The crowd goes wild

Covid-19 has changed crowd behaviour, international experts say. How are New Zealand experts keeping people safe at large events? Vicki Anderson reports.

In a crowd, are you excitable or argumentative and pogo-ing like a pinball? If the thought of a large crowd in a Covid-19 world fills you with dread, you’re not alone.

An internationally acclaimed expert in crowd science and safety, Professor Keith Still, from the University of Suffolk in Britain, says crowd behaviour has ‘‘fundamentally changed’’ because of Covid-19 and the subsequent restrictions to limit its spread.

‘‘We are seeing three distinct crowd types now,’’ says Still, who for more than four decases has advised on high-profile events from those held at Buckingham Palace to the Olympic Games.

‘‘They are the Covid cautious – people who are just avoiding places and events entirely. The second type is the celebratory – the exhuberant ‘Yay, restrictions are lifted, let’s have the mother of all parties’ type. Finally, we have the contentious crowds – ‘You’re not going to take my temperature, I’m not going to wear a goddamn mask and you’re not going to vaccinate me’.’’

Still says large-scale events will now tend to attract the ‘‘celebratory and contentious types’’ and event organisers should adapt their event management plans accordingly.

‘‘Organisers should be aware that these are the types coming out and you need to deal with the contentious crowd in a different way. There are legitimate concerns and fears. You need to consider that the exuberant, celebratory crowd might be more enthusiastic than normal. It’s a question of being aware of it and adapting to the different styles.’’

Anyone staging events needs to be aware that the behaviour of their audience has fundamentally changed, he says. ‘‘Without that, when the environment changes out of your experience, you can get caught in some of the issues that could result in injury.

‘‘There is more to crowd control than just putting some barriers up. It requires a lot of careful consideration – matching the performer to the venue, matching the containment area to the crowd.’’

On November 5, 10 people including a young child were killed and hundreds injured in the chaos and crowd-crush at Astroworld music festival headlined by Travis Scott at NRG Park in Houston, Texas.

One of nearly 50,000 festival attendees, Seanna Faith McCarty, 22, described the harrowing experience of being caught in the crowd in a detailed account on

Instagram which has since been viewed more than one million times.

It is published in part here with McCarty’s permission:

‘‘You were at the mercy of the wave,’’ she wrote of her experience. ‘‘Within the first 30 seconds of the first song, people began to drown – in other people. There were so many people . . . The rush of people became tighter and tighter. Breathing became something only a few were capable of. The rest were crushed or unable to breathe in the thick, hot air.’’

When she and her friend tried to get out, they could not and became separated.

‘‘There was nowhere to go. The shoving got harder and harder. If someone’s arm had been up, it was no longer a possibility to put it down . . . It became more and more violent. More people began to scream for help, some began to collapse,’’ she wrote.

‘‘Once one fell, a hole opened in the ground. Person after person [was] sucked down . . . There was a floor of bodies.’’

McCarty was praised for her subsequent actions of climbing a tower to alert authorities and medics to the dire situation, with her efforts having been captured on video.

In the wake of the tragedy, Public Enemy’s Chuck D released an open letter defending Scott and accusing promoter Live Nation of shirking ‘‘their most crucial responsibilty’’.

‘‘Travis Scott is a performer, not a concert promoter. He doesn’t build stages or co-ordinate logistics, he’s not an

expert in crowd control or security or emergency medical services. But he does trust Live Nation and all the other concert promoters who are supposed to do all of this,’’ Chuck D said in a statement.

‘‘This negligence can’t continue. Folks want answers. I’m not buying the Young Black Man did it. He’s being blamed for a crime while the old white men running the corps . . . stay quiet in the shadows, counting their money and watching their stock prices go up and up.’’

On Thursday, Live Nation announced the postponement of its premier New Zealand festival Rhythm and Vines, citing the Government’s Covid-19 protection framework settings being at red for the Gisborne region.

A petition launched by concerned local iwi collected several thousand signatures calling for the festival to be cancelled over Covid-19 concerns.

Rhythm and Vines Easter has been rescheduled to be held over four nights next April.

Still says he didn’t yet have any specifics of the Astroworld disaster, but it appeared it may have been a ‘‘mismatch between the crowd and what was required for crowd safety’’.

‘‘Something was fundamentally wrong with the system and I’m sure the inquiry will get to the bottom of it; hopefully the industry will take notice and take these things into account,’’ he says.

Such tragedies have occured for decades – from a 1979 concert in Ohio by The Who where 11 people died in the rush for entry, to nearly 100 deaths from asphyxiation at the Hillsborough soccer stadium in Britain in 1989.

‘Crowd quakes

A phenomenon known as a ‘‘crowd quake’’ occurs spontaneously when human density reaches the critical threshold of six people per square metre. Physical contact at this level of crowding means even the slightest movement can cause a surge of ‘‘turbulence’’ that causes people to fall and creates physical pressure.

After a long time of being isolated because of the pandemic, people are eager for freedom and a return to events – but some say the risks are greater now because of it. In short, we’re all a bit rusty at dealing with large crowds, but we’re also eager to socialise.

It is well documented that people change when they are part of a large crowd. The force of a crowd surge can be great enough to ‘‘bend steel’’, says Still.

Crowd density is an important factor, but so are crowd surges, which can occur because of the weather, a perceived threat or even simply the arrival of a performer on stage.

‘‘There is more to crowd control than just putting some barriers up.’’

NZ part of Global Safety Alliance

With little fanfare and after more than a year in the planning, the Global Crowd Management Alliance (GCMA) launched on Wednesday as part of the Event Safety Summit in the United States.

A non-profit organisation, the GCMA aims to promote reasonable crowd management and crowd safety