind a Pearl Jam concert imat Roskilde festival in 2000 where 9 people were crushed due to a stampede. This lead to better crowd control during festivals, like the inner ring in front of the stage for "early bird" fans.
@@MartijnPennings Videos of disasters like this one are actually shown in some of the training we do. When I did pit barrier installation training they showed multiple videos of crowd crushes and broke down in detail what caused them and how better safety precautions could have prevented them. As I said, it’s really hard to predict how a crowd is going to act on any given day and it’s affected by things like the weather, any delays to the schedule, alcohol consumption etc. Once it gets out of hand there is very little you can do, so our best shot is trying to avoid mistakes of the past. I think the worst recent example was the Astroworld crush. But the Brixton academy crush was very shocking and sad too.
I remember hearing about the Love Parade festival disaster when i was studying events at uni and it really drove home the importance of crowd control and event safety
People were hopping over fences and barricades designed for crowd control. It only works if people respect it. Kind of like rule of law, which apparently doesn't apply to politicians or cops.
Oh this is so interesting!! I've experienced a great crowd-control moment after a major concert in Singapore. As the huge crowd was directed to leave the stadium, we were stopped a distance away from the train station as the earlier group just ahead of us was allowed to continue. The guides blasted some music songs from the concert that we just attended and told everyone "ok guys, just sing 1 song while waiting!". This made everyone completely okay with waiting for about 3-4 mins while just singing along, and then the next group of us were allowed to proceed. Definitely kudos to the planner for that step to ease frustrations of leaving from a crowded venue.
there is another video by wendover productions also on crowd control, i think you will also like it such explainer videos are what usually keep me on youtube
@@christophergaspar6520 This was a good video, but I agree that the Wendover one is great. He's one of my favorite content creators and always explains things really well.
You heard? Perfect time for this video. Multiple reports from X showcase a chaotic scene as fans stormed more than one location for a chance to watch the football match. South Florida reporters like Safid Deen were on location, and caught the moment when authorities were forced to shut down the gates, preventing patrons with tickets from entering the stadium.
One crucial issue overlooked in this but is vitally important is how do you safely and efficiently evacuate large numbers of people safely and quickly in the event of en emergency. That is also the job of engineers.
In Germany in arenas we usually build (depending on amount of people) two passageways to the left and right of the stage which are at least 3m wide for the people on ground level, so they can just go straight ahead and out. For everyone not on the ground there are emergency exits when standing up and going up the stairs and out. It also does depend on whether you have a standing or a seated crowd. For minor accidents/incidents you also may not want people to evacuate, in case your power went off for example, you still have emergency lighting and letting them evacuate then, you do not have any real control on guiding 10k+ people out.
With an emergency, people are not waiting to look at posters, standing in a walking route to talk to each other, or crossing the street to go to a station. They want out and get away, never mind blocking a street or whatever. So people go in the same direction. Still worth a look (or many looks) as mostly the route out of a venue is small, hence why there are emergency doors.
@@FPVogel On the other hand the main stadium in my country used to have its lowest spectator tier some 3m above the pitch, maybe to prevent pitch invasion, but I guess this design would be illegal now as it slows down evacuation
I absolutely love when places are designed well for flow of traffic and control. a decent amount of people have no spatial awareness and its a pet peeve of mine. Im also not a fan of those more aggressive people and having clear and organized queues can make it a breeze. Love the pen idea, literally herding animals lol. This guy is a Human herder! Can we get this guy into grocery stores? because they need a lot of work.
The point about revenue was interesting... Venues have a financial incentive to have efficient traffic flow yet so many fail to invest in a good system, including grocery stores!
@@martinnester9094 grocery stores are designed to funnel people through as many possible areas while they find their bare essentials to try get them to buy stuff they dont exactly need. they have opposite incentives, keeping people longer means more profit. youd be amazed how much thought actually goes into grocery store design, to you it seems clumsy but its actually intentional.
On grocery stores, the thing you are missing is that the bad design isn't a flaw, its a feature, its designed to make you go down new aisles and double back, because it increases that chance that you impulse buy.
@@Willheheckaslike-d4h UK citizen here. I can safely say that I have NEVER seen people doing this. They queue at individual tills just like normal. The only time this happens is if the queuing system is set up that way (like in Primark), by someone of the same profession as the guy in the video.
Japan comiket has some of the best crowd controls I’ve seen and experienced. Multiple ways of transportation to get to the venue, ultra organized line to get in, and multiple ways to get out when the event is over. Plus the majority of Japanese are very disciplined when it comes to lining up. I saw people help strangers to keep their belongings together when the others have to go use a restroom.
@@dimitar297 it's not the crowd's fault. It's too many people and little public transportation, combined with lack of crowd control. Aggressive people will win in those societies and they will stand out and influence the crowd. I'm from south east asia. We had a "faster" train system and a bus system going to my university. The train system takes 20 mins to get there, the bus system takes 1 hour. Do you know which one gets me to class on time? The bus. The people waiting to get a chance to board that train were really aggressive. It's already full by the time it gets to our station, with hundreds of people more wanting to get in. If we're lucky, they might send an empty train to our station. They won't send a schedule though so everything is uncertain. The number of passengers in those trains exceeded not only the comfortable/ recommended and design capacity, but also, the safety capacity. It's impossible not to push against the doors. You don't have to make any effort to stand up. You're liked packed sardines because the whole crowd is pushing against all sides of your body. If the train stops suddenly, well you all fall down. It's not for the elderly, or anyone with disabilities that's for sure. I avoided that train like the plague, but all my classmates preferred it and I will never understand why. I only tried the train again when they started actual crowd control. Idk what took them so long but it's such a large difference in experience. And yes, it's actually possible even with such an undersupplied train station. You might just have to wait in queue for a little bit longer, but at least everyone has equal opportunity. Even abroad now, when leaving concerts and major events, I'll avoid the popular main station until I see that there are organised queues to get in. Otherwise, I'll try alternative options. If not, I'll just sit around for a bit until the crowd clears up. The night is already over. There is no need to hurry to bed. Edit: mobile typing sucks.
There's an art to any task you can do, no matter how small or big it is. Edit for those of you commenting, this is a common expression "There's an art to XYZ." You must not have heard it before, but it's a legit saying in English.
The definition of art is weird. To me there's art, which usually stems from creativity and exists only to make people feel certain emotions or convey a message. Be it through painting, animation, music. But it doesn't serve any purpose. As an artist myself I need to make sure that we artists don't contribute anything useful to society. I think this is more really clean problem solving, which I find impressive all the same, but I wouldn't call it art.
@@nevin8604this is a common expression in the US. Replace it with “skill” and maybe it makes more sense to you and others who are not familiar with the expression.
The occasional story comes out about over crowding and people being crushed. Imagine how many times it would happen if we didn’t have people like him. Well done 🙏🏻
I have the deepest respect for people who organise this kind of planning to make sure we are safe! Thank you for the video and explanation, in fact I was always wondering about exactly this when attending any events and venues because I was feeling that there must be a lot of work behind it to make sure everything runs smoothly. It is a topic majority of people won't even think about but I always pay attention to details and am curious and I think those engineers deserve a round of applause 👏🏻
Intriguing to get a glimpse into how much strategic planning goes into handling crowd movement at major venues. The careful choreography to keep people safe, satisfied, and revenue flowing, is truly commendable.
Crowd control is so important in events to keep everyone safe and everything flowing smoothly. When I worked at my local 10k I got to see it in action at the finish/expo. Crowd crushes scare me with how easily they can happen with no way to stop it, so I respect and appreciate the crowd control engineers very much!
I love this and am so grateful for people like Brett. I think event planning is the most important and valuable aspect of an event. Disorder and lack of planning destroys every Event. I’m glad there is becoming a respected science of crowd control
Watching this video made me realize how much almost every big festival I ever went to here in Brazil completely disregarded any of the good practices in line management
I'm here after Taylor Swift in Munich, where ticket scanning machines failed and people waited for hours in very hot weather without anyone informing them
One of my favourite 2012 moments was a queue outside the Store at the Olympic Park. The entrance was a fairly short “Snake/Disney line”, but this was completely insufficient owing to the numbers wanting to go inside. Fortunately we dynamically extended the snaking queue back 3 more snake corners without any barriers 🇬🇧
This is very insightful. These are the kinds of planning that are done behind the scenes that we barely get to know but are very integral to having a wonderful experience!!
There was an even in Germany (Duisburg i believe; techno festival.) in which the crowd was channeled through a narrow tunnel with those incoming and those leaving overlapping. This lead to people pushing each other and several deaths. Shows how important this kind of work is, and getting this detail right.
as a small event organizer i never thought about it, all we think is how people movemnet in event venue and not the outside of venue...thanks for the insight
Seen a dangerous situation in Edinburgh with an overcrowded platform, a fight broke out and people were almost falling onto the track trying to get out of the way. There were about 15 transport cops in the ticket office but none on the platform and none on the trains. Crowds can be dangerous anywhere but especially on a train station platform. 😬
One time I was at Disney and I marveled at the psychology of the lines. You think you are almost to the ride but nope, it turns. But you feel you are making progress. Jump to the fireworks time, I thought I was smarter than their line system and tried to fight against the traffic. It was stupid and I should have realized they knew the best way to clear out.
Great content. We'd recently attended The Killers concert at newly opened Co-op Live venue in Manchester (UK), the construction of which was led by Arup. The capacity is 25K but we were amazed how easy and quick it had been to get in and out. Noted how many of features he mentioned were in play.
The crowd for the start of the event can trickle in and it's relatively easy going, but when the event is over, that's when the real issues are present.
Love this!! So interesting. I never think about all the planning that goes into pulling of a successful event. More event planning and coordination content please !!
Crowd management is absolutely critical for any large event. It’s fascinating seeing a professional break down the designs and explain the rationale behind their choices.
The holy mosque, unlike many modern places that experience crowding, has dealt with this challenge for hundreds of years. It's very impressive. But then only 1km away a butcher shop will erupt into a screaming match every 30 seconds to figure out which customer is next.
the waiting in pens thing blows my mind. You're telling me you're having a huge sports crowd wait for a traffic light for a few cars to pass? Where I live, the few streets around the stadium are closed off temporarily. So it's not the whole city obviously, but it gives just enough room for people to disperse in different directions
The issue is that Earls Court Station is RIGHT there and there's not really anywhere else to go unless you happened to be staying in the immediately surrounding area. The road was basically just an excuse to create breaks in the flow of traffic of people leaving the stadium without anyone noticing that they were doing so.
I'm pretty sure that the road was closed. The real issue is that the station entrance is narrow, about the width of the sidewalk, so there was never any sense in allowing everyone to pile up at that entrance. It could turn into a lethal crowd crush very quickly.
@@ReallyRealBenMills why would they need to wait for the traffic lights if the road was closed, though? I suspect that the traffic was allowed to keep flowing to make people stop. Having a real threat like being run over by a vehicle is a good way to keep patience levels high. Plus, the feeling of "fairness" that everyone will eventually get their turn helps as well.
@@TPixelAdventures The purpose of the pens was to regulate the width of the crowd before the entrance did it the hard way. They weren't waiting for much actual traffic, but that's also the best way to clear access for emergency vehicles should the need arise. Barring the movement of emergency vehicles and event vehicles, they most likely didn't wait for the traffic lights, but instead, had event personnel letting groups out of the pens in sequence to smooth out the flow.
I went to the volleyball at Earls Court in 2012. On arrival, the morning session was leaving and the mass of people in the front of the venue was incredible. As we had a young child with us, we deliberately left before the end of the afternoon session to avoid the rush - no crowds but got home to find out that the game we were watching had turned around and into a classic after we left 😢.
I find this stuff so interesting, one thing we did in dc is when our ballpark opened we redesigned the metro station nearest the park to have the ticket barriers at the top of the escalator to prevent a crush at the bottom.
i am so amazed how well the people organizing a huge participations of an event. i myself have been an event organiser, but never thought this idea on my mind before
I was in the queue at this year Wimbledon and it was my first major event. I was very impressed about the organization. 20.000 people out there and there were not one hassle, no overwhelming. As it was just a couple of hundreds. Lines in the food courts were flowing. I was bit nervous when departing thou. They made us waited at the traffic lights, I thought it would be some squeezing or something but it was so smooth too. Everybody put a distance. The crowd was very civil. It is important too.
Brett needs to work with the Formula 1 Canadian Grand Prix organizers. I have been to the race there for the last 3 years in row and the crowd control gets worse every year. A normal 15 minute walk from the track to the Metro station takes almost 2 hours after the Grand Prix, the organizers doesn't even have any sort of crowd control, everyone is just free to do whatever it takes to get in and out of the race track, its actually scary.
"If no one knows what we do, we do a good job..." I work on perfecting manufacturing process and thats my goal. When something is designed well you dont notice it because its seamless.
Or escalators that empty into an area of equal size where people are expected to wait, like train station platforms. People reach the end, get off, and often just stand there or stop to get their bearings. During busy times, people getting off have no where to go and a crush starts forming as more people are dumped into the area off the escalators.
I have season tickets to an NFL team. Now I see what you all are doing to me. It works. Also I go 2 hours early. The team DJ is playing music, the team is warming up and the beer is cold.
The venue and event only exist to get money. Preventing death and injury is directly connected to that. Talking about the reality of the world we live in bluntly is far better than pretending to care and lying by ommision.
I experienced exactly that crowd management after a Foo Fighters concert at the O2 in London and it was fantastic. The people holding the signs made it into a game teasing us with turning it from stop/go and the whole crowd was going "ooooooh" into big cheers and then booing when we got stopped again 😅 it felt very British and silly and was genuinely the highlight of my night even though I was leaving a great concert, and when I got to the tube I was amazed it wasn't overcrowded and got straight on the train!
It's nice to see people-focused crowd control including safe access of public transit. St Louis, MO (USA) is lucky to have a small rail system that serves the baseball stadium. The station is designed with side platforms and long ramps as the main entrance to reduce tripping hazard, but there is very minimal crowd control. The low capacity of the trains and and low frequency doesn't help.
Crowd control is actually a bit of a fear of mine. I grew up hearing about things like the Hillsborough disaster, so I think crowd control is really important. I also quite like single queues where things are controlled at the front and moving quite quickly, especially when it’s a long wait. I always like it at places like theme parks where you can see how long the wait is once you get to certain points
they did this at the taylor swift reputation stadium tour i went to in 2018. it was great i actually felt very safe at the end of the concert, especially given that there were 70,000 people there! excellently planned.
I remember reading a reddit comment about how outrageous it was that top-tier event managers get paid what they do. Like buddy, you have zero clue what goes into a real event.
Soon as he mentioned family events before a game and selling merch I instantly thought of the Savannah Bananas. The owner Jesse has cultivated baseball stadium entry/exiting brilliantly for each of their games.
I hate when people cut or force their way to the front of queue, but turns out you can carefully plan crowd engineering to control the flow and mitigate people's desire to cut. I feel like any large fan conventions need to prioritize this and be well equipped on this front.
In architecture, when designing venues like stadiums and arenas, we prioritize the flow and circulation of the crowd, thus plan it thoroughly, also considering other factors like emergencies, transportation, revenue, and other interests that the client would have.
Can Paris save the Olympics? on.wsj.com/3zMHnKk
Can Paris save itself?
So how do we apply this to January 6... 😅
What is the first African city in the Dakar rally? Paris
Can't even save itself from muslim
France is ever more divided than us
I don't think people comprehend how incredibly dangerous crowds can be when not carefully controlled and influenced by well planned processes and design. The Halloween crush in Korea killed 159 people in just minutes, and there was no stopping it from happening until it was far too late. This is such an important and underappreciated type of design and psychology, glad to see content focusing on it.
Actually horrifying. I was almost at that but decided last minute to hang with friends somewhere else instead. The thought of not being able to move and people screaming, fainting and dying next by you with no way out is terrible. I’m so thankful for that last minute change of plans.
yes! i was also thinking about Korea’s halloween indecent
Just couple of days ago in India a stampede happened killing 121 people just because of the lack of preparation for crowd control
I know people can comprehend that based on historic events that killed people due to crowd crushes. There are dozens of cases sometimes with hundred of deaths.
Indonesia 2022 - 133 die in a crowd crush at a football match
India 2013 - 115 die in a crowd crush at a religious festival
Ivory Coast 2013 - 60 die in a crowd crush after a fireworks event
Mecca 2015 - 2300 die in a crowd crush during the Hajj pilgrimage
England 1989 - Hillsborough disaster 97 die in a crowd crush during a football match
People know about crowd crushes
Similar thing happened in Germany during Love Parade in Duisburg, 2010. 21 People died because they locked off ways to exit the area and were crushed in tunnels. This lead to one of the biggest cases in court where they had to rent fair halls for the trial. There’s even an english Wikipedia article. It ultimately lead to very strict guidelines for events in Germany.
In Germany, they sometimes close the nearest subway station after major events. This way, people have to walk to the next station (in either direction) so it automatically disperses the crowd.
People in Germany are used to walking so nobody really minds. In some cases, people might even appreciate a nice walk after standing at a concert for hours.
This is true
If they did that in the US, it would start the riot lol
@@TheStudHogWe are fat and polite in Wisconsin. We would call an Uber to get to the next station. 😂
I can absolutely see myself frustrated by this - unless I know the reason for closing the nearest station. Tell people why you're doing things, knowing he reason why makes us... more reasonable.
@@TheStudHog that's exactly what I was thinking, except it's not only in the US 😂
One of the highlight of living in London is how terrific the crowd management is here. Wonderful work, thank you for your service!
Can't have a good queue without a good whinge :P
2 people died 18 months ago in a crush at the Brixton O2.
I noticed that too while in London they are serious about crowd control
@@anomalousresultthat was because they used to brake the rules by (allegedly) selling extra tickets/ allowing people in without them - an act was playing that was very popular so lots more people turned up to an area not designed for it.
@@anomalousresult Yes the security services took bribes to allow more people in than were permitted
I work in the events industry and let me tell you A LOT of thought and work goes into tiny aspects of crowd management. Even the specific size and shape of the pit barrier. Where I used to work we had people on towers at music shows just monitoring how the crowd was moving and behaving from above to try and spot potential issues before they developed.
Of course there have been some recent high profile disasters, but these underpin how important this subject is. Crowds have a mind of their own and can make people behave very differently.
Sadly things have gone wrong a lot before people started planning this better. Brings to mind a Pearl Jam concert imat Roskilde festival in 2000 where 9 people were crushed due to a stampede. This lead to better crowd control during festivals, like the inner ring in front of the stage for "early bird" fans.
@@MartijnPennings The Who at Riverfront Stadium in 1979 comes to mind.
@@MartijnPennings Videos of disasters like this one are actually shown in some of the training we do. When I did pit barrier installation training they showed multiple videos of crowd crushes and broke down in detail what caused them and how better safety precautions could have prevented them. As I said, it’s really hard to predict how a crowd is going to act on any given day and it’s affected by things like the weather, any delays to the schedule, alcohol consumption etc. Once it gets out of hand there is very little you can do, so our best shot is trying to avoid mistakes of the past.
I think the worst recent example was the Astroworld crush. But the Brixton academy crush was very shocking and sad too.
I remember hearing about the Love Parade festival disaster when i was studying events at uni and it really drove home the importance of crowd control and event safety
We needed this guy at the Travis Scott concert. That’s a lot on his shoulders to make sure the flow goes to plan.
People were hopping over fences and barricades designed for crowd control. It only works if people respect it. Kind of like rule of law, which apparently doesn't apply to politicians or cops.
Unfortunately, Travis Scott concerts still have Travis Scott.
We need this guy in America
Travis Scott needed to be cancelled for what he did. Yet he still is touring and still gathering crowds. Speaks volumes about him and his fans.
As he stated in the end, the hardest part is predicting what people will do in an event
Oh this is so interesting!! I've experienced a great crowd-control moment after a major concert in Singapore. As the huge crowd was directed to leave the stadium, we were stopped a distance away from the train station as the earlier group just ahead of us was allowed to continue. The guides blasted some music songs from the concert that we just attended and told everyone "ok guys, just sing 1 song while waiting!". This made everyone completely okay with waiting for about 3-4 mins while just singing along, and then the next group of us were allowed to proceed. Definitely kudos to the planner for that step to ease frustrations of leaving from a crowded venue.
I thought this was Vox. I love this type of video.
there is another video by wendover productions also on crowd control, i think you will also like it
such explainer videos are what usually keep me on youtube
If this was Vox or Wendover, it would have actually explained it and given useful info beyond “you can leave a park from several directions.”
@@christophergaspar6520 This was a good video, but I agree that the Wendover one is great. He's one of my favorite content creators and always explains things really well.
I AM GOD THE LIVING APOCALYPSE PITY TO THE NATION APOCALYPSE FOREVER PLAYBOY JR YOUR GOING TO REMEMBER ME
You heard? Perfect time for this video. Multiple reports from X showcase a chaotic scene as fans stormed more than one location for a chance to watch the football match. South Florida reporters like Safid Deen were on location, and caught the moment when authorities were forced to shut down the gates, preventing patrons with tickets from entering the stadium.
One crucial issue overlooked in this but is vitally important is how do you safely and efficiently evacuate large numbers of people safely and quickly in the event of en emergency. That is also the job of engineers.
In Germany in arenas we usually build (depending on amount of people) two passageways to the left and right of the stage which are at least 3m wide for the people on ground level, so they can just go straight ahead and out. For everyone not on the ground there are emergency exits when standing up and going up the stairs and out. It also does depend on whether you have a standing or a seated crowd. For minor accidents/incidents you also may not want people to evacuate, in case your power went off for example, you still have emergency lighting and letting them evacuate then, you do not have any real control on guiding 10k+ people out.
How could you plan an evacuation of planet earth? You would need a team of engineers
With an emergency, people are not waiting to look at posters, standing in a walking route to talk to each other, or crossing the street to go to a station. They want out and get away, never mind blocking a street or whatever. So people go in the same direction. Still worth a look (or many looks) as mostly the route out of a venue is small, hence why there are emergency doors.
@@FPVogel On the other hand the main stadium in my country used to have its lowest spectator tier some 3m above the pitch, maybe to prevent pitch invasion, but I guess this design would be illegal now as it slows down evacuation
I absolutely love when places are designed well for flow of traffic and control. a decent amount of people have no spatial awareness and its a pet peeve of mine. Im also not a fan of those more aggressive people and having clear and organized queues can make it a breeze. Love the pen idea, literally herding animals lol. This guy is a Human herder! Can we get this guy into grocery stores? because they need a lot of work.
The point about revenue was interesting... Venues have a financial incentive to have efficient traffic flow yet so many fail to invest in a good system, including grocery stores!
@@martinnester9094 grocery stores are designed to funnel people through as many possible areas while they find their bare essentials to try get them to buy stuff they dont exactly need. they have opposite incentives, keeping people longer means more profit. youd be amazed how much thought actually goes into grocery store design, to you it seems clumsy but its actually intentional.
@@flyingrat492 totally, that's why the most common bought items are so spread out. I meant their parking and queueing systems could use improvement.
On grocery stores, the thing you are missing is that the bad design isn't a flaw, its a feature, its designed to make you go down new aisles and double back, because it increases that chance that you impulse buy.
@@Willheheckaslike-d4h UK citizen here. I can safely say that I have NEVER seen people doing this. They queue at individual tills just like normal. The only time this happens is if the queuing system is set up that way (like in Primark), by someone of the same profession as the guy in the video.
Japan comiket has some of the best crowd controls I’ve seen and experienced. Multiple ways of transportation to get to the venue, ultra organized line to get in, and multiple ways to get out when the event is over. Plus the majority of Japanese are very disciplined when it comes to lining up. I saw people help strangers to keep their belongings together when the others have to go use a restroom.
In India people trample over one another to catch the train.
@@dimitar297 it's not the crowd's fault. It's too many people and little public transportation, combined with lack of crowd control. Aggressive people will win in those societies and they will stand out and influence the crowd.
I'm from south east asia. We had a "faster" train system and a bus system going to my university. The train system takes 20 mins to get there, the bus system takes 1 hour. Do you know which one gets me to class on time? The bus.
The people waiting to get a chance to board that train were really aggressive. It's already full by the time it gets to our station, with hundreds of people more wanting to get in. If we're lucky, they might send an empty train to our station. They won't send a schedule though so everything is uncertain.
The number of passengers in those trains exceeded not only the comfortable/ recommended and design capacity, but also, the safety capacity. It's impossible not to push against the doors. You don't have to make any effort to stand up. You're liked packed sardines because the whole crowd is pushing against all sides of your body. If the train stops suddenly, well you all fall down. It's not for the elderly, or anyone with disabilities that's for sure.
I avoided that train like the plague, but all my classmates preferred it and I will never understand why.
I only tried the train again when they started actual crowd control. Idk what took them so long but it's such a large difference in experience. And yes, it's actually possible even with such an undersupplied train station. You might just have to wait in queue for a little bit longer, but at least everyone has equal opportunity.
Even abroad now, when leaving concerts and major events, I'll avoid the popular main station until I see that there are organised queues to get in. Otherwise, I'll try alternative options. If not, I'll just sit around for a bit until the crowd clears up. The night is already over. There is no need to hurry to bed.
Edit: mobile typing sucks.
There's an art to any task you can do, no matter how small or big it is.
Edit for those of you commenting, this is a common expression "There's an art to XYZ." You must not have heard it before, but it's a legit saying in English.
The definition of art is weird. To me there's art, which usually stems from creativity and exists only to make people feel certain emotions or convey a message. Be it through painting, animation, music. But it doesn't serve any purpose. As an artist myself I need to make sure that we artists don't contribute anything useful to society.
I think this is more really clean problem solving, which I find impressive all the same, but I wouldn't call it art.
I think you mean a science. Art is subjective but science is objective, and crowd control isn't based on opinion.
@@casmatt99your right he is saying facts but it’s more so social crowd engineering
Caling this art is same as calling maths, art. I mean sure if you want to.
@@nevin8604this is a common expression in the US. Replace it with “skill” and maybe it makes more sense to you and others who are not familiar with the expression.
The occasional story comes out about over crowding and people being crushed. Imagine how many times it would happen if we didn’t have people like him. Well done 🙏🏻
My main takeaway from this video is the bottom up beer tap. Still mind boggling!
Mind-blowing how every detail counts! 😮
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@@BoliceOcciferStop using drugs😂
I have the deepest respect for people who organise this kind of planning to make sure we are safe! Thank you for the video and explanation, in fact I was always wondering about exactly this when attending any events and venues because I was feeling that there must be a lot of work behind it to make sure everything runs smoothly. It is a topic majority of people won't even think about but I always pay attention to details and am curious and I think those engineers deserve a round of applause 👏🏻
Having this video posted a few days before the Copa America final game disaster in Miami is something else
they probably predicted that a disaster was going to happen before that event started
Intriguing to get a glimpse into how much strategic planning goes into handling crowd movement at major venues. The careful choreography to keep people safe, satisfied, and revenue flowing, is truly commendable.
I'm amazed to see how 'profit' and 'money' are highly prioritized in crowd engineering. Not surprised, just amazed.
ikr
It is the only way to get permission for the management of a crowd because safety is expensive
financial incentive is the best and most effective way to get people to agree with whatever you put forward
Crowds have only one of two purposes- making money or revolution.
@@angrygopnik2317 Money talks. agreed.
That was beautiful.
Thank you for sharing a tiny glimpse of your profession, and thank you for keeping us safe.
Crowd control is so important in events to keep everyone safe and everything flowing smoothly. When I worked at my local 10k I got to see it in action at the finish/expo. Crowd crushes scare me with how easily they can happen with no way to stop it, so I respect and appreciate the crowd control engineers very much!
I love this and am so grateful for people like Brett. I think event planning is the most important and valuable aspect of an event. Disorder and lack of planning destroys every
Event. I’m glad there is becoming a respected science of crowd control
Watching this video made me realize how much almost every big festival I ever went to here in Brazil completely disregarded any of the good practices in line management
And then you have the Argentina-Colombia "soccer" match in Miami last night 😉.
Anyone else here after just witnessing the madness at the Copa final in Miami tonight??
Yes, me! 😂
Let's try the worst and unorganized method. Opt to close lanes artifically. Mix in language barriers and bad communication. Et voila.
Yeeeep!
I'm here after Taylor Swift in Munich, where ticket scanning machines failed and people waited for hours in very hot weather without anyone informing them
Fascinating stuff! I never knew I wanted to know about queues, but as it turns out I did. Thank you for broadening my knowledge WSJ.
It is really interesting, kind of taping into math and human psychology at the same time, look up Queuing Theory if you are interested in the subject.
@@bluecko72 oh, thanks. I will have a look on that!
One of my favourite 2012 moments was a queue outside the Store at the Olympic Park.
The entrance was a fairly short “Snake/Disney line”, but this was completely insufficient owing to the numbers wanting to go inside. Fortunately we dynamically extended the snaking queue back 3 more snake corners without any barriers 🇬🇧
This is very insightful. These are the kinds of planning that are done behind the scenes that we barely get to know but are very integral to having a wonderful experience!!
This makes me understand and appreciate the art of crowd control.
There was an even in Germany (Duisburg i believe; techno festival.) in which the crowd was channeled through a narrow tunnel with those incoming and those leaving overlapping. This lead to people pushing each other and several deaths. Shows how important this kind of work is, and getting this detail right.
Love Parade 2010, theres a lot of videos on it
as a small event organizer i never thought about it, all we think is how people movemnet in event venue and not the outside of venue...thanks for the insight
Seen a dangerous situation in Edinburgh with an overcrowded platform, a fight broke out and people were almost falling onto the track trying to get out of the way. There were about 15 transport cops in the ticket office but none on the platform and none on the trains. Crowds can be dangerous anywhere but especially on a train station platform. 😬
One time I was at Disney and I marveled at the psychology of the lines. You think you are almost to the ride but nope, it turns. But you feel you are making progress.
Jump to the fireworks time, I thought I was smarter than their line system and tried to fight against the traffic. It was stupid and I should have realized they knew the best way to clear out.
Great content. We'd recently attended The Killers concert at newly opened Co-op Live venue in Manchester (UK), the construction of which was led by Arup. The capacity is 25K but we were amazed how easy and quick it had been to get in and out. Noted how many of features he mentioned were in play.
i recognized the "hybrid waiting line" that there is in Marrakech airport. I've never seen this thing before. Wondering if it is new ?
The hybrid waiting line is quite common when going to the security check at some airports. @@mariannegiroud8131
Kudos to crowd managers. They have to see the venue and surrounding area and try to predict what people will do. What a fantastic video!
The crowd for the start of the event can trickle in and it's relatively easy going, but when the event is over, that's when the real issues are present.
Post-game events can help but keeping some people in longer
You can tell how well thought out an event is by how well their queue lines are. Loved his explanations and the visuals.
Love this!! So interesting. I never think about all the planning that goes into pulling of a successful event. More event planning and coordination content please !!
Crowd management is absolutely critical for any large event. It’s fascinating seeing a professional break down the designs and explain the rationale behind their choices.
The holy mosque in Makkah is also a perfect example of crowd control engineering. Amazing video.
The holy mosque, unlike many modern places that experience crowding, has dealt with this challenge for hundreds of years. It's very impressive. But then only 1km away a butcher shop will erupt into a screaming match every 30 seconds to figure out which customer is next.
I’m obsessed with the art of queuing! This video is so incredibly interesting.
wow! been planning event for a while and when you thought you knew everything, come this guy. thank you brother!
the waiting in pens thing blows my mind. You're telling me you're having a huge sports crowd wait for a traffic light for a few cars to pass? Where I live, the few streets around the stadium are closed off temporarily. So it's not the whole city obviously, but it gives just enough room for people to disperse in different directions
i assume it would be more helpful to have the traffic light so people would enter the train station in batch
The issue is that Earls Court Station is RIGHT there and there's not really anywhere else to go unless you happened to be staying in the immediately surrounding area. The road was basically just an excuse to create breaks in the flow of traffic of people leaving the stadium without anyone noticing that they were doing so.
I'm pretty sure that the road was closed. The real issue is that the station entrance is narrow, about the width of the sidewalk, so there was never any sense in allowing everyone to pile up at that entrance. It could turn into a lethal crowd crush very quickly.
@@ReallyRealBenMills why would they need to wait for the traffic lights if the road was closed, though?
I suspect that the traffic was allowed to keep flowing to make people stop.
Having a real threat like being run over by a vehicle is a good way to keep patience levels high.
Plus, the feeling of "fairness" that everyone will eventually get their turn helps as well.
@@TPixelAdventures The purpose of the pens was to regulate the width of the crowd before the entrance did it the hard way. They weren't waiting for much actual traffic, but that's also the best way to clear access for emergency vehicles should the need arise. Barring the movement of emergency vehicles and event vehicles, they most likely didn't wait for the traffic lights, but instead, had event personnel letting groups out of the pens in sequence to smooth out the flow.
Such underrated artform. Major respect to people in the field of event logistics planning!
great timing considering what happened at the copa final tonight!
Amazing. The work you never appreciate or notice if it's well done but so important.
I went to the volleyball at Earls Court in 2012. On arrival, the morning session was leaving and the mass of people in the front of the venue was incredible. As we had a young child with us, we deliberately left before the end of the afternoon session to avoid the rush - no crowds but got home to find out that the game we were watching had turned around and into a classic after we left 😢.
My husband is a retired police captain, so I appreciate this man’s logic, physics, and psychology all rolled into one job. Pragmatism at its best. ❤
Conmebol, the Charlotte stadium, and miami stadium needed to watch this before the copa America started.
Oh wow! I've never heard of this until now. That's amazing and big appreciation to those people designing this
This is genius. Never thought of how complex it is until I saw this video.
This is really relevant after whatever happened in PA today.
I find this stuff so interesting, one thing we did in dc is when our ballpark opened we redesigned the metro station nearest the park to have the ticket barriers at the top of the escalator to prevent a crush at the bottom.
I actually noticed this! Not like I called it out, but first thing I thought in comparison to NYC was: the pay stations are up here?
i am so amazed how well the people organizing a huge participations of an event. i myself have been an event organiser, but never thought this idea on my mind before
This is about to blow up.
It is atrange and fascinating how a person and a person in a fired up crowd can be two completely different types of people
I was in the queue at this year Wimbledon and it was my first major event. I was very impressed about the organization. 20.000 people out there and there were not one hassle, no overwhelming. As it was just a couple of hundreds. Lines in the food courts were flowing. I was bit nervous when departing thou. They made us waited at the traffic lights, I thought it would be some squeezing or something but it was so smooth too. Everybody put a distance. The crowd was very civil. It is important too.
Brett needs to work with the Formula 1 Canadian Grand Prix organizers. I have been to the race there for the last 3 years in row and the crowd control gets worse every year. A normal 15 minute walk from the track to the Metro station takes almost 2 hours after the Grand Prix, the organizers doesn't even have any sort of crowd control, everyone is just free to do whatever it takes to get in and out of the race track, its actually scary.
These guys are really important.
India needs this guy so badly
was yesterday in the euros final in berlin and the management was incredible
That was incredibly intriguing 6 minutes!! Absolutely love the science and the thought behind it!
"If no one knows what we do, we do a good job..."
I work on perfecting manufacturing process and thats my goal.
When something is designed well you dont notice it because its seamless.
MORE OF EXACTLY THAT PLEASE!! ❤ crowd engineering is interesting.
Intro animation is lowkey amazing
Security at Hard Rock café did not watch this video. Argentina vs Colombia its a mess
More videos like this please. I found it fascinating. Thank you.
LOL this just popped up into my suggested right after the COPA AMERICA final in Miami 2024. The organizers should have all prepared on this
Or escalators that empty into an area of equal size where people are expected to wait, like train station platforms. People reach the end, get off, and often just stand there or stop to get their bearings. During busy times, people getting off have no where to go and a crush starts forming as more people are dumped into the area off the escalators.
My respects to you sir, and others like you!
I love how I was able to see this in Taylor’s Concert both in SG and Japan. ❤
This was really interesting! I know crowd management is tough but this was really insightful
I have season tickets to an NFL team. Now I see what you all are doing to me. It works.
Also I go 2 hours early. The team DJ is playing music, the team is warming up and the beer is cold.
Loving the WSJ priorities:
1 - Make more money
2 - Prevent catastrophic crowd crushing with loss of life
The venue and event only exist to get money. Preventing death and injury is directly connected to that. Talking about the reality of the world we live in bluntly is far better than pretending to care and lying by ommision.
I experienced exactly that crowd management after a Foo Fighters concert at the O2 in London and it was fantastic. The people holding the signs made it into a game teasing us with turning it from stop/go and the whole crowd was going "ooooooh" into big cheers and then booing when we got stopped again 😅 it felt very British and silly and was genuinely the highlight of my night even though I was leaving a great concert, and when I got to the tube I was amazed it wasn't overcrowded and got straight on the train!
It's nice to see people-focused crowd control including safe access of public transit. St Louis, MO (USA) is lucky to have a small rail system that serves the baseball stadium. The station is designed with side platforms and long ramps as the main entrance to reduce tripping hazard, but there is very minimal crowd control. The low capacity of the trains and and low frequency doesn't help.
Crowd control is actually a bit of a fear of mine. I grew up hearing about things like the Hillsborough disaster, so I think crowd control is really important. I also quite like single queues where things are controlled at the front and moving quite quickly, especially when it’s a long wait. I always like it at places like theme parks where you can see how long the wait is once you get to certain points
they did this at the taylor swift reputation stadium tour i went to in 2018. it was great i actually felt very safe at the end of the concert, especially given that there were 70,000 people there! excellently planned.
I remember reading a reddit comment about how outrageous it was that top-tier event managers get paid what they do. Like buddy, you have zero clue what goes into a real event.
What hasn't been mentioned here is that you have also to coordinate with the public transportation system.
Very interesting
Thank you, people like Brett!
they needed this at the copa America final
Well done Brett. Top tier work fella 👌
F1 needs to hire this guy!
You have to see how incredible crowded management in mecca Saudi Arabia when hajj is performing
This is one of the most British video I've seen. They love those queues! Super interesting
Silverstone F1 is prime queue management 👌
Some airports are very good at crowd control at flight check in and security screening, and some not so much.
I had to pause the video when you showed the beer being served from the bottom up. What magic is that? 🤯
At 4am, this was the perfect random video to help me not fall back to sleep.
Goodnight.
This video embodies what UA-cam was supposed to and should be about!
This showing up in my feed as I still wait for the Copa América finals due to crowd control issues accessing the stadium
Soon as he mentioned family events before a game and selling merch I instantly thought of the Savannah Bananas. The owner Jesse has cultivated baseball stadium entry/exiting brilliantly for each of their games.
I hate when people cut or force their way to the front of queue, but turns out you can carefully plan crowd engineering to control the flow and mitigate people's desire to cut. I feel like any large fan conventions need to prioritize this and be well equipped on this front.
People barely notice when crowd control is done right, but people _will_ notice the absence of it.
Just watch Loveparade disaster 2010 to understand why this mans job is so important!
USA needs guys like this for the 2026 fifa world cup. (Copa america was a disaster)
In architecture, when designing venues like stadiums and arenas, we prioritize the flow and circulation of the crowd, thus plan it thoroughly, also considering other factors like emergencies, transportation, revenue, and other interests that the client would have.
WSJ has such a serious paywall on their news site, I'm surprised their videos aren't all members-only too.
This video promised so much, but actually shared very little