Marshals and Stewards – Coping with crowd Management

It’s summertime and crowds are flocking to music festivals, county shows and other outdoor events in massive numbers. Managing those crowds always possesses the potential for problems, whether it is due to the sheer number of people, availability of alcohol, unexpected emergencies, logistics or quite simply the weather! Hot sunshine can easily cause tempers to flare, while heavy rain makes outside sites a quagmire causing traffic jams and equally unhappy crowds.

Taking action to prevent or at least minimise the risk of such problems is crucial. When attending events, visitors expect to have a good experience – if they don’t it will quickly become apparent on social media as concert organisers at Blickling quickly discovered recently. Slow entry onto the site and being forbidden to take in any food or drink, with even children’s sweets being confiscated led to an enormous amount of complaints.

Organisers need to prepare well ahead of the event ensuring that they have suitable measures in place.

Plan ahead

Talk to exhibition organisers about staffing requirements. Bear in mind that the best and most experienced temporary event staff are booked up well in advance.

Signage

All exits and entrances need to be well signed with marshals and stewards available to deal instantly with any problems that occur at those points. Typical problems include long queues, or congestion caused by traffic entering nearby roads.

Emergency plans

Make sure a clear risk assessment is done of the entire event. Have an emergency plan ready to swing into use if problems occur. Marshals and stewards need to be prepared to deal with large numbers of emergency vehicles descending on the site, ensuring they have quick easy access unencumbered by festival goers. The safety of visitors and performers has has to be the first priority at any event.

Set up days

It is not just the exhibitors or performers who need set up days to practise and put all their equipment in place. Marshalls, stewards, security and car parking staff need preparation time before the start of an event. Set up time is needed to organise car parks, mark out entrance/exit channels as well as familiarising themselves with the overall layout of the site. In an emergency, marshals and stewards will need to direct people quickly away from any problem areas.

Even during an ordinary day at the event, such staff will be automatically be dealing with visitor queries, lost children, traffic direction and other issues. If they don’t have the requisite background knowledge, they cannot do their tasks effectively which will reflect badly on the overall event organisation.