Dissertation #1. The Root Cause of Crowd Disasters

Crowd disasters occur when people are given insufficient information and space (Sime, 1999). It is rarely the case that only one factor causes a disaster (Helbing and Mukerji, 2012). In particular, increase or decrease in density is the difference between crowds moving from a ‘jamming’ to a ‘non-jamming’ state, accumulating over time resulting in a sudden shift of crowd dynamic state (Smith, 1995; Zheng et al, 2010). Research suggests that when density increases above 5 people per metre squared (ppm²) threshold, members of the crowd lose individual movement and behave as one entity (Fruin, 1993; Helbing and Mukerji, 2012). When density reaches this critical level, physical movement is almost impossible (Alkhadim et al, 2018) causing “crowd turbulence” (Helbing et al, 2007). The high pressures that develop within the crowd are powerful enough to bend steel barriers and push down brick walls (Lee et al, 2006). People are unable to control their bodies due to pressure, as each breath is exhaled and pressure prevents inhalation causing slow death by asphyxiation.

Historic Crowd Disasters

The UK in particular has experienced notable crowd disasters, mostly related to football stadia (Melrose et al, 2011). The table below outlines the key crowd disasters in recent history that have impacted legislation relating to crowd safety, noting that there have been no stadium disasters since 1989.

In contrast, the following table outlines notable reported crowd incidents in outdoor events. Note how incidents are still continuing to today and that there have been no public report or inquiry into any of the incidents.

Identifying Trends

Crowd scientists have compiled disaster databases over the last century in order to understand causality (Still, 2020; Asgary, 2018). I also compiled a database of crowd disasters spanning from 1988 to 2018 as summarised in the table below. Entertainment events, including music shows, festivals and cultural events account for 44% more incidents compared to sport events. This illustrates that potentially double the amount of crowd incidents happen in outdoor events than in stadia, yet in the UK there is specific legislation surrounding the safety of spectators in sports stadia but none for outdoor events. Furthermore, academic research in events tends to focus on economic and financial impact (Carlsen et al, 2010; Backman, 2018) rather than safety.

Predictable, Preventable

Identifying the cause of crowd disasters is crucial in understanding if a disaster was foreseeable and therefore preventable (Helbing et al, 2007; Still et al, 2020). In court, causality is often a key topic of debate when determining duty of care to an event organiser or venue owner, and breach of care to an injured plaintiff (Pearl, 2015). Possible issues could arise long before the event that directly or indirectly impacts the likelihood of the disaster occuring. Turner (1978) discusses an “incubation period” whereby a chain of events develop and accumulate unnoticed, possibly long before a disaster happens.

Global situations outside of an event organiser's control, such as the Coronavirus Pandemic, will have an impact on the safety of local events, and we are seeing the affect of it in the security and stewarding staffing and skills shortage crisis. This indirect issue has a direct impact on the safety of our events. Not only are we challenged by shortage of staff and their experience in dealing with crowd safety, but we are also faced with what appears to be an increase in deviant behaviour (Astroworld, France's Ligue 1, London O2, Wembley), which brings its own set of challenges to consider.

Identifying the reasons why disasters happen helps to understand if the disaster was foreseeable. The HSE (2004) classes causality into the following categories:

• Immediate (proximate) causes: the agent of damage, injury or ill health (e.g., stadium stand collapses)
• Underlying (distal) causes: unsafe acts and unsafe conditions (e.g. untested stadium design for safe crowd movement)
• Root (distal) causes: the failure from which all failures grow (e.g. lack of management safety culture, prioritising finance over safety etc.)

Identifying proximate and distal causes helps to understand the sequence of actions or inactions that allowed the situation to develop and a disaster to occur (Still, 2000). As discussed in the last article, historically the crowd were blamed as the cause of the disaster, owing to “panic” (Drury and Stott, 2011). However when facts are analysed, the proximate cause of the disaster is usually owed to errors in space design and management (Fruin, 1993; Still et al, 2020). Proximate cause is then usually the subject of inquiry (Elliott and McGuinness, 2002), not the underlying distal cause "failure from which all failures grow".

The Proximate Cause

When designing event sites, the capacity of the space must be so that it can safely accommodate our crowds (and staff); allowing them to enter safely, move around the space safely and exit safely, in good time and with no restriction in the event of an emergency. As previously discussed, density over 5 ppm² changes the dynamic of the crowd to start moving as one entity, and so as planners we are looking to consider the validity of our site long before we welcome crowds into it. Indoor spaces are governed by building regulations with strict capacity calculating guidelines, but outdoor spaces do not have the same regulations.

The proximate cause can be associated to the critical point in a crowd whereby a catastrophic ‘jump’ occurs that instantly changes the crowd dynamic, resulting in a crowd disturbance. Models such as the Cusp Catastrophe Model offer a three dimensional visual representation on how a situation develops, reaches a critical point in which going past that point creates a sudden, irreversible change.

In particular, increase or decrease in density is the difference between crowds moving from a ‘jamming’ to a ‘non-jamming’ state (Zheng et al, 2010) (Smith, 1995). In this state, the density is so that physical movement is almost impossible. The Hillsborough Disaster (Hillsborough Independent Panel, 2012) is an example of how an increase in density can cause catastrophic failure of crowd dynamics. Spectators had already filled central pens in the west stand and with high fences to prevent pitch invasions, there was no way out except via the entrance. A crowd built up at the Leppings Lane entrance and to relieve the pressure, management opened the gates, letting the crowd flow in. This crowd moved forward into the same central pens, which were already full. This action increased density, causing a crowd crush. Spectators could not escape forward onto the pitch because of the high fencing.

Another example is the crowd disaster at Love Parade, Duisburg in 2010 where overcrowding occurred on the only shared ingress and egress ramp into the site. The study into the disaster by Helbing and Mukerji (2012) identified as a result of the design of the space and lack of action by management on warning signs of a crowd disaster, density increased above a critical point and a crowd crush occurred.

These disasters are examples that when density increases above 5 ppm² the crowd begin to behave like a fluid mass (Fruin, 2002; Lee and Hughes, 2005; Pearl, 2015). This shift in crowd behaviour from individual independent movements to moving as one mass can be described as a catastrophic shift from one state to another on the cusp-catastrophe model. If density is regulated, then risk to the crowd is regulated (Still, 2014). However, if we consider the actions/inactions that took place long before the disaster occured, we may be able to erradicate the errors that over time accumulated to the catastrophic moment.

The Distal/Root Cause

Turner (1994) identified man-made disasters as “socio-technical” events; whereby in order for a system to work successfully, both the social and technical elements need to be focused on and optimised (Cherns, 1987). Using this model, Turner (1994) recognised the majority of disasters are caused by social, managerial or administrative errors. Challenger and Clegg (2011) identified through the Socio-Technical Model that there needs to be a number of failings for a disaster to occur. This model includes; goals, people, buildings/infrastructure, technology, culture and processes/procedures. They identified the distal cause of the Hillsborough Disaster to be connected to social, managerial or administrative errors (Challenger and Clegg, 2011) which was similarly highlighted by Lea et al (1998). Broadening disaster research outside of the scope of crowds, the distal cause appears to remain the same. For example, the cause of the Stardust Fire in Dublin 1981 was a failure of management to "adhere to legislation, regulation and guidelines" (Keane, 1982); the cause of the Piper Alpha Disaster in 1988 that killed 165 people, was attributed to “an accumulation of management errors” (Paté-Cornell, 1992); the cause of the Chernobyl disaster was deemed to be due to “poor safety culture” within the organisation (Pidgeon, 1997); and the cause of the Aberfan Disaster in 1966 was lack of action taken by those in responsible positions with knowledge of relevant factors (Couto, 1989).

Disaster and The Law

Understanding the causes of disasters helps us to learn how to prevent them so they hopefully never occur again. Investigating the history of crowd disasters highlights the parallel timeline of legislation and regulation change. With every disaster, there is often a corresponding change to legislation and regulation. The next chapter will delve into the evolution of legislation and regulation in the UK relating to crowd disasters and the impacrt it has on crowd safety.

References

See here for the full list of dissertation references.

Dissertation #2. Legislation, Regulation and Crowd Safety

Throughout my career I have been fortunate to experience event planning and approval on both sides of the Safety Advisory Group (SAG): presenting event plans and assessing event plans - in sports grounds and outdoor events. Legislation differs greatly whether or not an event is inside a venue or out on the street, a stadium or a public park.

When it comes to crowd safety, I noticed inconsisteny in the level of competency between event organisers and SAGs throughout the UK on both sports grounds and outdoor events, which concerned me. Furthermore, when it came to outdoor events (or events outside of sports grounds), there was no legislative instrument designed with the safety of crowd in mind. My concern regarding this inconsistency became the focus of my MSc dissertation, and I wanted to understand the relationship between legislation and regulation on crowd safety, how it impacts the planning and delivery of crowd safety practices and if improvements can be made.

As the frequency of events has increased in the last number of decades (Mussaid et al, 2011) and legislation tightens after each disaster (Elliott and Smith, 1993), the role of crowd safety has increased in importance (Darby et al, 2004). As Crowd Science considers the study of crowd dynamics, density and behaviour (Still, 2000; Raineri, 2016); the need for a specialised approach to develop safety measures for crowds resulted in the crowd safety management approach developing today (Still et al, 2020).

Evolution of the events industry

As the events industry grows in popularity, so does attendance (Abbott and Geddie, 2000). Outdoor events are becoming increasingly common, ranging in size, type and duration (Raineri, 2013). Legislation that governs the safety of crowds has developed significantly in sports grounds but not in outdoor events (Raineri, 2013; Martella et al, 2017). For example, there is currently no legal requirement for an organiser to hold a qualification in order to plan an event for thousands of people to attend. Research shows that, although the proximate cause of a crowd disaster is usually due to overcrowding (Haase et al, 2019), the distal cause of disasters is almost always due to a level of management incompetence or failing to value safety over money (Turner, 1994). Evidence shows that legislation and regulation improve safety (Melrose et al, 2011), however they are normally introduced in reaction to the proximate cause of the disaster, rather than a holistic response to the safety requirements of the subject matter (Smith, 1991; Elliott and Smith, 1993; Johnes, 2007; Tasic, 2019).

Sports stadia disasters in the United Kingdom have been some of the worst crowd incidents to occur in the last century, and most studied; however since the Hillsborough Disaster in 1989 and the subsequent introduction of the Sports Ground Safety Authority (formally Football Licensing Authority), there have been no reported stadia crowd disasters since.

Evolution of legislation

When a crisis occurs, it takes three streams that allow for change; policy, problem and politics (Kodate, 2011). Elliott and Smith (2006) state that politics get involved when the significance of a crisis attracts attention, which leads to examination of causes and effects with the view to learn lessons. Often however, the resulting legislation is designed in reaction to the crisis and fails to examine the system as a whole (Smith, 1990; Elliott and Smith, 2006; Johnes, 2007; Melrose et al, 2011). For example, had the Safety of Sports Ground Act applied to the Third Division when Bradford Stadium Fire occurred, killing 56 people, the fire hazard in the stands would have prevented the stadium from securing a licence (Johnes, 2007).

In the wake of the disaster, the Safety of Sports Ground Act was applied to all football grounds and the Fire Safety and Safety of Places of Sport Act was passed, with it a host of fire prevention requirements. Since then there have been no fire related stadium disasters. Furthermore, after the Hillsborough Disaster, the Football Spectators Act 1989 introduced legislation for all seater stadiums but did not anticipate the Persistent Standing phenomenon that followed (Melrose et al, 2011). Legislation change in response to disaster is also evident in the development of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, as it was created in response to the Aberfan colliery spoil tip disaster, Wales in 1966.

Politics are intrinsically linked to policy change after a 'focusing event' (Birkland, 1998; Herring, 2009). Political pressure builds which in turn creates or changes policy and the law (Kodate, 2011). According to Birkland (2009), policy change depends on increased media attention, group mobilisation, discussion of ideas and new policies adapted. Policy in the UK changed after 'focusing event' disasters including Ibrox, Hillsborough, Bradford City Fire, and the Manchester Arena Attack. Protect Duty (Martyn’s Law), proposed after the Manchester Arena attack in 2017, gained media traction, was taken forward by government and now in progress to come into law; evidences a “focusing event” and how legislation can be updated due to reactions to disasters (Skopeliti, 2020). Pearl (2016) also argues that legislation is the most appropriate response to reducing crowd incidents.

Regulatory Decision Making

To understand why legislation is updated or developed in reaction to specific disaster rather than considering the system as a whole, the role of decision making was considered. According to Rozenblit and Keil (2002) the Illusion Of Explanatory Depth (IOED) explains a person’s overconfidence in believing they fully understand a phenomenon, yet in reality are unable to fully explain the entire set of links in a causal chain. Tasic (2009) further explains that this may lead regulators to believe they are aware of the relevant causes and consequences, grasping the first link in a causal chain and giving it special status without knowing full details of the chain (Ahn et al, 2000). However, Elliott and McGuinness (2002) argue that the limited terms of reference in public inquiry often focus on operational, proximate cause, issues. This narrative correlates with strategies in learning from disaster where ‘single-loop learning’ involves self-evaluation on an operational level (Argyris and Schön, 1996) and ‘double-loop learning’ goes deeper and involves fundamental learning at a policy and institutional level (Birkland, 2009). The error is seeing the cause-and-consequence activity (proximate cause of the disaster), conclude an immediate level of explanation (single-loop learning) and believe there is no more to consider (Tasic, 2009).

Enforced v Self Regulation

According to Lindoe et al (2011), enforced regulation and a capacity for regulators to implement sanctions, makes a substantial impact on the reduction of incidents and accidents. This can be seen in reality, as since the introduction of the SGSA (formally Football Licensing Authority) in 1989, there have been no notable crowd disasters in stadia in England and Wales. However, recently in Scotland, where the SSGA75 applies but the SGSA do not have authority, an independent review of football policing conducted in 2019 highlighted that there is “currently a gap above SAGs for a body that mandates and inspects to a set, consistent safety regime while also acting as a vehicle to support practitioners and promulgate good practice and emerging issues” (Roberts, 2019:13). The report added that this lack of oversight poses a significant risk to the safety of spectators.

In contrast to stadia, as there is no specific legislation for outdoor events, there is no framework for the regulation of crowd safety. The Moelwyn-Hughes inquiry after the Bolton Stadium disaster (Moelwyn-Hughes, 1946:12) stated ‘safety measures cannot be secured without legislation’. However, after this disaster, a self-regulating licence system was introduced, which proved to be unsuccessful. Records show 17 serious incidents occurred, including four at Ibrox Stadium Glasgow, of which the fourth triggered the Wheatley inquiry (Elliott and Smith, 2006; Ball-King et al, 2012). The Wheatley inquiry into the Ibrox Stadium Disaster (1971) called for legislation (SSGA75) and the introduction of a regulatory body (SGSA). Furthermore, the lack of governance by the football authorities in upholding minimal standards and history of allowing self-regulation was also part to blame for the Hillsborough Disaster (Fitzpatrick, 2014). Self-regulation may have worked in industries where companies are expert in their field but for football, it represented misplaced trust, where clubs were not experts in crowd management nor did they hire experts to support them (Johnes, 2007).

Safety Culture

Pidgeon (1997) highlights that lack of ‘safety culture’; where an organisation of people adopt a set of beliefs and update and maintain these beliefs about safety (Olive et al, 2006), is imperative to the cause of disaster; regardless of regulation in place. Olive et al (2006) claim that cultivating a positive safety culture at the managerial level is more likely to minimise accidents than at other levels. Upon the investigation into the Piper Alpha tragedy, it was noted by Cullen (1990) that no amount of regulation could have made up for failings in the safety management of the operators. However, the recommendations point towards the requirement for safety management systems and a positive attitude towards safety from the top down. In addition, to improve safety through regulation, research shows that by separating reporting structures into different regulatory bodies, increases compliance and improves organisational learning (Pidgeon and O’Leary, 2000; Le Coze, 2013), as detecting a disaster is not an issue, detecting near misses is the challenge (Le Coze, 2013).

Current UK Legislation

The introduction and amendment of legislation regarding sports events in the UK seems to correlate with a reduction in crowd disasters over the last three decades (Martella et al, 2017; Asgary, 2018; Still, 2019;). It is difficult to provide evidence of this as there is no enforced reporting of near misses and thankfully there have been no disasters where loss of life was entailed (Emergency Planning College, 2019). However, sometimes news reports surface of crowd issues at festivals, with most recently a crowd incident at We Are FSTVL festival in London (Braggs, 2019). The report suggested that the wristband technology system failed, leaving crowds waiting at the entrance gates in high summer temperatures, without welfare. People broke down barriers to gain entry which resulted in crowd turbulence, although no injuries were officially reported.

While a number of legislative instruments can be drawn upon to potentially incorporate crowd safety, the following selection is an example of legislation referenced when planning, licensing and delivering a crowd safety plan at an event.

Civil Contingencies Act 2004

Objectives relating to crowd safety include the duty to assess, plan and provide (Section 2) e.g. assess the risk of an emergency occurring (if a festival takes place in a small town, the risk of an emergency occurring increases)

Common Law

Objectives relating to crowd safety include: employers to provide safe place of work, safe plant and equipment and adequate training and supervision.

Construction, Design and Management 2015

In the UK, legislation impacts all stages of an event; from planning, licensing, build and delivery. Due to the scope and nature of events, the appropriate legislation will vary depending on size, location, and type of event. In the planning and build stages, many outdoor events are covered by the Construction Design and Management (CDM15) Regulations 2015, as they are technically construction sites. CDM intends on protecting the health and safety of those who work, or are affected by the work, on construction sites. This regulation does not apply as much when the event is live.

Health and Safety at Work Act 1974

The Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 (HSWA74) impacts the day to day management of an event site regarding employers and employees. Prompted by the Aberfan Disaster, the HSWA74 was intended as a new, non-prescriptive approach to health and safety which emphasised self-regulation (Humphreys, 2016). The HSWA74 intends to protect the health and safety of employers and employees at the workplace, which includes those who are affected by the work of the organisation. Section 3 of the HSWA74 regards the protection of health and safety of those who are not employees, which affects event attendees, however event attendees are not the focus of this law.

Occupier's Liability Act 1957

Objectives relating to crowd safety include: liability of occupiers and others for injury or damage resulting to persons or goods lawfully on any land or other property from dangers due to the state of the property or to things done or omitted to be done there.

Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005

Objectives relating to crowd safety include the prevention of fires and mitigating the effects of fires.

RIDDOR 2013

The Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013 (RIDDOR13) covers the mandatory reporting of injuries to workers on site. It does not, however, cover event attendees. The reason it is mentioned is that one condition affects attendees: if they were to sustain an injury that resulted in them being taken directly to hospital (RIDDOR 2013). Therefore, if there were near misses or incidents that resulted in injury to the crowd, such as the We Are FSTVL incident, but no one was taken directly to hospital, then the incident is not reportable under the RIDDOR regulations. Furthermore, in large festivals such as Glastonbury Festival, there are temporary hospitals built on site, to treat attendees directly, so they are not taken directly to a hospital (Glastonbury, 2020)

The two major and mostly commonly referred to legislation instruments that can be directly related to crowd safety at an event are the Licensing Act 2003 (LA03) for indoor and outdoor events and the Safety of Sports Grounds Act 1975 (SSGA75) for sports grounds and stadia.

Safety of Sports Ground Act 1975

In 1971, the crowd disaster at Ibrox Stadium, Glasgow; where 66 people died following crowd turbulence on stairway 13 on egress of a football match, sparked a debate regarding the need for licensing stadia managed by local authorities. The licensing of sports grounds became one of the recommendations from the subsequent Wheatley Report into the causes of the disaster (Wheatley, 1972) and thus the Safety of Sports Ground Act (SSGA75) was introduced in 1975. Only six months before the Ibrox Disaster, a licensing system was ruled out by Scottish government as they believed such a system would not help to prevent the consequences for ‘loss of control’ or ‘panic’ (Walker, 2007). This legislation was designed specifically to protect spectators (Smail, 2011). The Sports Ground Safety Authority (formally Football Licensing Authority) was established under the Football Spectators Act 1989 (SGSAa, 2022) to regulate spectator viewing accommodation in football league grounds. Under the SSGA75, the SGSA also oversee how local authorities discharge their functions in licensing sports grounds (SGSAb, 2022) . The impact of this framework is evident as there have been seven recorded crowd disasters in stadiums since 1940 to 1990 and none since then (Still, 2020).

Today, alongside the SGSA, there is official guidance called the Guide to Safety of Sports Grounds (the Green Guide), on its 6th edition, published in 2018 (SGSA, 2018). Although developed for UK sports grounds only, this guidance is highly regarded in the events indudstry and being used internationally, including the Working Party producing EU standards for stadia (Thorburn, 2018). Furthermore, Safety Officers in charge of spectator safety on match day need to either hold or be working towards an NVQ Level 4 in Spectator Safety Management to carry out their role.

Licensing Act 2003

After the Licensing Act 2003 (LA03) came into power in 2005, the majority of research has been conducted on the impact of licensing on night time culture, crime and disorder, alcohol consumption and pressure on the health system (DCMS, 2003; Talbot, 2006; Newton et al, 2007; Hadfield et al, 2009; Herring et al, 2009; Foster et al, 2009; Newton and Hirschfield, 2009; Nicholls, 2015). As this act is one of the main pieces of legislation impacting event approval in the UK, there has been little academic research conducted on the impact on crowd safety at events. Conversely, articles and guidance produced for events discuss the impact of the LA03 on events (White, 2010; EPC, 2019). The LA03 was “intended as a single integrated scheme for licensing premises” yet it does not account for the provision of outdoor events and festivals (Robertson and Eldridge, 2007).

Crowd safety within the LA03 is incidental to the licensing objectives within it. There are a total of eight references to “public safety” in the LA03. In the DCMS report on the impact of the LA03 (DCMS, 2008), the word "crowd" does not appear nor is there focus on the conregation of crowds, management of crowds, crowd density, flow or risk management. As discussed, the principal aim of the LA03 was to standardise the approach, however research shows this has not been the case (Laing, 2016), especially when it comes to crowd safety (White, 2009).

For events where attendance is larger than 500 persons, a Premises Licence is required. In order for this to be issued, a Designated Premises Supervisor is named on the licence and responsible for this licence. This person must hold a Personal Licence which is a qualification issued by their local authority (Licensing Act 2003:6). As I hold this licence, I experieced that the training and testing of this qualification surrounds the sale, supply and effects of alcohol, focusing little on crowd safety.

For events under 500 persons, an event organiser can apply for a Temporary Events Notice (TEN). This is usually processed without challenge through the council’s licensing team and residents are unable to object to it. Evidence shows that event organisers sometimes subvert the licensing process by amending details in order for their event to comply with a TEN and avoid the scrutiny associated with a Premises Licence application; circumnavigating licensing and planning restrictions (Robertson and Eldridge, 2007; Select Committee on the Licensing Act 2003, 2017a; Select Committee on the Licensing Act 2003, 2017b). There is no guidance available to applicants or local authority on best practice for event applications.

The Purple Guide is the guide to health, safety and welfare at music and similar events and is managed by industry and not a government body. The document is now online only, unavailable in print, and a subscription is required in order to access it (Event Industry Forum, 2020). What the industry is experiencing is that event organisers are turning to the Green Guide for guidance for events that do not take place in sports grounds (Buckinghamshire New University, 2010).

In Summary

Legislation and regulation appear to develop and change in reaction to disasters, and evolve only when a disaster becomes a 'focusing event' (attracting enough political, public and media attention to make a change), often failing to consider the system as a whole. While the introduction of crowd safety specific legislation regulation on UK sports grounds have improved safety, there is currently no law that governs crowd safety at events outside of sports grounds, and therefore no requirement for anyone responsible for crowd safety to hold relevant licences or qualifications.

If academic literature suggests that the distal cause of almost all disasters is due to the lack of relevant competency within management, safety culture, and the pressure to value money over safety, then does consideration need to be given to the development of crowd safety specific legislation governing these events?

Competency and Crowd Safety

This article considered the current legislative environment, how it evolved relating to crowd safety and how it impacts and influences crowd safety practices. The next article will consider how the legislative instruments are operated, using secondary and primary research to understand the impact of event organiser and SAG competency relating to crowd safety.

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If this article was helpful and you wish to learn more about improving ingress, egress or zone ex at your event or venue, please send me an email.

References

See here for the full list of dissertation references.

Dissertation #3. The impact of legislation on competency

While researching crowd safety and the impact of legislation on crowd safety, one of the key themes that warranted exploring was competency, as legislation and regulation are designed, amended, introduced and managed by human beings. For the purpose of this article, competency is framed as follows: that a person within a role has been given the appropriate training and qualifications, possessing the skills and experience in order to carry out their role effectively.

The key agents within the industry I believe impact crowd safety the most within planning, licensing and delivering of events are those who attend Safety Advisory Groups or licensing meetings. For the purpose of this dissertation, I called them Presenters and Assessors and defined them as;

• Assessors: those who are responsible for assessing, guiding or approving event plans are often members of a Safety Advisory Group (SAG) or local authority.
• Presenters: those who organise events, consult on events and ultimately present the event plan for assessment or approval.

In academia, competency is widely defined within in the rationalistic approach, as an attribute based phenomenon constituted by specific sets of attributes such as knowledge, skills and experience in order to carry out a task effectively (Yang, 1984; Spencer and Spencer, 1993; Sandberg, 2000; Chang et al, 2012). The need for competence can be defined as an individual’s desire to feel effective in engaging with their environment (Deci and Ryan, 2000), and is discussed within the realm of workplace job analysis, dominated by three main approaches; worker-orientated (skills attributed to the worker), work-orientated (role specific activities transformed into personal attributes), and the multi method-orientated (combination of both approaches). This attribute focused approach appears to be adopted by the Health & Safety Executive in the UK as their definition of competence is as follows;

"combination of training, skills, experience and knowledge that a person has and their ability to apply them to perform a task safely" (HSE, 2020).

The competency of Assessors and Presenters is considered a theme in this study as they perform key decision making roles regarding legislation and event approval. If these professionals hold a high degree of skill and experience, they can offer complex technical guidance on critical decision making as they are able to make decisions despite incomplete, incorrect or contradictory information (Klein et al, 2017:67). As events can often be one-off, unique and highly impactful on an environment and people, I believe being able to make effective decisions despite incomplete information contributes to competency.

Competency of Assessors

The development of SAGs stemmed from the SSGA75 upon the recommendation from the Taylor report into the Hillsborough Stadium Disaster (Taylor, 1990). Under the SSGA75, the Local Authority is charged with issuing the safety certificate, where the SAG exists to advise. This structure has been extended to events that do not fall under the SSGA, such as outdoor events and festivals. Assessors include those who either chair a SAG or assume a role that critically analyses and advises on an event plan within the SAG.

Studies reveal that there is inconsistency in the competency of local authorities and Safety Advisory Groups (Elliott and Smith, 2006; Upton, 2007; White, 2009). There is currently no requirement for SAG personnel (Assessors) to hold any expertise in crowd and event safety, with the risk being that they may not possess the necessary skills to effectively challenge, advise or assess event plans. Further more, those who are tasked with assessing event plans and issuing licences do not show a consistent level of expertise in the area to be able to do so (Elliott and Smith, 2006). Indeed, guidance exists, however Upton (2007) noted that guidance can be interpreted differently by local authority personnel, and inexperienced persons can treat guidance as rigid rules compared to experienced persons who may be more likely to utilise it as the support tool it was designed to be.

When the LA03 came into power, this brought a significant shift in powers from courts to local authorities (LA). Some issues that arose with this devolution in power included the lack of training or experience by councillors responsible for setting budgets and licensing teams delivering. There was concern for those in powerful decision-making roles who did not have the knowledge nor understanding to effectively make decisions (Herring, 2009). Furthermore, White (2009) claims that local authorities who organise large events themselves may be better placed to assess event plans and deal with related issues. This partly may be due to learning by proximate experience in context; a concept that forms part of Klein's (1999) Recognition Primed Decision Model, which identified that people can learn from other’s experience in order to improve their own decision making.

Competency of Presenters

As previously discussed, "management failures" account for a high number of disasters and failures in safety culture (Le Coze, 2013), and although safety culture starts at the root of an ogranisation, it is important to pay attention to the competency of event organisers and consultants as they make operational decisions regarding crowd safety. In the UK at present, there is no legal requirement for an event manager or crowd manager to hold a qualification in order to organise an event (Fillingeri et al, 2018). Recently however, guidance has been updated to reflect the need for qualification. An example below is Section 13 Crowd Management of the Purple Guide in both 2020 and 2022 (Event Industry Forum, 2022):

(2020) “13.1 The preparation of a crowd management plan … should be prepared by a competent person appointed to direct or manage security and/or crowd management and/or safety. The appointed person should have relevant knowledge and experience to identify crowd specific hazards, and propose the use of suitable measures to reduce risk.”

(2022) 13.1 The preparation of a Crowd Management Plan is an essential part of the event management planning process. It should be prepared by a competent and qualified person who has the knowledge and experience necessary to identify crowd specific hazards and propose suitable measures to reduce risk. In some cases, specialists are appointed to direct and manage crowd safety, though this may not be suitable for all events

Although the document now states a person needs to be competent and qualified, there are no legal requirements for this to be enforced. Due to a lack of competency standards, many event organisers base design, information and management plans on previous experience, rather than training or education, which in part is due to the lack of standardised training and qualifications required to organise an event (Au et al, 1993; Fillingeri et al, 2018). A possible reason is that only in the last thirty years has the subject of 'Event Management' arisen as an independent entity within academia (Backman, 2018), and so formal university qualifications have only developed since then.

The introduction of the LA03 created a mandatory requirement for proof of competency through professional qualification, compared to the previous approach of authorities’ own judgement that a person’s competence is ‘fit for purpose’ (Talbot, 2006). However, this qualification is only required when there is sale or supply of alcohol at an event and is not required for the safe management of possibly thousands of people.

Survey of Assessors and Presenters

The impact of legislation, or lack thereof, has allowed for the professional development of Presenters and Assessors which may be out of balance of what academia and industry are stating as appropriate levels of competency required to ensure crowd safety.

Although academia presents a perspective of how the current environment is regarding competency of Assessors and Presenters, it was important to learn their own perceptions of competency, legislation, crowd safety as it is today and the future of crowd safety. The next chapter discusses the findings of a survey of 108 professionals who work in crowd and event safety from both the organising and licensing perspective. (Please note this survey was conducted in 2020 and as we know, there have been significant shifts in the industry since then)

References

See here for the full list of dissertation references.

Dissertation #4. The perceptions of licensing authorities and event safety professionals on crowd safety and legislation at outdoor events.

This chapter, slightly deviating from the structure of other articles, discusses the analysis of data obtained from the survey, relating to the fourth research objective:

"To analyse the perceptions of licensing authorities and event safety professionals in relation to legislation on crowd safety at outdoor events."

The data was analysed using SPSS and presented as descriptive as well as inferential statistics to understand if there are any connections to the themes that arose in the literature review and subsequently outlined in the methodology chapter. The themes include:

• Competency
• Legislation
• Crowd safety today (current measures)
• Improving crowd safety (future measures)

The survey questions were designed to discover information relating to the four themes above. This chapter discusses the profile of respondents, categorises them into two groups and presents the data connected to each key theme.

Profile of Respondents

A total of 108 participants took part in the survey with the option of remaining anonymous. Less than a quarter of respondents are female and almost three quarters of respondents are male as shown in Table4‑1below. From the author’s experience of the approval process, this gender imbalance is present when working in consultancy, with local authorities and at Safety Advisory Group meetings.

The highest percentage of age range of respondents is 35-44 years. The mean age of respondents is 46 years, with the full age ranges listed in Table 4‑2 below. Over half of respondents are over 45 years of age.

The mean years of experience of respondents is 16 years, with years’ experience grouped in Table 4‑3 below. What is notable is that of all respondents, 60% have over 10 years of experience in their field.

When considering the event licensing and approval process, respondents fall into two categories of roles in the process: ‘Assessors’; who assess, challenge and approve an event plan; and ‘Presenters’; who prepare and present the plan to be approved or challenged. There were more Presenters who completed this survey than Assessors as shown in Table 4‑4 below. The respondents were categorised as the following social actors:

• Assessors; which include local authorities and other authorities.
• Presenters; which include:
• Organisers (event organisers etc.)
• Consultants (crowd safety advisors/consultants)

Almost half of respondents were consultants (Presenters) with 35% of Assessors completing the survey (see Table 4‑4). There was inequality in response rate. Upon reflection, it was challenging to secure more Assessor responses. Perhaps this was due to the COVID-19 pandemic where Presenters may have had more available time as events were cancelled and Assessors may have been occupied in the COVID-19 response due to mostly being associated with local authorities.

A Chi-Square Test (Appendix C) was conducted to identify the age range of those in each role. The results indicate that a high percentage of respondents who are 35-44 years old or 55+ years old are Consultants, and a high number of those ages 25-34 are Organisers. This is not surprising as the author assumes that consultancy arises from experience in organising events before change of career, and the Chi-Square test returned no significant difference.

The following table outlines the level of qualifications held by respondents. A considerable number of respondents hold a Level 6 and Level 7 RQF (Regulated Qualifications Framework) qualification, meaning they hold at least a bachelor’s degree or master’s degree or higher. Considering that formal education within the events sector has developed within the last three decades (Backman, 2018), this response level was higher than expected by the author.

To understand if age of respondents impacted level of qualifications, the following chart (Figure 2) outlines age range versus education level. Throughout all age ranges, most respondents hold either a Level 6 or Level 7 more than a Level 5 or under, therefore level of education does not appear to be classified to any age range.

To understand any variances in role and gender, Table 4‑6 below identifies gender regarding role, identifying that half of male respondents are consultants and almost half of female respondents are organisers.

This was investigated further to understand any differences between age and gender. A Chi Square Test (Appendix D) was conducted and found a statistical difference (where p = 10.083, df = 4 and threshold = .05 returned a significance of .039.) This confirmed a relationship between gender and role within the events industry. It also matches the author’s experience of working in both local authority and event management; that the majority of consultants are males and majority of organisers are female.

Competency

The HSE (2020) definition on competency influenced the following range of questions, as having the appropriate ‘training, skills, experience and knowledge’ were used as key indicators. The questions thus reflected this definition to get an indication of their competency:

• Q4. How many years of experience do you have in your role? (Experience)
• Q5. What is the highest level qualification you hold? (Knowledge)
• Q6. Have you completed crowd safety specific training? If yes, what training? (Training/Skills)

The results of these questions holistically show that the majority of respondents have high competency indicators, as listed in Table 4‑7 below.

A key theme highlighted in the literature is that the root or distal cause of most crowd disasters are due to lack of safety culture (Turner, 1994; Challenger and Clegg, 2011; Lea et al, 1998). Furthermore, Fruin (1993) called for every venue or event with over 500 attendees to have a certified Crowd Safety Manager on board. What the results in Table 4‑8 indicate is the respondents of this survey are trained, qualified and experienced crowd safety professionals both as Presenters and Assessors. Considering there is currently no legal requirement for them to demonstrate competence in order to be hired to plan for crowd safety at outdoor events, or assume a role to scrutinise event safety plans, this appears to demonstrate self-regulation in developing competency.

When respondents were asked what crowd safety specific training they had completed, they indicated a range of qualifications, with the most common being Level 5 RQF. What is interesting about this result is that under the SSGA75, Level 4 RQF is the required qualification to be a stadium Safety Officer. Although there is legislation specific to stadia and not outdoor events, it appears that crowd safety practitioners, on average, hold a higher RQF qualification than is required to manage spectator safety at a sports ground.

To investigate further how qualification is affected by role, Table 4‑9 indicated that the highest percentage of roles that have undertaken crowd safety (or health and safety) specific training are Organisers. The results also indicate that all roles have almost equal crowd or health and safety training.

It was decided to understand the social actor role of respondents further. The reason for this was due to the nature of the roles of Assessors and Presenters, where one presents plans for approval/challenge/advice and the other role as that of scrutiny, can sometimes cause debate in beliefs and expectations.

Role

Due to the nature of the roles of Assessors and Presenters, where one advises/critiques the other's work, the results of the survey was split into responses of both parties, to understand any deviation in view. Table 4‑10 below outlines the difference in profile of respondents. When comparing the profile of respondents of both roles; on average it appears that Presenters have more years’ experience, higher level education and crowd specific training than Assessors.

Question 9 and 10 were designed to understand how the Assessor and Presenter roles perceive the crowd safety competency of each other. Question 9 asked respondents to state what percentage of Presenters they witness understand crowd safety as detailed in Table 4‑11 below.

Regarding Q9, almost half of respondents (43.5%) believe that 76% - 100% of Presenters demonstrate an understanding of crowd safety. Comparatively, the results of Q10 indicate that the majority of respondents agreed that ‘less than half’ of all Assessors have an understanding of crowd safety. This result resonates with Elliott and Smith (2006) and White (2009) that the competency level of SAGs are not at a level to adequately assess crowd safety plans.

Question 9 and 10 were divided into responses by Assessors and Presenters to understand if there are differences in how both social actor roles perceive each other. The results identified for Q10 that the majority of Presenters believe less than 25% of Assessors have an understanding of crowd safety. In addition, just under half of Assessor respondents agreed that less than half of Assessors have an understanding of crowd safety. The overall indication here still is that those who are in Safety Advisory Groups, local authorities or responsible for assessing crowd safety plans, as a whole, do not possess the competence required to effectively assess and challenge crowd safety plans (Elliott and Smith, 2006; Herring, 2009). This, in comparison with Presenters, who appear to posses higher overall competency, results in potentially unbalanced assessments of event plan.

When analysing Q9, the mean value response was 2.92 (where 3 = 76% -100%) indicating that respondents believe Presenters have a better understanding of crowd safety than Assessors. These results resonate with the evidence of recent guidance such as The Good Practice to Safety Advisory Groups written in 2019 (Emergency Planning College 2019) developed to improve consistency in competency and quality of SAGs.

Question 11 (Table 4‑12) asked all respondents to state what factors they believed influences the competency of a Safety Advisory Group i.e. those who work in Safety Advisory Groups, local authorities etc. who assess event plans. (where 1= Not Important and 5 = Extremely Important).

The highest mean response was Q11.5 “SAG members hold crowd safety qualifications” at a value of 4.63. The lowest mean ranked at Q11.4 “SAG has responsibility for licensing a sports ground”. All respondents chose a positive answer (3 = “moderately important” to 4 = “important”) leading to assume that all factors listed in Table 4‑12 influence the competency of SAG members. These results are similar to results of Q10, where respondents believe SAGs do not posses a required level of understanding of crowd safety, correlating with the results for Q11.5, where respondents agree SAG members holding crowd safety qualifications was the most important factor influencing competency.

After considering mean results for Question 11, it proved useful to understand the difference in response between Assessors and Presenters. An Independent T-Test (Appendix E) was conducted to understand in further detail the response choices and if there are any deviations from the overall results. The responses are listed in Table 4‑13 below.

Apart from Q11.4, it appears both social actor roles agree on factors influencing competency of a SAG member. The only variation in agreement is Q11.4, where SAG has responsibility for licensing a sports ground. Presenters feel this is important where Assessors feel this is less than important. Both sets of respondents agreed that Q11.2 “Size and scale of events” and Q11.3 “Experience of major events” are important factors influencing competency. This correlates with White’s (2009:16) report on local authorities and events claiming that “local authorities that regularly host large events are better placed to assess event plans and deal with associated issues”. The experience of assessing major event plans can improve a SAG’s ability to effectively assess event plans as learning by proximity in context and from other’s experiences’ impacts how people make decisions (Klein, 1999).

Current Crowd Safety

To ascertain current crowd safety measures, Question 7 asked respondents if they felt they knew their legal obligations when planning events and felt their local authority had adequate support and advice for them. The results are presented in Table 4‑16 below in rank order where 1 = Strongly Disagree and 5 = Strongly Agree.

The highest mean result was Q7.1 “It is easy to understand my legal duties regarding crowd safety” at a value of 3.94, (where 4 = Agree). The lowest mean result was Q7.4 “There is clear guidance for local authorities on how to assess crowd safety plans for outdoor events” at a mean value of 2.6 (where 2 = Disagree). Holistically, respondents feel they understand their legal duties around crowd safety for outdoor events. The lowest mean result correlates with responses to Q10 (What percentage of Assessors have an understanding of crowd safety) and Q11.2 (size and scale of events influence SAG competency) and Q11.3 (experience of major events influence SAG competency) and to the literature regarding competency of SAGs and local authorities in adequately assessing for crowd safety (White, 2009). Not only do respondents feel that Assessors on a whole do not possess the required level understanding of crowd safety, they also feel they are not well supported in how to adequately assess crowd safety plans.

Question 7 was investigated further to identify variances in the responses from both Assessors and Presenters, as presented in Table 4‑15. Q7.1 identified that Assessors “neither agree or disagree” that “it is easy to understand” their legal duties regarding crowd safety. Both groups disagreed that there is clear guidance for local authorities on how to assess crowd safety plans. Furthermore, both groups gave a negative answer for Q7.2 “there is adequate support and advice from the local authority”, where Presenters disagreed with the question and Assessors neither agreed nor disagreed. These results paint a picture regarding Assessor competency, where local authorities appear to be ill equipped to carry out a role that is not currently legally required of them, yet is expected of them.

An Independent T-Test (Appendix F), was conducted on Q7 to identify differences in responses, and returned a significant difference of 0.02 for Q7.2 where the threshold is 0.05. There was a significant difference in the results for “there is adequate support and advice from the local authority” for both Assessors and Presenters indicating that there is a relationship between the variables. The results indicate that Presenters are more likely to agree that they understand their legal duties regarding outdoor events, compared to Assessors who neither agree nor disagree. As discussed previously, Presenters have on average, higher competency indicators than Assessors, so these results correlate.

Question 8 asked respondents to state roughly how many of their events go through an “approval process” or SAG, the mean result was 76%.

Question 8A offered all respondents to enter a free text response as to why events do not go to SAG. Over half of respondents gave the following to be the most frequent reasons as to why an event does not go through an approval process:

• 53% - Size of event being less than 500 or 5000 people
• 14% - Event on private land
• 10% - No approval process in place

The results discovered that over half of the responses gave the reason that events do not go through any approval process due to capacities of between 500 - 5000 people. This highlights that events in this capacity could be going ahead without any oversight, assessment, approval or regulation. As discussed in the literature review; density, rather than capacity, is a key risk factor (Still, 2016) and so events with capacities of 500 or less can still present a high risk to crowd safety if density increases above the 5 people per metre square threshold (Fruin, 2002). The results highlight that the industry may be experiencing a number of ‘near misses’, which are not reported, as there is no legal requirement to do so. This further supports that the approval process regarding crowd safety for outdoor events is inconsistent.

Question 12 asked respondents to give their view of how often they witness risks to crowd safety at events that result in an incident. The DIM-ICE model was used to design the question focusing on the three key elements to crowd management: design, information and management. The responses are below where 1 = Never and 5 = Always.

Presenting the results of Q12 as a chart in Figure 3 above, offers a general perspective of respondents to what they believe is the frequency of incidents that occur when they are at an event, either working or attending. The highest mean was Q12.3 ‘management risk to crowd safety’ at a value of 3.21, where respondents believe that they witness incidents ‘sometimes to often’. This view correlates with what has been identified in the literature that the most common reason for disasters is failings in management and an accumulation of errors that result in disaster (Turner, 1994; Challenger and Clegg, 2011; Lea et al, 1998; Paté-Cornell, 1992). Turner (1978) highlights the ‘incubation period’ before a disaster where several chains of events accumulate unnoticed. Is this chart a warning sign?

Legislation

Question 13 asked respondents how influential they believed legislation was on outdoor events (where 1= Not Influential at all and 5 = Very Influential). With Table 4‑17 ranked in mean order; the highest mean rank was 13.3 Health & Safety at Work Act at 4.22 (somewhat influential) and the lowest mean was 13.5 Occupier’s Liability Act at 3.26 (neither).

The results are not surprising as both the HSWA74 and Regulatory Reform Order 2005 (RRO) govern the build and live period of an outdoor event. What is interesting to note, however, is that over 70% of respondents agreed that the SSGA75 is influential in crowd safety at outdoor events at a mean rank of 3.96, however it does not apply to outdoor events, yet it almost matches the mean value of influence alongside the Licensing Act 2003.

In addition to Q13, respondents were able to enter free text responses to supplement their choices. Some responses included:

“In the absence of any specific legislation, Outdoor Events have been shoehorned into the above statute. As such they fail to adequately account for the wide range of crowd and event specific potential issues.”

“I have witnessed significant inconsistency, within the same localized region, through individual 'enforcement officers' being required to individually interpret the requirements of existing legislation against the application at public events”

“Licensing Act has no mention of crowd safety and we very rarely get licensing clauses which request anything crowd-specific on the shows I work on. Occupier's Liability gets very little recognition as a piece of legislation within festival industry at all. Everyone making safety and crowd arrangements on greenfields is fully aware of HASWA 1974, and the Fire Safety Order, and also borrows from the Green Guide when it suits them for the calculations and details!”

These free text responses indicate that the lack of legislation and regulation of crowd safety at outdoor events results in organisers and local authorities alike to piece together a framework to support them in developing effective plans. In addition, it is known that some event organisers manipulate plans to suit conditions for certificates such as the Temporary Event Notice to circumnavigate licensing and planning restrictions (Robertson and Eldridge, 2007; Select Committee on the Licensing Act 2003, 2017).

To further investigate any differing views in role in Question 13, an Independent T-Test (Appendix G) (Table 4‑18) was conducted to identify the views of both Assessors and Presenters.

The results demonstrate that responses from both Assessors and Presenters share an equal view on the impact of legislation on crowd safety. Considering the opposing views in previous questions discussed, they are united on how legislation impacts crowd safety.

Licensing Act 2003

Question 14 (Table 4‑19) asked respondents whether they agreed or disagreed on statements regarding the Licensing Act 2003, (where 1 = Strongly Disagree and 5 = Strongly Agree).

The highest mean response was Q14.1 “LA03 has improved crowd safety since coming into power” at 3.18 (neither) nor the lowest mean response was Q14.4 “A premises licence is fit for purpose regarding crowd safety” at 2.47 (disagree). Considering this legislation closely links to influencing crowd safety at outdoor events, respondents have returned a negative response for all questions, stating that the LA03 is not fit for purpose regarding crowd safety at outdoor events. This result is in stark contrast to Q13.2 where 75% of all respondents gave a positive answer, agreeing that the LA03 was influential on crowd safety at outdoor events. This indicates that although respondents agree the LA03 impacts crowd safety, they do not believe it is fit for purpose, which correlates with the claim that ‘crowd safety’ is incidental to the Licensing Act 2003 (Laing, 2006; White, 2009).

The lowest mean result was 14.3 “A TEN is fit for purpose regarding crowd safety” at a mean value of 2.47 (disagree), which reflects the research claims that TENs have become a way of avoiding licensing conditions rather than enforcing what is required by the law to operate safely (Robertson and Eldridge, 2007; Select Committee on the Licensing Act 2003, 2017).

To gain further insight to the perspectives of both roles, an Independent T-Test (Appendix H) was conducted to uncover any difference in views from both Assessors and Presenters. The results, as shown in Table 4‑20, indicate that both social actors are in agreement regarding the effectiveness of the Licensing Act 2003. The only variant is Q14.3, where Assessors ‘strongly disagree to the ‘TEN is fit for purpose’ compared to Presenters ‘disagree’. This slight variance in response may be due to the fact that Assessors have experience of being confronted with event organisers circumnavigating licensing conditions (Select Committee on the Licensing Act 2003, 2017).

Currently, the LA03 is the most influential piece of legislation that impacts crowd safety at outdoor events. The results above state that all respondents disagree that any part of it is fit for purpose for ensuring crowd safety. All responses were either neutral or negative which highlights the concern that this Act is not sufficient for ensuring crowd safety at outdoor events.

Safety of Sports Ground Act 1975

In contrast to the LA03, the SSGA75 was developed specifically with spectator safety in mind (Smail, 2011). 86% of all respondents agree that the SSGA75 has improved crowd safety since it came into power (where 1 = Strongly Disagree and 5 = Strongly Agree).

These results (Table 4‑21) are in stark comparison with the LA03 in that respondents agree that the SSGA75 has improved crowd safety since coming into power. Q15.2 and Q15.3 indicate that respondents are more likely to agree that the law is fit for purpose regarding crowd safety. However, it is interesting to note that respondents were less likely to agree that the NVQ courses and the Safety Certificate were fit for purpose regarding crowd safety. There may be a correlation with the knowledge that the average respondent holds at least a Level 5 RQF qualification, when a Level 4 is required to be a Safety Officer under the SSGA75.

An Independent T-Test (Appendix I) was conducted to identify any differences in views of Assessors and Presenters as shown in Table 4‑22 below. Both social actors agree that the SSGA75 has improved crowd safety since coming into power. Both also believe that the Green Guide is neither fit for purpose regarding crowd safety, however Assessors are more likely to agree, with a mean value of 3.9 (where 4 = agree). Furthermore, Q15.5 returned a significant difference of .015 (where threshold is .05), identifying a relationship between Assessors and Presenters’ view of the effectiveness of the Safety Certificate.

There is a difference in views for Q15.2 where Assessors believe the SGSA is fit for purpose but Presenters neither agree nor disagree. This could be because the SGSA support the work of local authorities (Assessors) and provide updated guidance regarding spectator safety in stadiums in the UK (Fillingeri, 2018).

Improving Crowd Safety

Q16 asked respondents to indicate how important they believed certain elements are to the future of improving crowd safety at outdoor events (where 1 = Not Important and 5 = Extremely Important). The responses listed in Table 4‑23 below are ranked by mean result.

The highest mean result was Q16.1 “Qualified Crowd Safety professionals” and the lowest mean result was Q16.5 “Regulatory body for outdoor events”. All respondents agree that qualified crowd safety professionals are crucial to the future of improving crowd safety at outdoor events. The following ranked mean results Q16.2 ‘qualified assessors’ and Q16.3 ‘certification system for crowd safety practitioners’ closely correlate with Q16.1, in the realm of the desire to see qualifications in this industry. The results for Q16 closely align with the results discussed so far including Q7.3 and Q7.4, where respondents disagreed there was clear guidance and support from the local authority and that clear guidance for local authorities to effectively assess plans and guide organisers. They also align with Q10 where respondents believe Assessors do not have as much understanding of crowd safety as Presenters. The results from Q16 indicate that respondents believe the solution to issues arisen so far is that certification of crowd safety practitioners is the most important action that can improve crowd safety at outdoor events.

Although Q16.5 ranked the lowest mean, 64% of all respondents still agreed that a regulatory body is important to the future of crowd safety. Each answer returned a majority positive result by respondents, indicating that they believe all elements asked in Q16, which currently do not exist in the industry, are important to the future of crowd safety at outdoor events.

Question 17 asked respondents to rank in importance from 1 to 5; if they could make one change right now to improve crowd safety, what would have the greatest impact? Responses are listed in Table 4‑24 below ranking by the highest mean.

The highest mean result was Q17.1 “Introducing crowd safety specific legislation” at 3.57 and the lowest mean result was Q17.4 “introducing a government approved regulatory body”. As a majority, respondents agree that introducing crowd safety specific legislation is the single most important change that could be brought in to improve crowd safety. However, respondents also believe that introducing a government approved regulatory body is the least important change. This belief is in contrast with evidence that self-regulation is unsuccessful (Ball-King et al, 2012; Elliott and Smith, 2006; Fitzpatrick, 2014), and the presence of the SGSA as a regulator has impacted safety at sports ground, with its absence noted as a reason for increased crowd safety risk in stadia (Johnes, 2007; Roberts, 2019). Introducing a certification/accreditation framework is ranked as the second most important change, which correlates with the highest ranking answer in Q16; that qualified crowd safety professionals are the most important element to improving crowd safety at outdoor events.

Summary

The following summarises the key themes that arose in the survey responses.

• Respondents believe that Assessors do not possess the competency required to effectively assess crowd safety plans for outdoor events and lack support and guidance to be able to carry out their role.
• There is inconsistency in the licensing/approval process. Over half of events that do not go through an approval process are due to capacity, ranging from 500 - 5000 persons. In addition, most respondents indicated that they frequently witness crowd incidents at outdoor events.
• An overwhelming majority of respondents disagreed that the Licensing Act has improved crowd safety since coming into power, when this law is the main piece of legislation that impacts event approval and crowd safety at outdoor events.
• As a conglomerate, respondents believe that the biggest factor to influencing and improving crowd safety at outdoor events is the qualification and licensing of all crowd safety practitioners which includes both Assessors and Presenters.

The final chapter will discuss the research conclusions and recommendations for industry, government and further studies.

Dissertation #5. Recommendations to Government and Industry to improve Crowd Safety at outdoor events

This final chapter revisits each of the research objectives, summarises the findings, critically appraises the research process and concludes with offering three recommendations to government and industry.

(Please note this was originally produced in 2019-2020.)

Here are the previous chapters for reference:

#1 The Root Cause of Crowd Disasters

#2 Legislation, Regulation and Crowd Safety

#3 The Impact of Legislation on Competency

#4 The perceptions of licensing authorities and event safety professionals on crowd safety and legislation at outdoor events

In summary, the findings are:

• The perspective of Crowd Safety shifted over the last decades, pivoting from crowd control to the safe planning and management of crowds, while research identified that the root cause of disaster was not due to the crowd itself, but failings in management.
• Crowd safety is not the focus of any legislationthat impacts outdoor events, and this has negative consequences in reality.
• The gap in legislation allows events to take place without oversight and no requirement to report incidents, with respondents often witnessing incidents at outdoor events, agreeing that introducing crowd safety legislation is the most important change to improve safety.

In summary, the recommendations are:

• The first recommendation to government is to develop legislation or mandatory requirements for the approval process and management of crowd safety for outdoor events.
• The second recommendation to government and industry is to establish a certification system for crowd safety practitioners.
• The final recommendation is to conduct further research on regulation and crowd safety at events.

First Objective: To critically review literature regarding crowd safety

The literature review revealed that the study of crowds is a relatively young subject area (Abbott and Geddie, 2000) and has shifted in perspective over time from a phenomenon that crowds were seen as a threat, rather than needing protection themselves (Darby et al, 2004; Cocking et al, 2010; Drury and Stott, 2011; Reicher et al, 2014). The shift from the attitude of crowd control to crowd management pivoted after the Hillsborough Disaster (Elliott and Smith, 1993). Since then the call for competency and a legal framework to ensure the safe planning of crowd management emerged in industry and academia, yet is not reflected in reality for outdoor events (Martella et al, 2017).

Furthermore, the research revealed that the root cause of a disaster is “failings in management” or “poor safety culture” (Couto, 1989; Pate-Cornell, 1992; Turner, 1994; Pidgeon, 1997; Lea et al, 1998; Challenger and Clegg, 2011). This evidence further supports the claim that the crowd itself is not the reason for the disaster. When comparing notable disasters or incidents in the UK between sports stadia and outdoor events; there have been none in sports stadia since 1989 (when the SGSA was introduced) and there have been incidents right up to present day in outdoor events.

To conclude, the perspective of Crowd Safety shifted over the last decades, pivoting from crowd control to the safe planning and management of crowds, while research identified that the root cause of disaster was not due to the crowd itself, but failings in management.

Second Objective: To review literature linked to the impact of legislation and guidance on crowd safety at outdoor events

It was clear from the literature that the majority of research on the impact of legislation on crowd safety at events were either regarding sports stadia or the impact of the Licensing Act (LA03) on all licensing objectives except “public safety” (DCMS, 2003; Talbot, 2006; Newton et al, 2007; Foster et al, 2009; Newton and Hirschfield, 2009; Hadfield et al, 2009; Herring et al, 2009; Nicholls, 2015). The LA03 was intended as a single integrated scheme for licensing premises but does not account for outdoor events. Furthermore, the certification system alongside the LA03 is regularly subverted by event organisers in order to secure a TEN rather than applying for the more time consuming, risky and costly Premises Licence.

It became clear that there are a number of legislation and regulations that impact the planning of an event including HSAWA74, CDM15, and RIDDOR13, yet none were designed with outdoor events in mind. Moreover, there is no one piece of legislation that focuses on ensuring crowd safety standards during the approval process and delivery of an event. In addition, there is no legal requirement for an event organiser to hold a qualification in order to plan and deliver events.

Legislation affecting sports stadia is often updated in reaction to a specific disaster, usually following an inquiry into the disaster coupled with political pressure. However, change in legislation usually focuses on the proximate cause of the disaster, rather than considering the system holistically (Smith, 1990; Elliott and Smith, 2006; Johnes, 2007; Melrose et al, 2011). Furthermore, evidence suggests that self-regulation does not work (Ball-King et al, 2012; Elliott and Smith, 2006). Therefore, reality appears to reflect academia as, since 1989 when the Safety of Sports Ground Act 1975 was updated and the SGSA was introduced, there have been no recorded stadia crowd disasters since. It appears that the existence of the SGSA as a regulator has positively impacted crowd safety in sports stadia (Roberts, 2019). There is a potential for this to be an example for legislation regarding crowd safety at outdoor events.

In conclusion, crowd safety is not the focus of any legislation that impacts outdoor events, and this has negative consequences in reality.

Third Objective: To investigate the experiences of licensing authorities and event safety professionals on the impact of legislation on crowd safety at outdoor events.

The primary research approach selected for this study took a constructivist approach, as the phenomena studied are interpreted by the social actors involved. Using an induction approach uncovered relationships between variables such as safety, regulation and competency. Social actors were asked to give their perceptions on the current environment regarding crowd safety at outdoor events, legislation and how crowd safety could be improved, through the evaluative strategy of surveys taken at a fixed point in time. This interpretivist approach allowed for an understanding of the current crowd safety environment.

The utilisation of surveys allowed me to disseminate to a wide range of potential participants with few challenges to resource. The online survey allowed access to cluster samples around the UK and short turnaround time for responses. The ease and time limit of the survey promoted full completion. Allowing a number of free text responses enabled further understanding of respondents experiences and perceptions. However, it restricted capacity for deeper layers of understanding participants’ experiences.

In conclusion, the use of descriptive surveys to understand the perceptions of social actors offered a broad understanding of the population, however further analysis by in depth interviews may have unearthed connections to respondents answers.

Fourth Objective: To analyse the perceptions of licensing authorities and event safety professionals in relation to legislation on crowd safety at outdoor events

The findings identified that Presenters have higher competency indicators and understanding of crowd safety than Assessors. SAG members/Assessors holding crowd safety qualifications was the most important factor influencing their competency, as well as the experience of large scale or major events. Furthermore, it appears that Assessors may not hold appropriate competency in assessing crowd safety plans, however there is currently no legal requirement for them to carry out this role. In addition, they lack support and guidance in order to do so.

The most revealing factor from these results was that over half of events that do not go through an approval process are due to ‘low capacity’ ranging from 500 - 5000 people. These results revealed a gap where events could be taking place without any oversight, assessment or approval. It highlights inconsistency in the approval process for outdoor events. In addition, respondents stated they sometimes or often witness crowd safety incidents at outdoor events.

Without a legal reporting requirement in place, there is no requirement to report these incidents. The literature states that disaster results from an accumulation of smaller incidents that go unnoticed (Turner, 1978, 1994; Paté-Cornell, 1992; Lea et al, 1998; Challenger and Clegg, 2011). Is this a warning that the industry could be one small incident away from a crowd disaster? Further evidence from data analysis depicts in Table 2‑1 and Table 2‑2, where crowd incidents have reduced to almost none in stadia yet continue to present date in outdoor events, and in Figure 3, where respondents report witnessing crowd incidents more often than not.

The analysis of respondent’s belief whether legislation was fit for purpose regarding crowd safety correlates with findings in the literature. Although the LA03 is most closely linked to crowd safety at outdoor events, it was listed third out of five on a list of legislation surrounding outdoor events. In addition, the mean result was almost the same as the SSGA75, meaning respondents believed they had the same level of influence, although the SSGA75 does not apply to outdoor events. The Temporary Event Notice (TEN), as part of the LA03, was deemed least fit for purpose regarding crowd safety, which correlates with the literature claiming that the TEN is misused by event organisers to circumvent licensing conditions. In addition, respondents neither agreed or disagreed the NVQ qualifications were fit for purpose and interestingly, the average qualification of respondents was Level 5 or above when a Level 4 is required to be a stadium Safety Officer. All respondents agreed that the qualification and certification of those who practice crowd safety, in both assessing and presenting roles, is the most important factor to improving crowd safety at outdoor events.

In conclusion, the gap in legislation allows events to take place without oversight and no requirement to report incidents, with respondents often witnessing incidents at outdoor events, agreeing that introducing crowd safety legislation is the most important change to improve safety.

Research Evaluation

As there are few regulations specific to crowd safety at outdoor events, there was little data available to critically analyse. The only evidence to seek out were the experiences and perspectives of those who work at and attend events. Therefore, the limitations of this research is that it is based on perceptions of 108 participants with an imbalance regarding role. Furthermore, as the approval process for outdoor events is not standardised, it was difficult to capture all the types of roles and scenarios involved. For example, a SAG does not exist in every event planning scenario, sometimes it is the local authority events team processing applications or a private landlord with their own events team.

In addition, there was a relatively low number of responses, where the desire was to have over one thousand responses. This “law of small numbers” (Kahneman, 2012) allows the views of those who did respond to be emphasised, and possibly alter the view of the population sample. Moreover, the respondents were connected to the author’s network and therefore bias may be present regarding qualifications and experience. Perhaps if this study were to be repeated, that a selection of senior officials from both local authorities, event organisers and crowd safety professionals would be invited to interview. However, a benefit of the population sample was that those who did respond, had high competency indicators.

Although this study is investigating crowd safety at outdoor events, it leans heavily towards crowd safety in sports stadia, due to the wealth of research regarding stadia and the evolution of the legislative framework surrounding it. Additionally, as stadia disasters are deemed focusing events, there is more detailed information available regarding each incident compared to those that occurred in outdoor events.

Finally, if there was more time available to gather data, I would have aimed for higher response. The challenge in this is that I was unable to send out more than one email to mailing lists held by organisations with no option of sending reminders. Another potential of more time was that I could have developed a mixed methods research strategy to conduct in depth interviews with a select number of respondents. This is a recommended approach for any further studies in this area.

First Recommendation

The first recommendation to government is to develop legislation or mandatory requirements for the approval process and management of crowd safety for outdoor events. This framework could begin with a mandatory licensing of all outdoor public events, either ticketed or non-ticketed, and over a certain capacity, such as 100 people. In order to secure a licence for these events, an application should be made to the local authority. Either the licensing team or the events team within the local authority will have qualified crowd safety professionals on their staff in order to assess the applications. The suggestion that each team have at least one member of staff holding the qualification, who will lead any Safety Advisory Groups or meetings, with other team members in training towards it. The legislation will give powers to the local authority and police to object to the licence if the application does not match the required conditions. Additionally, a national body (such as the HSE), or a new governing body will also hold powers over this legislation.

The required conditions for a successful application include a crowd safety plan which includes strategies for ingress, circulation and egress and details emergency procedure. A guidance document will be produced to support both event organisers in planning the event and the local authority on assessing applications and event plans. The crowd manager on the event will hold an in-date licence and an appropriate qualification. Depending on the capacity of the event, they will need to provide evidence of successful crowd management at previous events of a similar scale.

During the event, the qualified crowd safety professional in the licensing authority or emergency services will hold powers of inspection to ensure that the event is managed as per the agreed and licenced plan. Furthermore, any crowd incidents or near misses during an event will be required under legislation to be reported to the governing body (such as the HSE).

This legislation could be introduced through an amendment of the Licensing Act 2003 to either update the “Public Safety” objective to detail measures necessary to ensure the safety of the crowd at an event or add a new objective. In addition, the Temporary Event Notice should be updated alongside this in order to maintain consistency. Either it is replaced by a new system, or become subject to further scrutiny in order to secure an event licence.

Alternatively, a new “crowded places” law could be introduced that covers all spaces where organised crowds gather not just outdoor events, using a more non-prescriptive approach such as the HSWA74. This law could place duty on the organiser to be responsible for the safety of those who attend the event or place. Also, the organiser is required to hold an in-date licence and appropriate qualification or have a member of staff delegated to this role.

From this research, I believe developing a legislative framework can help create safe standards, aid in reducing the risk of incidents and improve the quality of crowd safety management at events in the UK. Although it places responsibility on the local authority, it may ultimately reduce resource demand on emergency services and local authorities, as events will be organised at a higher calibre due to these new safety requirements. Furthermore, if there is an agreed and transparent process in place, it can save time and resource by reducing confusion and challenging of local authority officers decisions.

Second Recommendation

The second recommendation to government and industry is to establish a certification system for crowd safety practitioners. In order for a crowd safety professional to work in either organising events, consulting on events or working for a local authority, they must hold an in-date licence to allow them to practice.

The government could delegate authority for issuing the licence to an organisation (such as UK Crowd Management Association), or set up its own. This licensing authority would manage the administration and regulation of crowd safety licences in the UK. In order for a practitioner to secure a licence, they must satisfy a number of conditions to prove competency. Suggestions of conditions include that they hold at minimum a Level 5 RQF in crowd safety management or similar, demonstrate years of experience they hold in the field, how many events they have worked and at what capacity, and the level of continuing professional development (CPD) they are undertaking. To support new crowd safety practitioners, there could be an apprentice or second level licence that allows a practitioner to work with someone who has a full licence in order to gain experience and develop competence to secure a full licence.

This licence will apply to both Presenters and Assessors, ensuring a level of consistency in competency between event organisers and local authorities.

The benefit of this is to set an accepted standard of competence required to carry out this role and ensures that crowd safety practitioners are consistently updated with latest legislation and guidance through the necessity of expiring certification coupled with continuing professional development. This can support better practice of crowd safety at outdoor events in the UK, including reducing demand on emergency services and local authorities as it reduces the risk of a crowd disaster happening. This will benefit organisations as they will have a competent professional responsible for crowd safety which can reduce the risk of incidents, improve safety and experience for attendees and improve resource management.

Third Recommendation

The final recommendation is to conduct further research on regulation and crowd safety at events. It was clear from the literature review that self-regulation is not successful, and the presence of a regulator improves safety. However, what arose in the data analysis was that respondents did not believe a regulator was important to improving crowd safety. Therefore, the recommendation to industry and academia is for further research on the impact of a regulator on crowd safety at events. This conflicting information arising in the study provides an opportunity for learning as to the disparity between industry and academia. Further research is required to advance discourse on crowd safety at outdoor events, to improve responsibility, manage risk appropriately and enable a positive experience for the whole crowd.

If this article was helpful and you wish to learn more about improving ingress, egress or zone ex at your event or venue, please send me an email.

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