Big Events
There are many ‘big events’ which happen during the
coming months, such as the FA cup final at Wembley,
the Premiership Rugby final at Twickenham and
various music festivals in the Summer.
The organisation of these events is mind-boggling
when you consider the numbers involved: up to
90,000 at Wembley, 82,000 at Twickenham and
135,000 people at Glastonbury.
Big Events
For one of these events, what facilities, services and
other issues would designers and organisers need to
think about for people attending the event?
Big Events
You might have come up with some of the following:
Security: lots of
different aspects
Public Transport
Ticket sales
Publicity and
marketing
Seating
First Aid
Litter bins
Merchandise
Cleaning
Information points
Toilet facilities
Entry to the event
Car parks
Emergency
procedures
???
Food and drink
Big Events
One of the key considerations for designers and
organisers is providing enough of each facility to
ensure that on the day of an event, queues don’t build
up too much.
On the other hand, when building a venue, more
facilities cost more money to provide and maintain
and also take up more space.
Toilet Facilities
For a popular event at Twickenham or Wembley, how
many toilet cubicles would you need?
How many:
• Toilet cubicles for males?
• Toilet cubicles for females?
• Accessible toilets?
Would they be better placed in one or two big blocks
or several smaller ones?
Toilet Facilities: Hints
You might think about:
• How many people are there in your school and
how many toilets there are
• How long people spend in a cubicle
• What proportion of people might want to use the
facilities at half time or during an interval
• How long the break or interval is
Entrance Queues
At big events, there is usually a system for
checking tickets and a security check.
Checking tickets is either a manual check involving a
member of staff checking each person’s ticket, or an
electronic check, usually with some type of turnstile
where people present their tickets to a scanning
device.
Entrance Queues
Each entrance at large arenas such as Wembley and
Twickenham has several electronic turnstiles.
How many turnstiles would be needed if very long
queues are to be prevented?
Wembley 90,000 people.
Twickenham 82,000 people.
Entrance Queues: hints
You might think about the following:
• How long before an event will people be admitted?
• Do they all turn up at once?
• How long would it take each person to present
their ticket?
Trying out a simulation of people presenting tickets
may help.
Entrance Queues: evidence
Entrance Queues: evidence
The photo from TripAdvisor shows the turnstiles
at Wembley entrance D.
There are 14 such entrances, plus 4 special
ones for Club members.
Teacher notes: Big Events
These problem solving activities are designed to encourage students to
think about real life situations where they have little given information,
but can draw upon their own experiences to come up with a reasonable
estimate.
They could be used with a wide range of age groups.
Working in small groups, sharing approaches and discussing
responses within the class is encouraged.
Teacher notes: Big Events
The emphasis with these problems is on the students reasoning and
justification for their calculations rather than on obtaining ‘the’ correct
answer – although sensible reasoning should give answers of the right
magnitude.
Suggested minimum or maximum values are given together with
considerations that would affect the answer. Where possible, some
real life evidence is also given.
The problems are presented for two of the issues ‘toilet facilities’ and
‘entrance queues’, but any of the other issues on slide 4 could also be
explored.
A selection of facts and figures for Wembley can be found on slide 23.
Teacher notes: Toilet Facilities
If everyone wanted to use the toilets at half time or an interval, the
maximum number of toilets required is:
Number of attendees ÷ (Time available (secs) ÷ no. of secs per person)
A ‘quick use’ including walking to the toilet door from the queue takes
about 40 seconds.
The half time interval at football matches is 15 minutes, at rugby
matches it’s 10 minutes.
At Wembley: 90 000 ÷ (15 x 60 ÷ 40) = 4000 toilets
At Twickenham: 82 000 ÷ (10 x 60 ÷ 40) = 5466 toilets
Teacher notes: Toilet Facilities
Accessible toilets:
How many people would need to use these facilities?
Number of registered disabled:
• 6% of children
• 16% of working aged adults
• 45% of pension aged adults
But “Disabled people remain significantly less likely to participate in
cultural, leisure and sporting activities”.
http://odi.dwp.gov.uk/disability-statistics-and-research/disability-factsand-figures.php#gd
Teacher notes: Toilet Facilities
In reality, also consider:
Would everyone use the facilities at half time?
• probably not, perhaps 1/3 to ½ of attendees might wish to use them
Is 40 seconds a realistic estimate for a quick use for males and
females?
Are there equal numbers of male and female facilities?
• At some venues, yes. However, if females take longer than males,
they’ll need more facilities.
Toilets are usually found in many places around the ground so that
people don’t have to walk too far and queues are shorter.
Teacher notes: Toilet Facilities
There are 2618 toilets at Wembley and 147 accessible ones.
It’s likely that there are 147 sets of toilets, with one accessible toilet
alongside each. This would mean about 20 toilets in each set of toilets
– split between males and females. (Less dense areas with executive
boxes etc. are likely to have far fewer in each set).
Teacher notes: Entrance Queues
Gates tend to open 2 hours before an event at Wembley and 4 hours
before an event at Twickenham.
Walking up to a turnstile, inserting a ticket and walking through takes a
minimum of 4 seconds - could test this in the classroom.
If everyone was queued up, alert and ready to go, the calculation for
the absolute minimum number of turnstiles would be:
Number of attendees ÷ (Time available (secs) ÷ no. of secs per person
at the turnstile)
At Wembley: 90 000 ÷ (2 x 60 x 60 ÷ 4) = 50
At Twickenham: 82 000 ÷ (4 x 60 x 60 ÷ 4) = 23 (22.77 rounded)
Teacher notes: Entrance Queues
In reality, also consider:
Is everyone ‘ready’ to go through the turnstile? – is 4 seconds a
reasonable average?
• probably higher than this
Does everyone turn up to the turnstile in a regular intervals?
• No, it’s likely that there will be something akin to a ‘normal
distribution’ of arrivals. People don’t tend to arrive very early or very
late. Those arriving at 1 minute to Kick Off, for example, wouldn’t
have time to get to their seats.
Teacher notes: Entrance queues
This photo from
TripAdvisor shows that
there are 10 turnstiles at
Wembley entrance D.
There are 14 such
entrances, plus 4 special
ones for Club members.
This suggests that there
are at least 140 turnstiles
plus the special ones
… in fact there are 168.
Wembley Facts and figures
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
2,618 toilets (147 accessible ones)
47 retail units
164 turnstiles
26 lifts
30 escalators
34 bars
8 restaurants
688 food and drink service points
98 kitchens
The seats are spread over three tiers: lower 34,303, middle 16,532
and upper 39,165
http://www.wembleystadium.com/Press/Presspack/Stats-and-Facts
Acknowledgements
http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/LocationPhotoDirectLinkg186338-d1574807-i42050148-Wembley_StadiumLondon_England.html#42050132
http://www.wembleystadium.com/Press/Presspack/Statsand-Facts
http://odi.dwp.gov.uk/disability-statistics-andresearch/disability-facts-and-figures.php#gd
All accessed 7/5/14.