In this week’s forum, we discussed the issues in crowd management. After reviewing the
PowerPoint and the required readings from the lesson plan, we can effectively answer some
questions. The difference between crowd management and risk management is that one covers
the audience or a group of people at the event and the other encompasses the crowd, facility, the
event, and everything surrounding the facility. A situation that I have encountered when it comes
to crowds or large groups of people was the Dallas Cowboys vs. New York Giants game in
Arlington, Texas. Prior to the game, large groups of people gather at the front gates to enter the
stadium. The way the stadium staff handled it was they roped off the entrances and instructed
everybody to calmly and effectively enter the stadium when they gave the order to enter the
building. They had security staff at every door to ensure this request was followed. Security
checkpoints can enhance the effectiveness of crowd management. I believe that cell phone
technology (smartphones) could improve crowd management because you can separate those
who have early bird check-ins through the into the game and all they would have to do is show
that their ticket has been verified. That would separate those people who have paper tickets. I
believe that in the next 10 years, we will see new waves of issues when it comes to crowd
management. We will see networks hacked in order for crowds to bunch up at security entrances.
We will see technological issues when people are at their seat and the app on their phone does
not allow them to get their food order right or their seat was double booked. I believe technology
will be the primary reason why crowd management teams will have to be on the look out for
issues to arise in the next 10 years.