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NBSIR 81-2361

Crowd ingress to Places of

Assembly: Summary and

Proceedings of an Experts'

Workshop

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

National Bureau of Standards

National Engineering laboratory

Center for Building Technology

Washington, DC 20234

July 1981

Issued September 1981

200 S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

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81-2361

1981

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kTIONAL BUREAU OF STANDARDS

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NBSIR 81-2361

CROWD INGRESS TO PLACES OF

ASSEMBLY: SUMMARY AND

PROCEEDINGS OF AN EXPERTS'

WORKSHOP

DEC 7 1981

not 4 -:-- . O -- -r -

Francis T. Ventre

Fred I. Stahl

George E. Turner

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

National Bureau of Standards

National Engineering Laboratory

Center for Building Technology

Washington, DC 20234

July 1981

Issued September 1981

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE, Malcolm Baldrige, Secretary

NATIONAL BUREAU OF STANDARDS, Ernest Ambler, Director
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ABSTRACT

The movement of large crowds into places of assembly has resulted in death

and injury to facility patrons and staff. Facility designers and managers

seeking guidance have found little relevant information in the technical

literatures of architectural and crowd control.

The Law Enforcement Assistance Administration and the National Bureau of

Standards convened the most knowledgeable persons in North America in

the topic of crowd ingress to places of assembly to: identify best current

design practices; identify best current facilities management practices;

and define research needed to support improved practices in design and

management

.

The report documents the design and management practices suggested by

the assembled experts, reports related activities of the International

Association of Auditorium Managers and suggests a research approach

that could lead to improved quantitative design and evaluation procedures

for crowd ingress.

Key Words: Auditorium; building standards, crowd ingress; design procedures;

evaluation procedures; facility design; facility management;

public assembly; public safety; stadiums.

iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

LIST OF TABLES V

1.0

PURPOSE AND AUDIENCE 1

More frequent large gatherings

Cincinnati drew attention

Responsibility of owner/operators

Responsibility of designers

What guidance is available

Need for a Workshop

2.0

LEAA/NEL WORKSHOP ON CROWD INGRESS TO PLACES OF ASSEMBLY 5

Response to the Cincinnati Report

Summary of agenda

Oral exchange of experts’ advice

Twenty-one items of concern identified

Review of film, videotape and still photographs of crowd events

3.0

WHAT THE ASSEMBLED EXPERTS CONCLUDED 14

Specific suggestions for managers

Specific suggestions for designers

4.0 WHERE TO NEXT

Practice: Need to document and exchange information on recent

crowd experiences and facilities performance —lAAM proposal

Research: Develop a quantitative prediction model

o Synthesize qualitative model as basis for quantitative

model

o Formulate with various quantitative elements for the model

o Conduct research required to complete the quantitative

model

22 5.0

REFERENCES 29

APPENDICES

Appendix A

Appendix B

Appendix C

Appendix D

Appendix E

Workshop Agenda

Workshop Participants

Position Statements presented to Workshop

Technical papers prepared for Workshop

Annotated Bibliography of Technical Publications Pertinent to Crowd

Control and Management

Appendix F Review of DBR/NRCC (Canadian Government) Studies of Movement of People,

1967-1981

IV
LIST OF TABLES

Table Page

1 Workshop Identified 22 Items of Concern Affecting

Practices in Facilities Design and Management (and

Often Both Simultaneously) 7

2 Suggestions for Management 15

3 Suggestions for Design 18

V

1.0 PURPOSE AND AUDIENCE

On the evening of December 3, 1979, eleven people died (and about the same

number were injured) attempting to enter the Cincinnati Riverfront Coliseum

to attend a rock concert. Thus did the United States rejoin the list of

countries where uncontrolled crowding has resulted in significant casualties

and loss of life. Consider these incidents: 1971, Glasgow Scotland Soccer

Stadium, 66 dead; 1975, at a soccer stadium near Buenos Aires, two dead;

1976, Rio de Janeiero, Brazil at a faith healing service, 21 dead. Since

the Cincinnati tragedy, six persons lost their lives rushing to see Pope Paul II

during his visit to Fortaleza, Brazil in 1980. And on February 8, 1981,

a stampede of spectators trying to force their way out of a crowded Athens,

Greece soccer stadium killed 24.

Crowding occurs normally in many human activities. Tens of thousands of

pedestrians course daily through transportation terminals, high rise buildings,

stadiums and auditoriums and at numerous public locations indoors and out.

Most of this routine crowd movement causes only annoyance, with minimal

social and economic cost. Yet the risk of a recurrence of death by

crowding has become a critical life safety consideration to public authorities in the immediate locales of the Incidents cited above and to life

safety professionals the world over. National attention grew across America

for several reasons. First, the death and injury from crowding had "hit home":

Cincinnati, Ohio had suffered something that had in recent years occured only

in foreign countries; second, the development of mass audiences—largely

encouraged by the electronic media-—and the creation of scores of new largecapacity stadiums and arenas had increased the likelihood that very large

1
crowds would gather for leisure and cultural events.

The City of Cincinnati’s response to the Riverfront Coliseum tragedy went

beyond the to-be-expected enactment of emergency crowd control and safety

ordinances. The City established a task force to investigate public safety

and crowd control at large public and private gatherings. The Cincinnati

Task Force on Crowd Control and Safety began its work expecting that "many

of the issues that it addressed will hold national interests as well."^

This report is one manifestation of that interest.

The Task Force, meeting over six months and consulting many experts, considered

subjects ranging from crowd management, planning and standards, seating, police

policies, emergency medical services, to pedestrian processing. The Task Force's

widely circulated report directed over one hundred recommendations to "all

parties who are responsible for and participate in [large scale public] events."

Professionals responsible for the operations and management of facilities for

public assembly as well as the architectural and engineering designers of those

facilities are concerned for the safety and well being of the public using those

facilities. The designers' responsibility was reaffirmed within months of

the Cincinnati incident when New York State's highest appellate court ruled

that designers are liable to injured building users for negligent design

even though the defect might have been observable and apparent to the building

owner and the injury occurs many years after the designer had performed his

3 services

.

^Numbered footnotes refer to citations in Chapter 5.

2
This New York Court of Appeals ruling has encouraged all conscientious

facilities managers and building designers to seek the best guidance for

their future designs and operations. Unfortunately, building designers have

very little reliable guidance on ingress available to them. A close reading

of widely used references, handbooks and design guidelines yields few

specifics. There are very few quantitative design algorithms and almost

no evaluated experience on which to base designs for places of public assembly

in which the potential for hazardous crowd behavior exists. Does the research

community have more to offer? Yes and no. While there is a sizable archival

research literature on dynamics of crowds, most of this deals with rioting

and other civil disturbances.* There is a growing research literature from

U.S. and foreign research centers on pedestrian movement . 4-16 But these

deal mainly with steady flows under normal circumstances or emergency exiting

from building fires. A technical basis in the research literature simply is

not available to assist designers in dealing with pedestrian traffic now

associated with ingress to places of assembly.

NBS' search of the documented research literature yielded little of Immediate

practical use. Consequently, a workshop was organized to which were invited

the most knowledgeable persons in North America on the topic of crowd ingress

to places of public assembly. This report is based on the proceedings

of that Workshop.

The primary purpose of this report is to provide practical suggestions

developed by the experts for the use of designers as they develop

plans and designs for newly-built or refurbished places of public assembly.

*See Appendix E for an annotated bibliography.

3
It will be helpful to facilities owners and managers as they continually

revise and improve operating practices in and around their facilities.

An important secondary purpose is to identify what research approaches

might yield the new knowledge needed as a basis for improved design and

management practices in the future.

4
2.0 LEAA/NEL WORKSHOP ON CROWD INGRESS TO PLACES OF ASSEMBLY

The Cincinnati Task Force in its final report explicitly recommended that

the National Bureau of Standards (NBS) review existing regulations concerning

pedestrian and crowd movement and initiate new research in the area of building

ingress. The Task Force was led to this recommendation by their finding that

Federal government attention was drawn primarily to exiting requirements

and not much attention was directed to the process of entering buildings.

Moreover, it found that many facility ingress design decisions are based

on egress design criteria published by NBS in 1935.^^

While recent NBS pedestrian movement research and experience is primarily

focused on physical characteristics of buildings and their environs, the

Task Force's report indicated that public safety agencies, such as the

local police, have a key role in effective crowd management. Law enforcement

policies received chapter-length treatment and six recommendations in the

Task Force report. Consequently, NBS sought the cooperation of the Federal

agency that sponsored much of the crowd control research cited in Appendix E

of this report and has strong links to local police departments. The Department

of Justice's Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA) agreed to

cosponsor with the NBS National Engineering Laboratory a workshop on crowd

ingress to places of public assembly and bring to bear its experience in

dealing with state and local law enforcement agencies also concerned with

maintaining public safety and order. LEAA's participation ensured that law

enforcement considerations would be more fully represented and that the

workshop recommendations would receive a wide distribution among the

government agencies responsible for public safety.

5
The Cincinnati Task Force explicitly recommended that the National Bureau

of Standards (NBS) review existing regulations concerning pedestrian

and crowd movement and initiate new research in the area of building ingress:

1. The National Bureau of Standards should review existing

regulations concerning pedestrian and crowd processing

in, through and out of buildings, and embark on new

studies directed at establishing new regulations where

appropriate.

2. The National Bureau of Standards should initiate new research into the changing pedestrian flow patterns

with emphasis on, but not limited to, high density

rates, ingress flows, ticket processing, entrance

configurations, the influence of environmental

variables ayg crowd dynamics in high density

situations

.

The Crowd Ingress Workshop was convened at NBS on May 4, 1981 to address

physical design and crowd management practices in places of public assembly.

The Workshop's morning session heard the participating experts relate their

respective overviews of the problems of crowd ingress to places of assembly,

drawing almost totally on their direct ,prof essional experience at large

facilities in all regions of the U.S. and in several foreign countries.

Some augmented their previously submitted position papers, others related new

data. Issues that seemed to the assembled experts to be particularly

significant and of more than local usefulness were recorded for later reference.

That listing by the mid-afternoon had grown to 22 items of continuing

concern to both designers and managers present. Table 1 lists those items.

The Workshop agenda is Appendix A. The list of : participants , .is Appendix B.

Technical background material distributed by NBS to the participants in

advance of the workshop is Appendix C. Position Statements submitted to

the Workshop is Appendix D.

6
TABLE 1 WORKSHOP IDENTIFIED

22 ITEMS OF CONCERN AFFECTING PRACTICES IN

FACILITIES DESIGN (F) AND

MANAGEMENT (M)

(AND OFTEN BOTH SIMULTANEOUSLY)

1. INTERFACE TO TRANSPORTATION. F

2. CONCOURSE - PLACE TO WAIT. F

3. COMMUNICATION TO CROWD. M

4. SECURITY - VISIBLE - WHILE WAITING. M

5. BREAKDOWN CROWD PRIOR TO DOOR. F ,M

6. LETTING ONLY PROPER PEOPLE IN. M

7. LETTING ONLY PROPER THINGS IN. M

8. NUMBER AND LOCATION OF ENTRANCES. F

9. UNDERSTANDING CROWD CHARACTERISTICS, F,M

ATTITUDES, PHYSICAL CONDITION.

10. EDUCATION FOR CUSTOMERS. M

11. EDUCATION FOR MANAGERS/ STAFF . M

12. CONTROL TIMES OF ARRIVAL. M

13. DESIGN DOORS FOR INGRESS. F

14. AVOID CROWD CONCENTRATION. F,M

15. PROVIDE FOR REFUNDS, TICKET ADJUSTMENTS. M

16. SUPERVISE TICKET TAKERS. M

17. SECOND LEVEL OF DEFENSE WHEN PROBLEMS OCCUR. F,M

18. DEALING ADEQUATELY WITH EXISTING FACILITIES. M

19. INFORMATION FROM FACILITIES MANAGERS M

CLEARINGHOUSE (INTERNATIONAL)

.

20. INFORMATION FROM DESIGNERS. F,M

21. SEPARATION OF TICKETING AND ADMISSION. F,M

22. ORIENTATION/DIRECTIONAL GRAPHICS. F,M

1
The Workshop then entered a round table discussion focused on individual

crowd ingress problems documented in the materials distributed to the

participants in advance and found in Appendix C to this report. J. L. Pauls

of the National Research Council of Canada led a discussion of crowding based

on his Preliminary Report of Observations at CNE Stadium, Toronto. Dr. Randall

W.A. Davidson offered to the Workshop his "Historical and Behavioral Perspective

on Risk Management for Public Assembly Gatherings".

During the afternoon session the Workshop participants viewed and discussed

films, videotape and still photographs of critical events at public gatherings

ranging from the 1976 Montreal Summer Olympics to a Country and Western Music

Concert at Lexington, Kentucky. In each case, the visual presentation was

augmented by very knowledgeable and perceptive running commentary. These

presentations reminded many participants of the value of reliable documentation

of crowd behavior and the need for consistent documentation methods to facilitate

incident- to- incident and location-to-location comparisons. This point

is discussed further in Chapter Four of this report.

The tables in Chapter 2 and 3 of this report list issues that concerned the

Workshop and the practices recommended for dealing with many of them. The

tables present this information compactly, but the tables cannot convey

the richness of the discussion from which the recommendations were distilled.

Space does not permit a complete transcription, but the following paragraphs

carry some of the flavor of the Workshop discussions.

8
Aaron Siegel, Manager of the Philadelphia Spectrum, observed at the outset

of the Workshop that the nature of the event was the single most critical

factor in crowd management. The nature of the event determined two things:

the type of crowd: singles, couples, groups; and the means of arrival: public

transit, private automobiles. These factors are relatively fixed and can be

anticipated. Weather and "mood", acknowledged by all to be influences,

are so highly variable and transient that no prudent manager or designer

can hope to anticipate their combined effects. (Their single effects are

not that reliably known, either, according to some of the participants.)

Robert Sigholtz, Manager of the Washington, D.C. StarPlex and Washington

representative of the International Association of Auditorium Managers (lAAM)

remarked to the Workshop that many of the problems associated with crowd

ingress to places of public assembly are the unanticipated consequences

of well-intentioned but poorly researched laws, ordinances and regulations

many of them enacted under the stress of a recent calamity. Compounding

this, said Dr. Sigholtz, is the widespread use of "amateurs" as facilities

managers. The lAAM' s members manage about 1250 auditoriums, arenas, stadiums

and convention/exhibition halls the world over. The organization advised

the Workshop that safe and efficient crowd ingress practices are in use in

many places and that the very best practices should be documented for wide

distribution to the large numbers of beginning facilities operators. lAAM's

position is stated in Appendix D of this report.

What do we reliably know about how crowds enter places of assembly?

J. L. Pauls, of the National Research Council of Canada, stated that

9
normal crowd movement is so well understood it has become predictable.

under certain circumstances. When probed by Workshop Chairman Richard N. Wright

to consider if the predictive models were reliable enough to guide design and

management to avoid emergencies, Pauls answered affirmatively, stating

that some movement conditions such as flow are now predictable within +4% so that

the research remaining to be done stands a high chance of success. (This is

considered again in Chapter 4.) While success is at hand for predicting

normal flows, Irwin Benjamin of the NBS Center for Fire Research asked if

anyone could predict when "normality" would end and "trouble" (neither

term further defined) would begin.

At this point, the previous discussion of the self-selected composition

of crowds and the typing of crowds by the nature of the event was reinforced.

Randall Davidson, longtime consultant to the entertainment and insurance

industries, described the emergence of a significant fraction of crowd

members who join crowds and seek to enter places of assembly but who

are not basically interested in the performance at all. They are attracted

to the crowd in order to traffic in contraband, to engage in prostitution

or to steal from the unsuspecting. The job of the facility manager grows

significantly in that all the managers in the discussion expressed a

responsibility to the larger crowd and to the larger society to isolate

and deny access to the aberrant spectator mentioned by Davidson. This

compounds the immediate problem of facilitating timely crowd ingress,

but the Workshop left no doubt that a facility's problem would worsen if

spectators were permitted to prey on other spectators.

10
"Design can move a problem to a place where it can be better handled".

Aaron Siegel’s immediate reference was to many managers' preference for

controlling unwanted behavior out on the site rather than allowing the

"problem" to enter the building itself. The experts felt that greater

physical property damage and personal injury is probable and the

contagion of aberrance or lawlessness more likely indoors (in closelyconfined spaces) than out. The managers repeated this throughout the

Workshop: They willingly trade one problem for another if the new problem

is even slightly more tractable.

Talbot Wilson, an architect-member of the team that designed the Houston

Astrodome, led off the discussion of how physical characteristics of places

of public assembly affect crowd ingress. Dispersion and redundancy were

frequently cited attributes of the more successful places of assembly

(Wilson has visited large-scale facilities in many cities and urges other

designers to do so, in the company of the manager or manager-designate of th

facility being designed). Not only should entrances to the facility occur

all around the periphery of the structure, he said, but physical space, aided

by directional graphics, should be used to clarify to the crowd what

processing functions are taking place: where and in what order. For

instance, ticketing must be separated from admissions and the flow between

these stations must be uni-directional.

Redundancy had both a spatial and communications meaning to the Workshop

participants. Just as environmental graphics—color coded tickets, seats,

doors, symbols, and banners—orient and direct crowds by reinforcing the

11
spatial flow through a place of assembly, audible messages—that begin

well-outside the structure itself—keep the spectators (and the staff,

too, incidentally) apprised of what's happening and when. The audible

messages not only keep the facility management present even when not

seen, but preempt the formation and propagation of rumours—such as an

impending cancellation of the feature event. The provision of an audible

communication system (not just the program-related "public address (PA)"

or sound system) is just the sort of capability that the designer must provide

for the manager's later deployment. What are others?

Paul Wertheimer, who served as Chief of Staff of the City of Cincinnati's

Task Force on Crowd Control and Safety, turned the discussion towards

specifics when he asked about door performance and the prospects for

improved technology. Like most building elements, doors serve several

functions simultaneously: control ingress, control egress, manage flow,

assist in orientation, an acoustical barrier, an energy leak, a work

station for the security force. With air supported structures increasingly

used for places of public assembly, (a trend, incidentally, most of the

facilities managers present thought would accelerate) the door assemblies

will be forced to cope with more functions than at present.

But decisions about doors—a specific architectural design decision—cannot

be made on "hardware" grounds alone because the number and placement of doors

is intimately related to the staffing plan for the facility. These decisions

cannot be taken independently and physical design must be melded with management

policies. Facility design decisions, in the opinion of most of the participants.

12
require the close collaboration of designer and operator. Paul Wertheimer

raised this point with his observation that even the best design cannot anticipate

every or even most of the crowd behaviors from the most benign and gentle

to the most obstreperous. Only management has the dynamism to adapt to

changing conditions depending on the type of crowd. This means that the

physical design must not pre-empt significant choices among crowd management

practices. Support for this approach recurred several times throughout the

Workshop

.

13
3.0 WHAT THE ASSEMBLED EXPERTS CONCLUDED

The Workshop participants concluded that designers and facility managers

could deal more effectively with problems of crowd ingress, often by

adapting to their own local situations practices that succeeded at other

times and places. In other words, while there is neither systematic

nor complete knowledge about crowd ingress to places of assembly, there

is a great deal of uncodified and usually unwritten lore to be shared.

And share it the participants willingly did. Consider first management issues.

. No systematic guidance for crowd management is now available. But, as is

detailed in Chapter Four, preparation of such guidance has been proposed

by the International Association of Auditorium Managers (lAAM). A number

of successful practices were mentioned in the course of the Workshop and they

are summarized in Table 2. The Table is organized in chronological order

beginning well in advance of the event itself and is structured according

to a sequence of fairly discrete, definable stages of crowd formation, movement

and settlement. Some suggested practices reappear in slightly different form

at different stages. This recurrence revals the persistence and fundamental

importance of a small set of management functions. Communications, for instance,

is one function that is needed continually.

What physical characteristics are needed to affect crowd behavior in favorable

ways? The participants reported what the NBS staff found earlier: No

systematic guidance is at hand. But the designers and managers went further:

guidance should be formulated. The lAAM proposal described in Chapter Four

will likely address this issue. Moreover, some Workshop observers

14
TABLE 2: SUGGESTIONS FOR MANAGEMENT

PREPARE FOR EVENT: Most problems can be anticipated and many of

them averted with thorough advance work

o Valuable information is available from facilities managers at

previous stops on a touring group's itinerary.

o Obtain and use demographic information relevant to the event,

provided by local police, and records of past experience in

the host city.

o Management and security personnel should be prepared/able

to guide and assist occupants through emergency egress procedures.

o Security guards should be large and visible.

o Provide uniformed ushers and security personnel.

o Control arrival times by publicizing door-opening times in

advance.

MANAGEMENT OUTSIDE: Crowd management begins long before the building is entered.

o Provide public address information outside to keep waiting crowds

advised and entertained.

15
Table 2 (continued)

o Avoid undue concentration of people in any enclosed area,

o Avoid large "bulk" queues, use smaller, easier to manage groups.

MANAGEMENT OF INGRESS: Control of Access is more than keeping out "gate crashers",

o Do not admit cans and bottles.

o For some types of events, conduct airport-style security checks

on each entrant.

o Intercept and isolate patrons, contraband and incidents that might

stimulate adverse crowd behavior. Do this as far away from entrance

as possible.

MANAGEMENT OF THE ASSEMBLY: At this point, management needs only to maintain

stability.

o Provide public address information capability throughout event.

Authoritative voice communication is important in emergencies.

o Public address system should never call attention to a scene of

disturbance; rather, it should be used to divert attention away

from the disturbance.

16
felt that the model for organizing crowd movement research presented under

the research recommendations in Chapter Four will be helpful in organizing

a design guide in the future. The assembled experts did recount some "do’s

and don'ts" for facilities designers. These are summarized in Table 3

and illustrated in the accompanying examples.* Table 3 is organized

as a spatial progression of the kind routinely encountered when locating,

entering and being seated at a large scale public event.

The suggestions in Tables 2 and 3 are presented to the extent possible

in the performance oriented language. The performance approach allows

maximum freedom in choosing the specific management practice or physical

form to accomplish the intended result. This freedom, of course, is the

main advantage of using performance criteria instead of prescriptive

requirements, often accompanied by dimensional requirements.^^ But

writing a complete performance criterion is exceedingly difficult because

stating a policy's or a design's essential function completely, clearly,

correctly and consisely is an intellectually demanding task. The writer of a

performance criterion is soon at the limit of knowledge: knowledge of the

function to be performed, designation of an accurate measure for assuring

that the function has indeed been performed and a practice in precise

method for making that measurement. When a practical matter like choosing

a certain facility management practice or one physical form over another

is taken to the limit of knowledge, the manager or designer must turn to

the researchers for further guidance. This is the course the Workshop took

as well. Consequently, this report's concluding chapter will take up the matter

of defining a research strategy suited to provide better design and management

practices.

17
TABLE 3: SUGGESTIONS FOR DESIGN

SITE PLANNING: Attention to buildings’ environs should support effective

crowd management practices.

o Provide well-spaced peripheral entrances.

o Provide a "first-rate" outside PA system to advise arriving patrons,

o Provide effective links between the facility, parking, and public transit,

o Provide special peripheral facilities for handicapped patrons,

o Color-coded parking areas permit keying with color-coded tickets.

STAGING AREAS: Forecourts and vestibules have been significant elements

of buildings throughout history; they have a vitally

important function in modern places of public assembly.

o Provide sheltered/weatherized preassembly facilities.

18
Table 3 (continued)

o Key staging sub areas to specific doors .

o Provide a "first rate" outside PA system to advise waiting

patrons .

ENTRANCES: The physical design of the entrance itself needs

thorough consideration because it can perform several

fimctions

.

o Prevent preassembly/ congregating at the entrance itself .

o Door design should facilitate ingress .

o Provide well-spaced peripheral entrances .

o Separate ticketing from admissions .

o Clearly distinguish ingress doors from egress doors.

o Color-coded entrances permit keying with color-coded

tickets.

19
Table 3 (continued)

CIRCULATION PATHS : Long-acknowledged as a generator of architectural

form, circulation planning is equally potent as

a molder of crowd behavior.

o Strive for design simplicity in all access and movement

routes : this lessens the need for directional graphics and

ushers.

o Provide for thru-ticketing only (no reversal of flow should

be possible).

o Capacity-handling channels should be continuous walking

surfaces such as ramps. Stairs are satisfactory for

shortening channels not subject to heavy pedestrian loads.

o Stairs should be free of mechanical crowd-control devices

. . . although they may themselves serve to control or

meter crowd flow.

o To the greatest extent possible, ingress system should be

"reversible", and usable whenever emergency egress is

necessary.

o Designs for orientation: e.g., color coordination; redundant

cues, etc.

20
Table 3 (continued)

SEATING AREA: The Ingress job is not over until the patrons have

arrived at their designated seats.

o Strive for design simplicity: this lessens the need for

directional graphics and ushers.

o Provide a "first-rate" inside PA system to advise already

seated patrons

.

o Color-coded seating quadrants permit keying with colorcoded tickets.

21
4.0 WHERE TO NEXT - SHARING BEST PRACTICES AND INITIATING RESEARCH

The design and management of places of assembly are practical tasks requiring

an understanding of how facilities and their operation affect the safety and

convenience of patrons or users. Designers and managers develop this practical

knowledge through experience. Consequently, practitioners who have had numerous

and varied experiences are likely to be more qualified to apply their craft

successfully

.

If success in a practical endeavor results from having a broad and deep

base of knowledge from which to make decisions, the quality of practice can

readily be enhanced by the documentation and exchange of information by

practitioners. The Workshop participants found helpful the Report of the

Cincinnati Task Force, and the films, videotapes and still photos shown

at the Workshop. Therefore, the individual experiences of those involved

in the design and management of places of assembly need to be collected

and made easily available for application by many.

The documentation and exchange of information can be accomplished by: 1)

identifying the critical design and management parameters of crowd dynamics;

2) developing methods for synthesizing anecdotal and varying accounts of

situations; 3) developing means for rapid and easily understood information

dissemination; 4) involving designers, managers, and public regulatory and

safety officials in periodic seminars and workshops aimed at further

illustrating or explaining recent findings and advances; and 5) involving

organizations such as the International Association of Auditorium Managers

(lAAM) and the American Institute of Architects (AIA) in the documentation

and dissemination of information.

22
The lAAM, whose 900 members manage most of the major public assembly

facilities in the U.S. and nine other countries, has taken the first step

toward implementing a systematic information exchange. In July 1980,

the lAAM Board of Directors authorized the appointment of an ad hoc "lAAM

Study Group on Crowd Behavior and Management”. The Study Group's report,

"Spectators and Safety: The Development of Standards for and Their

Implementation by Facility Executives" serves as a prospectus for a

three-year program. lAAM is now seeking public and private funds for the

project.

The combined experiences of practice and research will be instrumental

in developing general principles and will help make possible analytical modelling of crowd dynamics; both of these ultimately will

contribute to better practice. Consider now analytic modelling

as a research opportunity.

A number of specific recommendations for improving design and management

practices for places of assembly were presented earlier in this report.

The value of mechansims for documenting particular experiences and for

exchanging such documentation among facilities managers and designers

also was discussed. Equally important is the need to undertake a long

range program of research aimed at developing accurate and useful models

of crowd behavior phenomena. Briefly consider such a research program,

noting both the present state-of-the-art as well as future technical

challenges. In general, the following is based on Workshop discussions.

The program described responds to ideas presented at the Workshop and

the writers, in preparing it, draw on the relevant technical literature.

23
To start with, opinions and judgments of participating experts led to the

general conclusion that perhaps as much as 90 percent of observed variations

in crowd behavior (B) may be attributed to variation in three factors: crowd

characteristics (C), facility design and layout (F) , and management practices

(M) . In very general terms, we may refer to the relationship between these

factors with the expression:

B = f(C,F,M).

The term "crowd behavior" (B) is a complex variable consisting of several

interrelated phenomena. These include, but are not limited to, the physical

characteristics of crowds and their movement (e.g. measures of flow rates through

building spaces and density of people in a space) , normal crowd dynamics

(i.e. the normal processes by which crowds form, change, and dissolve), and

triggering mechanisms that transform normal crowds into potentially hazardous

mobs. Crowd characteristics (C) may, for any given event, be defined in

terms of demographic data, total quantities of patrons, degrees of aggregation

within an overall crowd, and such affective factors as the "mood" of the crowd.

Facility design and layout (F) refers to a building's overall configuration,

layout of circulation elements, links with transportation facilities and

parking, and capacities of means of ingress and egress. Management practices (M)

include decisions about staffing, communications, security, admissions,

and furnishings, which may vary from one event to another.

Accordingly, if a facility manager or designer possessed an equation (or

model) which accurately specified the relationship among these factors,

then the professional could predict, reasonably closely, crowd behavior

at a particular future event on the basis of anticipated crowd characteristics, facility design conditions, and management decisions.

24
For example, the manager of a facility is planning for a particular rock

concert. The professional has estimated likely crowd characteristics based

on previous experience. For this example, we will assume that there are no

substantive modifications to the physical plant which can be cost-effectively

accommodated. The manager wishes to know, with some degree of statistical

reliability, how various management decisions might affect crowd behavior

and, in addition, where tradeoffs are possible. The manager converts the

predicted conditions to quantitative form, and then employs the model

B = f(C,F,M)

where f is an empirically verified function. If the value computed for B

is within some predefined "acceptable" range, then the manager concludes that

a good match between crowd, facility, and management has been found. If B

is outside this range, then some changes are necessary. For example, the

manager may wish to reduce expenses by using fewer uniformed ushers. If

this produces an unacceptable crowd behavior prediction (B in this model),

then the manager might try altering the admissions policy in some way, in

the hope that this will counterbalance the potentially negative effect of

a reduced staff. The model would be employed again to test this modification,

and the process repeated until the manager has a satisfactory plan.

This scenario is, of course, hypothetical. At present: (1) no equations

exist specifying relationships between B, C, F, and M, and (2) neither

standardized definitions of variables to be measured in the field, nor standardized

methods for reliably measuring these variables are available. However,

the objectives of the Workshop were not intended to focus specifically on

model building and problems of measurement and data collection. The

challenge for future research, then, is to develop useful and accurate

25
means for predicting normal crowd behavior, and for enabling facility

managers and designers to evaluate various scenarios before costly mistakes

are made. Predicting non-normal crowd behavior lies much further in the

future and is beyond the scope of this discussion.

What knowledge is presently available and applicable to meeting these challenges?

How far are we from valid and useful predictive models of crowd behavior in

places of assembly? At present, a sizeable data base exists describing

pedestrian movement in buildings^^’ By far the most

pertinent and potentially the most useful data describing crowd dynamics

in stadia and other places of assembly, however, have been collected by

J. L. Pauls of the National Research Council of Canada's Division of

Building Research (NRCC/DBR) . Although many of Pauls' data have not been

fully analyzed to date, and have been neither widely published nor circulated,

it is becoming increasingly clear that numerous questions regarding

interactions between crowd characteristics, facility design, and management

practice may be analyzed using techniques and data developed by Pauls and

his associates. A review of the Canadian Government studies is Appendix F

of this report.

But while such data are becoming available, a search of the literature

revealed no quantitative models that reliably predict crowd behavior. To

make the leap from raw data to predictive models will require Intensive

analyses of crowd data to determine what factors are indeed operating,

and to what degree each factor contributes to overall variance in crowd

observations. This Chapter suggested earlier that, in the most general

terms, the three factors, crowd characteristics, facility design,

and management practice, taken together, may account for most of such

variance. But even this hypothesis needs to be tested empirically.

26
Once general factors have been statistically identified, it will be

necessary to describe particular instances within each factor mathematically

in terms which allow Interval comparisons. For example, it will be necessary

to score discrete floorplans, management decisions, and sets of crowd

characteristics along some interval scale (e.g., 0,1, 2, 3, 4 . . . n) , and

to demonstrate that, for example, a floor plan scored "4" is "twice as

good" as one scored "2. There presently exist no rational and

standardized methods for performing such nominal- to- interval data conversions,

and considerable advice from expert facility designers and managers will be

required to assign appropriate numerical values to design and management

practices. Only when factors have been identified and instances within

each factor are rendered capable of numerical scoring can such statistical

techniques as multiple regression analysis be called upon to synthesize

predictive equations, or models. Finally, it will be necessary to test

the validity and usefulness of such models under varying field conditions.

Only through testing and refinement by qualified professions will it

be possible to understand how best to use these tools.

Given the state-of-the-art, researchers believe it is possible to develop initial

models within the next three to five years, and to make available properly tested

predictive tools within the next ten years. A similar model, while directd

chiefly to the unique problems of emergency escape from fires, has already been

developed and partially validated. To attain these goals will

require the scientific and technical efforts of a skilled environmental

psychology/human factors group, assisted by modeling experts, facilities

27
managers and designers. Between 50 and 100 person-years may be required.

Finally, we believe that the conduct of this research by specially trained

and equipped behavioral scientists, working closely with experts in the

fields of facility design and management , and using observations of actual

situations, will result in design and management methods which decrease the

odds of unstable crowd behavior such as that which claimed 11 lives at the

Cincinnati Riverfront Coliseum.

The research program required as a basis for improved quantitative design

and evaluation procedures for crowd ingress exceeds the technical capabilities

and financial resources of any single research group known to the writers.

Certainly the National Bureau of Standards does not have the necessary skills.

But the technical capabilities can be mobilized in university, private and

government laboratories if resources are made available for a sustained

program of research.

28
5.0 REFERENCES

1. City of Cincinnati, [Report ofjTask Force on Crowd Control and Safety,

Crowd Management , Cincinnati, Ohio, July 8, 1980, p. 3.

2. Ibid .

3. Coplan, Norman, Its the Law; Liability for User Safety, Progressive

Architecture , July, 1981, p. 138.

4. Carstens, R.L. and Ring, S.L. Pedestrian capacities of shelter entrances.

Traffic Engineering , 1970, 38-43.

5. Predtechnskii, V.M. and Milinskii, A. I. Planning for foot traffic

flow in buildings . Translated from Russian, Stroiizdat Publishers,

Moscow, 1969. Published for the NBS, DoC and NSF Washington, DC,

by Amerind Publishing Co. Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi, 1978.

6. Roytman, M.Y. Principles of fire safety standards for building

construction . General editor: Prof. N. A. Strel’Chuck, Translated

from Russian, Construction Literature Publishing House, Moscow,

1969. Published for the NBS, DoC, and NSF Washington, DC, by

Amerind Publishing Co. Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi, 1975.

7. Stahl, F.I. and Archea, J. An assessment of the technical literature

on emergency egress from buildings . Washington, DC: National Bureau

of Standards, NBSIR 77-1313, October 1977.

8. Togawa, K. Study of fire escapes basing on the observation of multitude

currents . Japan: The Building Research Institute, Ministry of

Construction, Report No. 14, February, 1955.

9. Tregenza, P. The design of interior circulation . New York: Van

Nostrand Reinhold Co., 1976.

10. Turner, G.E. and Collins, B.L. Pedestrian movement on ramps - a preliminary Investigation . Washington, DC: National Bureau of

Standards, NBSIR 79-1729, 1979.

11. Turner, G.E. and Collins, B.L. Pedestrian movement characteristics on building ramps , Washington, DC: National Bureau of Standards, NBSIR

81-2310, 1981.

12. Adler, S.C. and Pierman, B.C. Building Accessibility for the Disabled;

A Review of Research Needs , Washington, DC: National Bureau of Standards,

NBSIR 81-2245, 1981.

13. Fruin, J.J., Pedestrian Planning and Design, New York: Metropolitan

Association of Urban Designers and Environmental Planners, Inc., 1971.

14. Stahl, F.I. An examination of the BFIRES /VERS ION I complete program:

comparing simulated with actual fire events. Architectural Science Review , 1980, 23 4, pp. 84-89.

15. Pauls, J.L. Movement of people in building evacuations. Human Response

to Tall Buildings . ed. by D. Conway, Stroudsburg, PA; Dowden, Hutchinson

and Ross, 1977.

29
16. Pauls, J.L. Building design for egress. Journal of Architectural Education , 23, 4 (Summer 1980), 38-42.

17. National Bureau of Standards, Design and Construction of Building

Exits , Washington, D.C.: National Bureau of Standards Miscellaneous

Publication M151, 1935.

18. Cincinnati Task Force Report, p. 52.

19. The performance approach is described in Wright, James R. Performance

criteria in buildings. Scientific American , Vol. 224, No. 3 (March 1971),

pp. 17-25.

A discussion of the problems of implementing the concept is in

Hemenway, D. , Performance vs. Design Standards , Washington, D.C.:

National Bureau of Standards, NBS GCR 80-287, 1980. (Available

from National Technical Information Service (NTIS) , Springfield, VA.

Order by PB//81-120362. ) Hemenway 's choice of the term "design"

as a contradistinction to "performance" may confuse discussion in some technical areas. A more widely used differentiation is

"prescriptive" vs. "performance".

The regulatory use of standards are discussed in Harter, P.J.,

Regulatory Use of Standards; The Implications for Standards Writers , Washington, D.C.: National Bureau of Standards, NBS GCR 79-171, 1979.

(Available from NTIS. Order by PB//80-120579 .

)

30
APPENDIX A

WORKSHOP AGENDA

Law Enforcement Assistance Administration/National Engineering Laboratory

Workshop on

CROWD INGRESS TO PLACES OF ASSEMBLY

National Bureau of Standards

Lecture Room B

May L, 1981

Sunday, May 3

6:00 p.m. Informal no-host gathering

Holiday, Inn, Gaithersburg, Maryland

Monday, May U

9:00 a.m. Welcome to NBS

Dr. John W. Lyons

Director, National Engineering Laboratory

Mr. George Bohlinger, Acting Administrator

Law Enforcement Assistance Administration

U.S. Department of Justice

9:20 a.m. Statement of Workshop Charge

Dr. Richard N. Wright

Director, Center for Building Technology

National Engineering Laboratory

o Identify best current design practices and performance

criteria

o Identify best current facilities management practices

o Define research needs to support improved design and management

9:30 a.m. Morning Session

Problems of Crowd Ingress to Places of Assembly, and the Role

of Facilities Design and Management Practice

o Overview of Problems of Crowd Ingress to Places of Assembly

Brief position statements by participating technical experts

o How Do Crowds Enter Places of Assembly?

Focused round-table to consider individual cases (Cincinnati

Riverfront Coliseum; Toronto CNE Stadium) and to reflect on the role of facility design, facility management, and crowd

dynamics (refer to Attachments 2, 3 and ^4

)
12:30

1:30 p

3:U5

1<:00

o How Do the Physical Characteristics of Places of Assembly

Affect Crowd Ingress, Capacity, euid Performance Under "Overload"

Conditions?

Ro\md“table discussion to identify the role of physical

characteristics and gaps in the current knowledge hase

p.m. LUNCH

.m. Afternoon Session

Implementing the Workshop Recommendations—who, when, where, how?

o Overview of the building regulatory process by

Dr. Francis T. Ventre, Chief, Environmental Design Research

Division

Feasible Approaches to Resolving Problems of Crowd Ingress to

Places of Assembly; and Implementing the Recommendations

o How Can Designers Deal Effectively with the Problems of

Crowd Ingress?

Focused round-table discussion

o How Can Facility Managers Deal Effectively with the Problems

of Crowd Ingress?

Focused round-table discussion

o What Research is Required to Support the Design and Management

of Places of Assembly?

Focused rovmd-table discussion (see Attachment 5)

'.m. Siammary

'.m. Adjourn
APPENDIX B

ROSTER OF PARTICIPANTS

APPENDIX B

ROSTER OF PARTICIPANTS

LEAA/NEL WORKSHOP ON CROWD INGRESS TO PLACES OF ASSEMBLY

National Bureau of Standards

May 4, 1981

Dr. Randall W.A. Davidson

3550 Wilshire Blvd.

Los Angeles, CA 90010

(213) 385-5211

Mr. John DeMarco

General Services Administration

Office of Federal Protective

Service Management

18th & F Streets, NW

Washington, DC 20405

(202) 566-1063

John Graff

Council and Director of

Government Relations

International Association of

Amusement Parks and Attractions

Suite 330

1025 Vermont Avenue, NW

Washington, DC 20005

Charles Higginbotham

International Association of Chiefs

of Police

11 Firstfield Road

Gaithersburg, MD 20760

(301) 948-0922

Jack Lee, Fire Chief

Charlotte Fire Department

125 S. Davidson St.

Charlotte, NC 28202

President, International Association

of Fire Chiefs, Inc.

1329 18th Street, NW

Washington, DC

(704) 374-2791 (Office, Charlotte, NC)

Dr. John W. Lyons

Director

National Engineering Laboratory

National Bureau of Standards

Building 225, Room B119

Washington, DC 20234

(301) 921-3434

Thomas D. Minter

Lexington Center Corporation

430 West Vine Street

Lexington, KY 40507

(606) 233-4567

Mr. J.L. (Jake) Pauls

Division of Building Research

National Research Council of Canada

Ottawa, Ontario

KIA 0R6

CANADA

Major Jack M. Sands

U.S. Park Police Special Forces

1100 Ohio Drive, SW

Washington, DC 20242

(202) 426-7943

Aaron Siegel

The Spectrum

Pattison Place

Philadelphia, PA 19148

(215) 389-9516

Dr. Robert Sigholtz

Starplex

2001 E. Capitol Street

Washington, DC 20003
2

Dr. Fred I. Stahl

National Bureau of Standards

Building 226, Room A355

Washington, DC 20234

(301) 921-3595

Mr. George E. Turner

National Bureau of Standards

Building 226, Room A355

Washington, DC 20234

(301) 921-2102

Dr. Francis T. Ventre

National Bureau of Standards

Building 226, Room B320

Washington, DC 20234

(301) 921-3704

Paul L. Wertheimer

City of Cincinnati

City Hall, Room 152

801 Plum Street

Cincinnati, OH 45238

(513) 352-3241

Talbott Wilson, FAIA

Talbott Wilson Associates, Inc.

2223 W. Loop South

#515A

Houston, TX 77027

(713) 626-0350

Dr. Richard N. Wright

Director, Center for Building Technology

National Bureau of Standards

Building 226, Room B250

Washington, DC 20234

(301) 921-3377
APPENDIX C

TECHNICAL PAPERS

RISK MANAGEMENT

FOR

PUBLIC ASSEMBLY GATHERINGS

Under the auspices of:

U.S. Department of Commerce

National Bureau of Standards

Law Enforcement Administration

National Engineering Laboratory

CROWD INGRESS TO PLACES OF ASSEMBLY

MAY 4, 1981

Gaithersburg, Maryland

HISTORICAL AND BEHAVIOUR PERSPECTIVES

By: Dr. Randall W. A. Davidson

Public Assembly Pi Entertainment Industry Consultant
('
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

Ingress, the act of entering, cannot be considered without direct

relationship to egress (the act of leaving or exiting). The confrontation of human beings with one another exists at all levels of human

endeavour, and with confrontation comes violence. This violence

can be visited upon other human beings and/or property. This violence

can simmer and be insidious, or it can flare into external destruction.

History exacts ipon us the behaviour ^ observe each day. It is

not the "times", because the earth has always known violence. Ours is

a history of this determined behaviour. Cain and Abel knew too well

these stirrings of desire. The desire to gain territory through an

opening, all have the gleanings of "ingress".

With these wants, desires and surfacing violence, we speed down

from the historic paths, examining people and their desires and movements. The crowded courtyards, the ancient streets in older cities,

the common baths, the churches, the stadiums, the battlegrounds, and

the prisons. Too many people in one place, too many people in one

cranped space, many people of common roots gathered in one ill-defined

locale --and the list goes on.

I am in awe of the behaviour of humans gathered in open or closed

spaces. St. Peter’s Square in Rome, the stadiums in this country and

South America, the bullrings, the convention halls, the parades, the

rock shows, and just recently, the quarter of a million people of

assorted ages, shapes and persuasions at the landing of the Space Shuttle.
- 1

-

Conmon Elements

The conponents of the crowd were all present: i.e., different

behaviours, backgrounds, mores, ages and economic strata. But, the

common behavioural note: The cause for gathering! (I might add,

purpose does not reduce violence, at all levels. Have you been at

St. Peter's Square in Rome for a religious event? Note the nuns; they

move themselves, jockeying for position (seats) and would be the envy

of any skatback or quarterback. We also note with sorrow, those who

died, tranpled to death in the human glut to see the Holy Father,

John Paul II on his recent tour. The crowds were very large.

The crowd is many things. Those who are aggressive, always aggressive. There are those vho come to watch, to observe, and to enjoy,

quietly; there are the predators, whose behaviour at crowd scenes prey

on the weak and the strong, jostling, pushing, striking out, and causing

physical injury. The purpose in these instances sometimes weighs the

event. The hockey games, the soccer riots , the rock shows, the after- thegame charge onto the field or game floor. The incidents are legion.

Unfortunately, there seems to be a measured increase in the last 12 years,

and an escalation.

Influences

Alcohol and drugs are specifically pointed to as both causes and

means. Behaviour is altered for a myriad of reasons. This space, that

seat, proximity to stars, being first, saving seats, a place in line, and

other natural cravings. No longer do the old, familiar "patient" standards tie us down. We do not patiently wait in lines, anywhere, as we

did during WW II, for our comforts (nylons, cigarettes) or for our needs

(meat, bread, cheese, gas).
- 3

-

Present-Day Happenings

The mentality of the crowd has now become, in part, what it was

nurtured to be, by events, a more common, animal drive.

Recall the Times Square crowds, the Mardi Gras Parade, the Grand

Central Station servicemen groi5)s, the Rose Bowl Parade 5 Game, and

Soldiers* Field in Chicago. All of us recall Ebbets Field, which always

seemed a tad rowdy. The Kentucky Derby seemed sedate by conparison.

These places had some confusion, the thrust of human kind, but never did

I see the level of viciousness that I see now. Even the gentleness of

leaving church after the service has been vitiated by the rush to the

parking lot.

Crowd Control

At what level of humanity and behaviour should we appropriately

consider and actually apply control or order? History has supplied

some controls in a few architectural and engineering ways. The vomitories

in the old stadiums, the tremendously wide doors in the churches and

public buildings. The stair cases were also wide and sweeping. The

plazas generous and wide. Granted many streets were not as wide as we

would have wanted, but there were wide, large avenues and streets.

Narrowing the Gap

We have physically encroached ipon these generosities. Our mode

of transportation is different, to the point, that we now crowd streets,

freeways and bury our crowds into subways, trolleys, and buses. Crowds

in our transportation, crowds in our housing, crowds in our places of

worship, crowds in our educational institutions, crowds in our workplace,

and crowds in our entertainment facilities.
-4-

Where do we go? Or better yet, how do we cope and adapt? We grow

in a crowded environment which is hostile! The "me first" syndrome

almost as if by synapse, is our daily fare. There are several directions

to proceed, with all the "givens":

Suggested Avenues to Proceed

1. Recommendations for engineering and building standards;

2. Development of behavioural standards for crowd management;

3. Recommended instructions for all Managers, Administration and

personnel who operate public assembly facilities;

4. Recommended guidelines to all associations, businesses and organizations who operate within the public assembly domain.

5. Specific recommendations to insurance, fire, and property personnel

who deal with public assembly facilities.

6. Specific guidelines for educational institutions as related to

conduct of students and personnel at all levels, and recommended

courses of study and behavioural parameters.

7. Recommended guidelines to all architectural and engineering societies.

8. Recommended guidelines and standards for City Managers, Police, and

County personnel who work with Public Assembly buildings and events.

9. Setting-ip of a committee who will examine the needs of the next

25-50 years of construction of Public Assembly areas and buildings

and how crowd management and strategies can be best utilized.

Observat ions

In the last 31 years we have visited thousands of open and closed

structures, used especially for Public Assembly and for the Entertainment

Industry. We have observed the individuals and the crowds in every

part of the world. We finally arrive at the behavioural aspect of the
- 5

-

”crowd- minded". They, the crowd, may change. The awareness may be

heightened as to their personal safety, by a variety of methods, but

basically the eirotion of the moment will hold sway. It is incumbent ipon

the shapers and the builders of our cities and architectural structures,

the codes and standards committees, the managers of our political structures, to be cognizant and schooled in the vagaries of human nature,

behaviours in crowded conditions, and mob volence.

They should also be carefully trained, instructed, and evaluated in

those concepts and conceive elements which allow for psychological and

physical crowd control. I am not suggesting drug control nor armed

guards, but the necessary physical and behavioural strategies used to

assure crowd control, or to control people- if a crowd becomes unruly or

riotous. All these factors should be studied.

Guards ^ Security

Certainly guards may be used. They are and will be. Airports

and their "check-point Charlies" it seems to me, have pointed the way

toward every future public assembly gathering. We already have the

technology of security with the surveillance cameras and T\'^ monitors.

This will, in fact, be our technology in a somewhat more sophisticated

thrust, in all public assembly gatherings.

It seems we can depend upon the behaviourisms of large groijps or

crowds and therefore we should be able to plot the safety parameters

vhich will safely control these behaviours.

Training

All personnel in public assembly positions should be well- trained

in crowd management. The intent of this is all the more vital due to the
- 6

-

present poor training and qualifications of most security personnel. The

uniform and adult ages are not now foremost deterrants of this day and age.

There are systems in the U.S. for: Professional Training of security

personnel. There are also institutes for the training of Personnel in

the handling of terrorist activity. From a liability point of view, I

believe this type of training would be beneficial, especially for key

personnel in all public assembly situations.

The Reserve Corps recently finished a two-week course for officers,

in the handling of terrorist activity. If one observes large race tracks

where escalators are used, we observe a combination of technology and

human energy. The escalators are set at specific speeds to move

large numbers of people before the races and toward the end of the races.

Guards are also stationed at the tops and the bottoms of the escalators,

to insure control of the mass of people. The misstep of one person, however,

can cause a pile up and panic.

Hotel and Nightclub Panic

Recall carefully the panic problems at the recent Night Club and

Hotel fires. Here we have an external motivation for erratic behaviour

based upon preservation of life. Specific safeguards had not been

designed for these structures. Hardware, equipment, architectural

structures, decorations, furniture, and windows .. . all of these had not

been tailored for the specific function they had been designed for, i.e.,

the housing, movement, and entertainment of large groups of people. All

aspects of human behaviour were engulfed in those major disasters.

Design

What we are receiving is a behavioural syndrome set by certain

concepts of our civilization, i.e., the public buildings, places and
- 7

-

events are ’’Relatively" safe. We expect some crowds, some control, some

jostling and some inconvenience. We also assume a level of trust \dien

we move into the public sectior.

The architectural structure, guided by code, experience, and law,

experiences another type of trust. What we know is that there is a

dichotomy between the two trusts. The unit code for doorways may be

observed, but we find it inadequate. Ingress may be relatively easily

handled, if the structural parameters (space, width, etc) is carefully

thought-out for the events which occur in each structure or public area.

Capacity

The facts often belie the design. Structures are always crowded

beyond legal capacities. Structures, especially door units, hardware,

surfaces, parking, aisles and corridors, strip units, balconies, staircases,

and doors do not seem to be sufficiently and carefully designed to meet

the actual needs - ingress or egress - of any crowd. Yes, the people

move through, but the "adaptation" of the crowd is always depended ipon.

Adaption to the circumstances and to the structures. If the entrance

units are not sufficient, then great energy and surge is used to push

through

.

Scraping, buffeting one another, bunping up against wall surfaces,

and tripping, all the "usual" physical movements, propelled by a common

behavioural drive. ME FIRST. Often times the movement through these

spaces is promulgated by diverse movements, i.e., first come, first

seated. (Festival seating). (Note the people who save seats, or who

establish "territory".)

Those who do not want to move and are pushed, lifted and propelled

along are tranpled.
- 8

-

Directions

We proceed toward a number of givens in our pursuit of proper

ingress:

1. Architectural parameters designed and coded, in order to

mitigate any potential pressure cooker type of physical

or space situation. Guidelines for renovation of existing

structures (such as our rehab of buildings for handicapped)

,

and Building Code modification for all new public structures,

indoor and outdoor. All change should reflect actual

performance synthesis, not archaic practices.

2. Specific procedures for ingress, egress and panic, should be

spelled out with a technical eye toward potential crowd

catastrophes. Every crowd situation should be observed,

examined and plotted for individual control parameters,

i.e., number of people, size of structure, space utilization,

specific functions of area, and control factors.

3. Risk Management Control Procedures: Pre-planning for all

situations must be initiated. element should be considered. Drills, such as in a disaster, should take place

and be evaluated. Each control concept and management procedure should be systematically ordered, to mitigate each

risk: i.e. guards, drills, planning, design, lighting,

trained personnel , graphics, communication devices, etc.
-9-

4. Above all a major consideration should be understood:

a. The use of Drugs, alcohol and terrorist tactics

has shown an escalation in the last ten years.

b. Those controls for ingress and management within

these areas should be carefully planned, and developed.

These contributing factors should be obvious, but often

are misunderstood, or minimized.

5. The use of security technology should be encouraged, and

a systems management program initiated.

6. Engineering data and behavioural studies have been published.

The task is to add the present conponents and coalesce into

one set of standards or guidelines. There are systems

developed throughout the world which can be readily applied

to this with meetings; the concensus of which can be combined

into a definitive standard. The task is capable of being

acconplished.

Crowd Disasters - A S vs terns Evaluation

Of Causes and Countenneasures

By: John J. Fruin, Ph.D., P.E.

Research Engineer

The Port Authority of NY & NJ

Prepared for the Crowd Ingress Viorkshop sponsored by

The National Bureau of Standards and Law Enforcement

Administration - May 4, 1981

Crowding occurs normally in many human activities. High volumes

of pedestrians, in the tens of thousands, are processed daily through

transportation terminals, high rise buildings, stadia, and various tyoes

of public events. Efficient crowd management and control is a deterninar.t

of the quality of the human experience in these environmental settings,

but more importantly, is a critical life safety consideration. The'^e

have been numerous crowd disasters, some of which are described in this

paper, where uncontrolled crowding has resulted in significant casualties

and loss of life. Many of these incidents could have been avoided by

relatively simple crowd management and control strategies. An understanding of the system dynamics contributing to a crowd disaster is a

necessary prerequisite to devel opine appropriate crowd management and

control techniques. The systems analysis method is utilized in this

paper to establish a framework for evaluating both the factors contri-

^ buting to crov/d disasters, and for suitable countermeasures.

The Crowd Disaster "System"

Systems analysis is a method of reducing an organism or pro1
cess to its simplest form for the purpose of developing an understanding

* of the elements comprising the system, and their contribution to its

function. The fundamental systems analysis framework utilized in this

paper has been successfully applied to many traffic process's, and is

considered to be well adapted to a synthesis of the crowd disaster problem. Crowding disasters are viewed as a type of pedestrian traffic process in which certain critical performance limits have been exceeded.

Essentially, all systems are reduceable to four fundamental

elenients: (1) time , (2) space , (3) information and (4) energy . The

element of time is defined as the temporal period in which the system

exists and performs, space as the physical setting in which it functions

i nformati on as the stimuli or comunicative data necessary for the system to perform, or to modify its performance, and energy , the kinetic

and potential mass energy required to sustain the system performance.

For purposes of this discussion energy will be renamed the crowd force ,

and further defined as the energy created by massed pedestrians that

results in crowd crushing pressures, and the injury and death associated

with a crowd disaster.

The four fundamental crowd disaster elements are illustrated

di acramatically on Figure 1. This diagram shov;s the crowd force as a

vector or resultant of the other three elements. Units of time and

space may be referred to directly in this discussion, i.e., minutes or

square feet) or in ccxnbined units when expressed as a service rate such

as persons processed per minute.

A definition of a crowd disaster is proposed on the_ basis of

this system's outline and the supporting discussion that follows, namely

"A crov.'d disaster is the raoid coming together of a group

of persons in a constricted space with sufficient mass

and force to cause human injury or death."

- 2 -
The Element of Time

A reviev.' of crowd disasters shoivs that most developed in a

relatively short time period, often within a few minutes, after a mass

movement of pedestrians. Generally, there is a rapid accumulation or

queue of pedestrians as the traffic processing or service rate of some

element of the pedestrian circulation system is temporarily exceeded.

As long as the demand or arrival rate is less than the processing rate

of the element (stairs, corridors, doorv/ays, escalators, elevators, etc.)

pedestrian traffic moves freely. Hov/ever, when the demand rate exceeds

the processing rate of an individual element, even for a short period,

the traffic flow process is interrupted, resulting in delay and queuina.

Both demand (the arrival pattern) and service (processing capacity) are

tine related.

For example, arriving patrons are not subjected to the same

delays and queuing at a stadium as departing patrons because the arrival

traffic is typically spread out over a longer time period. The stadiu^’

departure demand is instantaneous, with almost all spectators desirinc

to exit immediately after the performance. A similar type of problem

occurs in a transportation terminal when a large trainload of passengers

is discharged onto a platform. In either case, the capacity of the pedestrian traffic system is temporarily exceeded, pedestria s are delayed

and queues forr,. Platform clearance times of up to 9 minutes have been

observed in New York's Pennsylvania Station after the simultaneous arrival of about 2,400 passengers in two trains at one platform, and clearance

delays of 20-30 minutes are not uncommon for departino spectators at

large stadia.

A simple crowd incident at the 1970 Japanese Exposition illus-

- 3 -
trates the factor of a rapid queue buildup. A pedestrian tripped and

I fell at the outlet end of a long mechanical walkway at the Exposition

blocking the exit and causing a pileup of following pedestrians. The

pileup resulted in injury to 42 persons, but none fatally (Appendix

Al). Moving walk systems have a practical traffic capacity of about

100 persons per minute, indicating the entire incident occurred within

a relatively short time before the walkway could be stopped. This incident and others to be discussed show that rapid queue buildup at an

overloaded pedestrian processing facility of some type is a common crowd

disaster characteristic.

The Element of Space

Another common characteristic of crowd disasters is the development of critical pedestrian densities, approaching the plan view area of

the human body, or about 1.5 square feet area per person or less. At

these personal area occupancies the pedestrian becomes incapable of individualized movement although surges, pulses, or other sporadic and uncontrolled group movements may occur. An illustration of crowd densities

approaching the critical density level is shown as Figure 2. This photograph, which is the product of Otis Elevator Comapny studies of elevator

capacity, shows average pedestrian areas of about 1.8 square feet per

person

.

The relationships of average personal areas to pedestrian traffic

rn-i movement and individual personal mobility is reasonably understood.'-^-* Pedestrians moving in a traffic stream require average areas of 25 square feet

per person or more to attain normal walking speeds and to bypass and avoid

conflicts with others. As the average area is reduced, walking is slower

and more restricted, with hiqher probabilities of conflict and inability to

- 4 -
CROWD DISASTER “SYSTEM”

PEDESTRIAN AREA OCCUPANCY OF ELEVATORS

MIXED OCCUPANCY — APPROXIMATELY

1i SF/PERSON

FIGURE 2

- 5 -
bypass others. At ten square feet per person, walkinn becomes signifI icantly restricted and speeds markedly reduced but some individual

freedom of movement is retained. Surprisingly, the maximum capacity of

a walkway is attained at approximately 5 square feet per person, with

locomotion reduced to a shuffling gait, with movement generally possible

only as a group, and with virtually no individual choice of direction.

This would be characteristic of an exiting crowd from a stadium.

Below 5 square feet per person average area occupancy, individual

pedestrian mobility becomes increasingly restricted. At approximately 3

square feet per person, involuntary touching and brushing against other

pedestrians occurs, a behavioral threshold which is generally avoided in

public, except in more crowded elevators or transit vehicles. Below 2

square feet per person, potentially dangerous crov/d forces and psychological pressures begin to develop.

The Gradual development of critical pedestrian densities resultinn in potentially dangerous crowd forces can be illustrated by a

personal experience of the author. The incident occurred in Pennsylvania

Station, New York, when a general delay in commuter train arrivals created

a larne temporary and growing accumulation of standing pedestrians in a

confined passenger waiting area of about 8-10,000 square feet. The crowd

Gradually reached a critical density at which personal individual movement

was impossible. Unusual "shock waves" ran throuah the closely packed

crowd, at times creating the sensation that the crowd was a sinale pulsating and uncontrollable mass. These shock waves v/ere mostly caused b}'

pedestrians entering the crowd mass from an escalator and stair group.

The shock wave was magnified as it moved throuah the crowd resultino in a

force sufficient to cause surges or lateral uncontrolled crowd movements

- 6 -
of about 8-10 feet, approximately 100 feet from the source, fluch fear

I ran throuah the crowd, with many persons urging each other to be calm

and not to push. Station security personnel were unable to control the

situation, until crowd densities were finally reduced by loading several

late arriving trains.

A recent press report describes a similar incident that occurred

on a Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system platform after an interruption

of train service. A large crowd accumulation developed on the platform,

aggravated by the continuous passenger delivery characteristic of an escalator, which kept bringing pedestrians into the confined platform space.

Fortunately, a potentially serious incident was avoided by stopping the

escalator (Appendix Al).

The Element of Information

The mechanical walkv;ay crowd incident at the 1970 Japanese

Exposition was notable in that information was no"*: involved in producing

the crow:' motivation that resulted in the pileup of pedestrians. The

crowd force creating the incident was produced by the mechanical walkway itself. In the author's personal experience in Pennsylvania Station,

critical crowd densities were reached, but positive communication by the

un\.'illin<^ participants in the crush helped to avoid potential disaster.

The information communicated to and within a crowd viewed as

oerhaps the most sinnificant factor in developinn the group motivation

and crowd forces necessary to produce a disaster. Two general group

behavior categories have been defined by psychologists as operable in

“crowd disasters: (1) panics, and (2) crazes[3]. Panics are almost always

associated with crowd earess, whereas crazes with crowd ingress disasters.

- 7 -
Panic - A panic is defined as a group behavior involvinn flioht

from a real or perceived threat in which personal escape appears to be

the only effective response, and v/here the group behavioral structure

deteriorates because the escape route is perceived to be inadequate to

accomnodate the group. It should be emphasized that the initial flight

from a source of danger is a normal human reaction, and that the panic

behavior is a resultant of a frustration of that escape. The disintegration of the group behavior may result in impulsive choices of individual escape tactics without regard to realities of the surroundina

environment, or reasonable concerns for personal safety and the safety

of others. The role of information in panic situations can be illustrated by two classical crowd disasters involving a group perception of

a threat, when in fact no substantial threat existed other than that

from the uncontrolled group action itself.

The first is the Brooklyn Bridge panic on Decoration Day, May

30, 1883, six days after the bridge opened. The day was warm and sunny

and an estimated 20,000 pedestrians were walkino across the bridge. The

incident began at a staircase at the Manhattan end of the bridge v/hich

became jammed with pedestrians movina both up and down. Oncoming throngs

from both directions kept shoving those who were immobile on the steps.

A woman lost her footing on the steps, falling on those beneath her, and

causing others to fall. The excitement and cries of the injured attracted

others, and in the confusion, some shouted that the "bridge was falling".

This incited the crowd into a movement to escape and in the resultant

crush 12 persons were killed and scores v/ere injured (Appendix A2).

The other famous case of croup panic is Iroquois Theater fire

of 1903, when in an 8-minute period 500 patrons perished, mostly in crowd

crushes at stairways and inadequate exits. In this incident someone ob-

- 8 -
served smoke and loudly yelled "fire", causing a spontaneous mass exodus.

The actual fire damaged only a few seats in the auditorium and probably

was never a serious life safety threat to the audience. The theater was

back in business after a few days.^-^^ The Iroquois Theater disaster may

have prompted the famous quotation by Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendall

Holmes, "The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a

man in falsely shouting 'fire' in a theater and causing a panic." (U.S.

Supreme Court, ^!arch 3, 1919, Schenck vs. United Stated). A judicial

recognition of the relationship of the information element in group behavior.

Crazes - A craze is defined as a group behavior in which there

is a temporary short lived competitive rush by a group toward some attraction or objective considered to have some important human or material value. The normal group behavioral structure disintegrates into a temporary

abandonment of established personal values caused by a complete short-term

fixation on the objective. Information is involved in a craze by creatine,

cr disproportionately enhancinn the attractive value of the objective to

the group member, or as shown in the panic examples, by inciting the orouo

to action by false information relating to the attainment of, or access

to, the objective.

Two crowd disaster incidents occurrinq during the 1980 world

tour of the Pope and the December 3, 1979, Cincinnati Coliseum disaster

are illustrative of a group craze (Appendix A3, A4). Durino the Pone's

May visit to Kinshasa, Zaire, seven women and two children were trampled

-- to death and 72 persons were injured trying to get into an open-air Mass.

A crowd waiting to attend the Mass surged toward an iron gate when it

was opened for their entry. In Fortaleza, Brazil, in October, a crowd

crush killed seven and injured dozens more when thousands of persons

- 9

-
broke down the gates to obtain choice seats in the Castelao Stadium

I seven hours before the Pope's arrival. Later on in the day, the Pope

addressed an overflow crowd of about 140,000 without reported incident.

The behavioral craze in the Cincinnatti Coliseum incident in which 11

died, was also created by a desire to obtain choice seating, coupled

with limited ingress capacity.

Movement and Crowd Forces

The combined pressures of massed pedestrians and shock wave

effects through crowds at the critical density level produce forces

v/hich are impossible for individuals, or even small groups of individuals to resist. Reports of persons being literally lifted out of their

shoes and of clothes being torn off are a common result of the forces

involved in crowd incidents. Survivors of crowd disasters report difficulty in breathing due to crowd pressures, and asphyxia is a more

typical cause of deaths than trampling by the crowd. In the Glasgow

Scotland soccer stadium incident in which 66 persons died, the failure

of a steel railing under crowd pressures contributed to the piling up

of pedestrians (Appendix A4). The bending of a steel pipe railing under crowd pressures was reported at the Cincinnatti Coliseum incident.

The force required to bend a 2" diameter steel railing, applied 30

inches above the base is estimated at 1100 pounds (Appendix A9).

The extreme crowd pressures generated in crowd disasters require pushing within the crowd to produce the momentum that results

in the compounding and magnification of forces. When the crowd is

densely packed and forces are applied it performs as an almost incompressible fluid medium, with shock waves moving through it. In a densely

packed but static crowd there would be discomfort but no extreme crowd

- 10 -
force. However, a dense crowd has the potential for shock wave prooaqaI tion at any time.

Countermeasures

The system elements of time, space , information and energy provide a framework for developing countermeasure strategies for reducing

the probability of crowd disasters where there are large public gatherings.

The objective of time based crowd management strategies is to

prevent the buildup of large pedestrian queues in short time periods.

This requires the provision of adequate pedestrian processing facilities

and processing personnel to accommodate expected patterns of pedestrian

demand. The demand pattern should be managed where possible to establish

a consistent pedestrian arrival process. A simple example of time management of demand is the printed time of arrival ticket used for special exhibits. In places of assembly, early arrivals should be accommodated and

not accumulated into a large queue.

The objective of space based crowd management is to prevent

the rapid buildup of large pedestrian queues in limited or constricted

spaces, and/or processing through inadequate pedestrian facilities.

Virtually all crowd disasters have occurred at some form of bottleneck

or traffic flow constriction, such as an inadequate stair or entrance/

exit portal. Dispersion of ingress and egress at public gatherings

through separated access points is a good example of a spacial crowd

management strategy.

Demand metering is a time and space crowd management strategy

which can be used effectively to prevent queue buildups at crjtical processin'^ elements. Metering is the control or holding back of pedestrians

at a processing element, releasing them at a rate equal or less than the

service capacity of the element. Metering must be exercised with caution,

- 11 -
because it also produces a queue, but ideally in a better crov/d control

I configuration. An example of a meter would be the development of a

pedestrian holding area away from the head of a stair to prevent potentially dangerous crowding and pushing at the stair interface. The meter

helps to absorb surges in demand, keeping the arrival rate in balance

with available capacity.

The objective of information based crowd management strategies

is to modify the time and space elements to prevent large pedestrian accumulations, and where possible to prevent the onset of a behavioral

panic or craze. A printed ticket stipulating both time of arrival and

dispersed point of ingress is an example of the use of information media

for crowd management. Reserved seating, as opposed to general admission

seating, reduces the possibility of a behavioral craze. Visually v/ell

defined and adequately designed pedestrian facilities, in the direct line

of probable human flight, tend to limit potential panic.

The objective energy or crov/d force management strategies would

be to prevent the development of rapid mass movements of pedestrians in

public gatherings. This involves all the foregoing strategies of tine,

space and information management. Crowd forces can be minimized by separating waiting pedestrians into smaller groups, avoiding sudden crov/d

disturbances, or the rapid opening of an undercapacity processing element

in the face of a large crowd accumulation.

- 12 -
CROUD

DISASTERS -

SYSTEMS

EVALUATION

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REFERENCES

1. Miller, Janes. G., The Nature of Living Systems - Behavioral Science

Volume 21. '76, pp. 295-319.

2. Fruin, J., Pedestrian Planning and Design , pub. MAUDEP, 1971, 206 dd

(out of print)

3. International Encyclopedia of Social Sciences , (Ref.) Mass Phenomena

4. Schultz, D., Panic Behavior - Discussion and Readings , pub. Random

House

.

1
APPENDIX CONTENTS

PAGE

1. 1970 EXPO, Japan Walkway Accident A1

2. 1980 BART Transit Platform Incident A1

3. 1883 Brooklyn Bridge Panic A2

4. 1980 VJorld Tour of Pope A3

5. 1979 Cincinnati Coliseum A4

6. 1971 Glasgow Scotland Soccer Stadium A5

7. 1975 Buenos Aires Soccer Stadium A6

8. 1977 Mexico City Cultural Competition A6

9. (ND) Tokyo Rock Concert A6

10. 1976 Rio de Janeiro Faith Healing A7

11. 1981 Athens Soccer Stadium A8

12. Estimate of Crowd Force required to Bend Steel Railing A9

V Sm7nariK» C^mulr*

• Fa. Nov. 14. 1980

Shockwave From S.F. Misfi^

Huge Jam on BARTIscafator

Thousands of BART commuters had an awful morning yester- day after a disabled tram in San

Francisco caused a bizarre foulup

miies away at the 12ib Street

station in Oakland.

Commuters were delayed

about a half hour, and many wound

up running in place on a jampacked escalator.

.About 8 a.m., a tram bound

iron San Francisco to Concord

aeveloned problems near the Embarcadero Station. Because of a malfunction with the propulsion

sN’stem. the tram wouldn’t go for-, ward.

The -oerator got pe.mission

from 3AT.T central centre! to back

:r.e tram tnrouco a switch onto the westbound trdtKS at the Emnarcadt rc Mear.whiic two lOcar tra'.ns IjiI c: commuiers were zipping

along, headed for Sac Francisco.

U:.» r.ad come from Concord and was at 12ih Street in Oakland.

Rather than send the train down

the track that was blocked by the

stalled train In San Francbco.

BART decided to send it to Fre- mont Instead —bad news for about

700 passengen who wanted to go to San Frandsca Everybody got off. Then centra] centred heard

that the stalled train bad moved out

of the way and that the San

Francisco track was clear again, so

it decided to send the Oakland train to San Frandsoo after aU. But

somebody forgot to open the doors, so the train left the station with its ex-passengers still milling around

the 12th Street station platform.

Just then, the Fremont-toSan

Francisco .train pulled in on the

track upstairs, with another 1000 annoyed passengers. These people

had planned to hde to San Fiasco. but B.ART had diverted their

train to RJehmond. So they piled off at the 12th Street sution and

headed downstairs to the platform

where the San Francisco trains come in.

That platform was Jammed

with refugees from the earlier tram

and could hold no more people.

Passengers down the esca- btor couldn't find any room to staxxL and there were ao many

people behind them they couidni.

go back, so they stayed on the

escalator. But the cKalator steps

kept moving— and with no place

to go, the passengers had to run in place, at if they wtn on a tread

mil

^ After several minutes of this, me pusengers set up such an

outcry that the sution agent finaLy

shut off the escalator.

*Tt sounds amustng." said one

of the passengers, “but it came

dose to a panic There was juri

nowhere to go and that damr.eo

escalatOT wouidnt stop.”

“It was a very unfortunate

sitnation,” said BART spokesman

Sy Mottber.- ^ was one of those

momlnga”

’

The incident ddayed trams

about half an hoar.

?• Expo Sidewalk Moves Again « OSAKA, Japan, April 4 (UPI)

r —TTia moving sidewalk at expo

[ 70 began moving again Friday

after a shutdown of eight days

' following an accident that in- jured 42 persons after a woman

felL Offiicals said 28 hostesses and 28 guards had been added

: to the regular auff that patrols tte sidevraJk.

- A1 -
PROBLEM LINE

' Sy Anita Richtennan

Q. We would like to know abwt'l3>e panic on Ifae Brooklyn Bridge, in which several people otbo

killed. Is it true that it was called because someoDe

said the bridge was falling? When did it take plaae,

bow many were kdled, and why dad asiycne thhdL it - was falling? ”7. —4th Grade, Daly Schcnl, Bart Warfimgtaa

A. The tragedy occurred on May SO, 1883,

^

days after the bridge was opened. It was Dsccra*

tion Day; the afternoon was warm and sunny and

an eetimated 20,000 people were walking acroas the

bridge at 4 PM, approximate time of the inci- dent. The panic lx ran at a staircase leading to the

promenade at the end of the Manhattan e^ipraecfa. - As people tried to walk up the stairs, otbra were- coming down, creating a massive traffic jam. Oncoming throngs from both dirpctions kept ahoving

against those who were immobUe on the steps. One woman at the head of the stairs lost her footing and~

was pushed onto those below her, causing others to

fall. The stairweD was padfed with dead end dying

victims and many people had their clotbes tom off.

The ezdteanent and cries brought oxire cnlookerB

who contributed to the devastation. People were ao

' jammed that many had Mood oozing from their noses and mouths. Those who couldn’t see what was going on said that the bridge was falling. By

ibe'time it was over, 12 persons had been killed and

scores were injured. Some theorized that the panac

had been started by pickpockets, who wotdd Bud

easy targets among the terror-stricken victnns.

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Mourning Scots check dead ' Minlcl^ Griffith! GLASGOW. Scotland —

(UPl- Rfuler-CP) — Mourn*

Scotsmen yesterday

idcfiuried the bodies of rel- atives among the 6C persons mho died ^turday in Itw morst disaster in Britain's spectator sports history.

Three of the dead remained

unclaimed more than 24 hours

after being trampled or suf- focated under a massive pile- up of soccer fans at Glasgow's

JbroT park.

Two of the dead were a

Canadian father and son, idenuned as David Macphersoo, 30, of Edmonton,

and hs . eight-year-old son.

Nigel. They had been on

holiday in Scotland, police

said. .More than 200 other persons were injured. G6 seriously

enough to remain hospitalized.

.\s tlie shocked nation mourned for the dead, Britisli Sports Minister Elton Grif- nths sanmoned top advisers

to discuss safety provisions

for spectators in soccer and

other sports stadiums. f\>Iicc assembling details of Satur- day’s tragedy reported mony

%r. Loesses said it began when

fa.ns filing out about a minute

before the end of the cliff- hanger Rangers-Cellic match

dashed back up the stairc. Their signal 'tus a roar

indicating the Rangers had

scored a last-second goal to

tie Celtic M. But the final mhisiie came as they still headed unwards and hundreds

of other fans began swarming

dOWT*. The witnesses said the massive weiglil of Uie two slrain- irg throngs snapped a gray,

luDular steel railing — one of several rurming down the concrete stairs for handgrippuig and crov d channeling.

A poUcenuui said he was

leaving the match when he

heard shouting and screaming.

**I looked back and saw a

terrible sight,” he said. “A

pile of bodies about 10 feet high, ail laid the same way.

with their faces toward us —

a wall of heads and faces.”

‘•I carried away one g ngcr

laddie and a colleague gave him the kiss of life (moutli-tomouth resuscitation) until a

doctor told him: 'Don’t waste

your lime.’

the bodies.” said Campbefl.

who suflcred.a crushed ankle. John Allen is a slim, 24-ycarold fan of the Rangers soccer team from Tilltcoulry, Scotp

land. He had a*kg injury and

said, ’it was hellish.” “1 ended up under a pile of men. Some were dead. Men

and hoi’s were lying in one

gigantic mass about 50 yards

long in the passageway,"* he

said.

Sports Minister Griffiths summoned his t’wo top advisers, Sir John Lang and

Walter Winterbollom. lo a meeting today in l/>ndon to d.scuss the disaster’s general

implications.

TRIED TO COUNT

tried to "BUT HE WAS DEAD"

**I gave the kiss of life myself to a man I thought was alive. Twice I dioughi I had him breathing, but he was

dead. -The injuries of some of the people who had been crushed

right under the barrier were

terrible. We came away without bools, socks and the buttoms of our trousers soak- ed in blood.

"It was only possible to drag people clear from the

top by linking bands so that,

in reaching over, we didn't

fall on top of them.”

In the middle of the crush was Sam Smith, 19. "I saw them fall,” he said,

"they were dropping like ninepins and the crowd bdiind

kept forcing us on. I,was still standing upright, being crusli- ed as though in a vise, when I blacked out. “I came to at the bottom of the stairs. I just lay there, watching the dead being

dragged away.”

- George Connor

count the bodies. ”1 gave up when 1 got to 40.

f just couldn't face it any

longer.”

“Everybody w*as pushing Jonvard. but when they real- ized what was happening, they

tried to fall back.” said William Stevenson. “Everylliing was confused.

Tlierc were arms and legs

sticking out all over the place.

Wc saw a young gir! abwd 18 who seemed in a bad way. Wc

got her out of the fallen crowd

but she was dead when^ we

fenched a dressing room.

’ The victims' slioes and

"HOUSE OF CAROS'

A snail boy fell. Several adults tumbled. Suudenly, everyone was falling forward,

the witness said. The victims fell atop one

another "like a collapsing

house of cards.” one survivor

said. In about two minutes. S3 persons were dead. Police

said 13 more died enroule to

hospitals.

"SIX BENEATH ME"

“I was coming up the passageway when the barrier broke,” said Robert Campbell, a 36-ycar-oId process server from cenL-al Scotland. "All of a sudden there were six men

beneath me.”

”1 thought I was dead," he

said. ’’People kept piling on

top of me.

"I did not expect to get out

alive. Then a police officer dragged me out from under

jacke’kS were often ripped off. There was only one way of identifying many — an anxi- ous relative. By midday

yesterday, a few still were

unidentified. ’’Has anyone seen my wee

laddie?” a grandmother wept

as police handed her a cup of

tea.One of the unidenUned was

a boy about 11, a blue and

white Rangers scarf snug

around his throat

It was not her wee laddie. The tears still flowed.

Lang headed a committee

which recently recommended

a scries of improvements

British soccer clubs could make regarding hooliganism

and crowd control at games.

But the Lord Provost of Glasgow. Donald Liddle, when

asked if nundatory safely

rules would have prevented

the tragedy, said: "I don’t think they would. There was a human clenoeni here.”

Liddle said, '“One cannot prejudge the outcome of an

inquiry, but it certainly do^

appear that the reason cl i..o crowd surging back up pc

stairs is the most credible. The annual Celiic-Rangcrs

New Year's games have be- come one of the most exciting

sporting events in Britain be- cause of the nva!r>’ between

the two.

Police have often had to arrest as many as 100 people

at matches between the two

sides. On Saturday, with a lack of goals for most of the game,

police were congratulating

themselves on a quid and

"I think it was sheer popular excitement (hat

caused this disaster,” sa.J Rangers’ manager William

Waddell. "People were in a hurry to leave Uie match and then were in a hurry to get back

again. The game was at such

a state that either Cell'ic or Rangers could have won.*'

orderly game. Only two arrests had been xr.ude before tragedy struck. Religious fervor enters into the rivalry. Celtic fans zre mostly Roman Cathoiics of Irish origin. Rangc.’s foflow- ers are Protestant.

Until a few years ago the match was played on Scot- land's traditional New Year’s day holiday. But authoniies changed the date because

fclings — heightened by the

effects of heavy whisky dnrling — too often boiled oser

into a riut. Britain’s worst previous soc- cer disaster happened at Bolton ir: 1946 du.-ing a mairt

with Stoke. The barrier col- lapsed there and 33 died and more than 500 were injured.

- A5 -
{

Ton>»h C-lohe/y>^'> Dec- S,

Two soccer fans dh, many. Hurt , qtfer' siodium guardrail co//apsesj

raitini? forward. The • BUENOS AIRES (UPU

-A- stadium guardrail collapsed binder the strain of hundreds

of soccer fans near here Wednesday night, causing the death of two of them. T“one 'was crushed to death Jvhen about 100 persons fell ^

•feet from the top of the

.itands. The second vic im

^ied of a heart attack and an undetermined nimihcr of per* tsons were injured, police said.

• Fans angered by tfie dcailts

trieil to bum down tlie sta- dium, in Lit Plata, S5 miles

southeast of Buenos Aires, but firemen quickly pul out t>»o flames. ^

Tlie La Plata team scorw

Ihe only goal with seven minutes left to play In a first- round match of tlie national

^Kans^n the stands leaped to

their feet and cheered. Wit- nesses said Ihe crowded ap- peared to push up and back,

fearing an avalanche of persons falling forward. The •

vcooden guardrail at the lop of •

the stands then gave way.

I

I

If

120 hurt

in arena

firp nnnir

Girl crushed

by rock fans

TOKYO (AP) — A crowd of

2,000 screaming fans stampeded

during a concert of the British rock *. band Rainbow in Sappbro Friday. •

crushing a 19-ycar old girl to death

and injuring several other persons. They said the crowd rushed at the stage shortly after the group began

playing at the winter sports resort on the northern island of Hokkaido,

950 kilometres north of Tokyo.

One of the 150 guards posted in and around the sports centre where

the concert was being held said that minutes after Rainbow began its performance, the mob of cheering

fans made a rush for the stage.

“I saw some people about 17 to 18 rows from front topple over like dominoes and then I rushed in with

other guards to help restore order,**

he said.

«' "

MEXICO CITY (AP) — A duster of hydrogenniled balloons burst into flames Monday at a cere- mony attended by Presi- dent Jose Lopez Portillo

! and 120 children were in- jured.

Polie said some were

burned and others were

trampled in the panic to escape. Five of the youngsters were in critical condition. Lopez Portillo, who was

not injured, helped co- ordinate aid for the in- jured. who were taken to nearby hospitals. - He then suspended the opening ceremonies of the national cultural, artistic and sports competition.

One witness said he saw

a person flip a dgarette at about 30 balloons bunched

together and tied to a bi- cycle-irack rail in the

building.

He said that when the balloons exploded in

flames many of the 3.000

children in the stadium

fled for exits, some with

lhar clolhci afire.

- A6 -
The GAZETTI. Moniff»l Tue$ . Apr 13. 1976

Favth healing session

fatal for 21

BIO DE

»o I’Pli — A tnsr“*

' ^

ol' bv a sennon on

touchcu 01* D> •

Braiillaith bca\»ng Killed 21 Bra«»

Ians i.iclu«.n8 >«

anC .njurcS »

a tacked ''v in ai a Proiesiani churcb »n

tibJrdan Nevek. P0«« «.« "Tlaw people l>.i"8

ctukbed to deain; M-l

:nennda Coelho.

feeing treated for

. firsi-aid hospital. She

;he trouble began S“nda> a^

tcrnoon v^nen several people

started quarrelling-

, -1 leil. and people stepped

-n ne. but lortunatel). I

rad ' received the Groce ol , C.cd and managed

she ssid. Mrre than 2.000 persons

crouced into the new build^

-.e of the God ts Lose

C^Tcb in the oulsKirls of Ve iistnct of Sao Goncalo. . minute drive from

<lowntown Rio de Janeiro. Officials said lh«

M.randa of Sao Pai*'®-

'ivine a sermon on Ihc im

riVunce of faith healing and

i-.ai -art ol the congregation

started saying he was an imhad said S^dy

taai the incident

old building * MiW had collapsed.

c^iav

Information

they said their was ^mcor

Rev. de Miranda » said to htVp»»^, ‘"f'd."

as “The envoy of the

ah."

Witnesses disagreed on

«iii; «t .11 ut. One woman

* nfS «cr »?

backed away from her.

K:sdnd^P«Vd.nriW

promotional

mounds of

crutches, climbed to church roof to SP®*'^. he could not reach the pulpit

through the crowd.

- A7 -
I

THE NEW YORK TIMES, MONDAY. FEBRWRV >, I*;

24 Greek Soccer Fans Die in Stampede After Match

Special IpTh^ Nr*- Vo-tc Tiirr- |

ATHENS, Feb. leas: 7A G’^k>

soccr- Ians were killeu and dozeni in-i jurec afte'" bcinr trampled on by other! spectators tn'inp to force their way out of I a crowded stadiuir.. the police saic 1 The police announcement said the! stampede occurred at the end of the game

between OlvTnpiakoi. the Greek first, di%nsion champions, and an Athens team,

,

as far.^ tried to leave the stadium but; found the exit gates closed Tne match i was attended bv a capacity crowd of

45. P.' Tr.t polici annooncemen: said the

specutors at the front of the crowd were

crushed between the corridor walls and

exit gates, pushed by thousands of others trying to force their way through behind

them.

Death Toll Expected to Rise

“When the gate eventually gave way,”

a police spokesman said, “the spectators

fell and trampled each other to death.”

He said the death toll was expected to nse.The police said most of the dead were

believ^ to be supporters of Olympiakos,

who In the excitement over their club’s

6-to-O victory, hastened to move out intc the streets and celebrate before the exit gates could be opened.

Prime Minister George Rallis went tc the scene of the accident to supemse res- cue efforts, and along with Lhe leader of the opposition Socialist Party. AndreaPapandreou. issued statements descr.N

ing the accident as a “tragedy for the nation and its sporting spirit. ” The state radio and television inte* rupted their regular programs to brodCcast classical music in mourning for ths dead, v^le the soccer federatio.n car- celed next week’s games.

- A8 -
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JANUAHy 24TH. IMO • ISSUE Na X>9 $UI VH If

i

ROCKAROLL

TRAGEDY

We didnt call it festival seating. We called it animal seating,

because uhen they came in, they

came in like a herd of cattle.

-A RIVERFRONT CXXISEUM EMTlOm

BY CHET FLIPPO

COfTRlGHT© 1979 ROLUNC STONE all RIGKIS RESERVED A mi t about 7:15 on

the evening of December 3rd, 1979,

Larry Magid sat down to dinner

with Frank Wood in the luxuri' ous Beehive Club, a private club

in the upper reaches of Cincin'

nati’s Riverfront Coliseum.

Wood, who is general manager

of the city’s premier rock sta^

tion, WEBN-FM, remarked to

Magid, who is head of Electric

Factory of Philadelphia (one of

the country’s leading rock promoters), that the crowd streaming onto the coliseum floor far below themfor that

evening’s Electric Factory-promotedWho concert

seemed to be quite orderly A “happy crowd,” he

said, not at all like the rabble that had disrupted

previous “chain-saw concerts”

there, like the Outlaws’ fighting

crowd and Led Zeppelin’s mob.

The crowd below them was

sprinting to get as close as possible to the stage, in the grand

tradition of “festival” or unreserved seating. By agreement of

the coliseum management (the

coliseiim is privately owned).

Electric Factory and the Who,

mostly general-admission tick- ets had been sold: supposedly

3578 reserved seats in the loges

at eleven' dollars each and

WHY ELEVEN DIED

IN CINCINNATI

14,770 general-admission tickets at ten dollars each.

A few of those thousands of

young people-the youngest

known was four years old-had

blood on their shoes as they ran happily down the concrete

steps into the “pit,” the seatless area in front of

the stage where the true fanatics stand throughout the show. But no one noticed. Some of the

peof^ who paused-daaed- (Continued on page 1 0)
I

KOUJNC STONE, JANUAMT 24. 19S0

TRAGEDY

i)ts ai the main entrance had no ahocs on

all, and tome had lost other bits of clothg. But ocher than chat, inside the hall, it

St seemed to be business as luual: the

nniliar ragtag rock Si roll army staggering

,to the hall ^ter five or six hours of wait- g

outside in the cold for the doors to

sen and Iceepmg warm and hafpy with

itrbs and beer and wine and each other. Magid and Ubod continued their leijtly dinner. They still had plenty of nme

•fore the Who would come on, which

lould actually be about twenty minutes

'ier the scheduled starting time of eight

)9i.. because the band would be preceded

i‘ clips from the film Qnadropfienia. Cal

levy, who tuns Electric Factory’s Gncinfati office, cruised the aisles. Things

ooked okay to him. He had noticed at

iboui I;)0 chat afternoon that a large rowd was congregating around the main

fltrance — two banks of eight glass doors

ich, situated in a large ”V" Levy had

ound cokseum operations director Richrd Morgan and asked him to |»it into

ffect a special secunty procedure they omenmes used, which was to station

lAurds at ramp entrances and allow only

cket holders onto the plaza at the main

nttance, thus ebminaong the gace-ciashng element The coliseum’s entry level —

le concourse and plaza —is reachable onby a bridge from adjacent Riverfront

tadium. where most people park, and y ramps from street level. There were no

•oLce on the spaaous plaza at 1;}0. Levy

uggested to Morgan chat some should be

nere. Sixteen arrived at three p.m. and by

our there were twenty-five. The colueum

iires off-duty poLce to patrol the outside, nd for security within the coliseum mploys guards from the Cmciniuo Pntacc Police Assocucion. At about 6;}0, heutenant Dale Menkaaus, who headed the twenry-five-man deoil outside, decided that the 8000 or so

opie who xvere now packed around the

•anks of doors were beguming to present a

groblem. The doors weren’t scheduled to

ipen until seven, but the crowd could hear

the Who conduedng its sound check and

wanted m. It was thirty-six degrees and the

wind corrung off the Ohio River made it eel much colder. Menkhaus later said he

old Levy and Morgan to open some doors;

-evy told him the doors couldn’t be opened

till the sound check was over. Menkhaus 8

was also told there weren’t enough ticket

takers. Morgan, as is the cate with all coL- •eum employees, has no commesL

BODY COUNT AFTER SHOW (UPPER LEFT);

SHOES AND CLOTHING LOST EV THE CRUSH

(CENTER); MEMCHUALFOR VICTIM (RIGHT)

At seven pjn, the Who left the stage. No one inside the coliseum knew that while they ate dinner and conducted busi- ness as usual and waited until the appoint- ed time to admit the "ammals,” just miiside those front doors the horror had already begun, a horror under a full moon, a horror of chilling magnitude that will probably

never be fully explained. O

N JUNE 28TH, 1976, A

young man named Richard

Klopp sat down to his typewriter

in his aparanent on Auburn Avenue in CinciiinaD. He was slow to anger but he was

angry. That morning he had gone out bright and early to buy tickets to sec Neil Young

and Stephen Sdllsatthecoliseum.Hegot to Tickctroo an hour ahead of time because he

wanted good seats, only to find that tickets were sold out because they had gone on sale three days before the date advenited by

Electric Factory. Klopp was already unhappy

about the last two Electric Factory shows

he’d been to, so he just said, "By God, I’ll send them a concerned citizen letter^—and

jiut to be sure they didn’t just blow him off

as some rock druggie, he decided to send carbon copies to me city council, WEBN,

Ticketran and to the Gncinnad publicsafety director. He wrote; "The two concerts that I have attended (the Who and Paul McCartney) wcR both sold out on a 'festival seating’ or general-admission basis. What this means for the promoter is mote money; for the concertgoer . . . this means that he’ll probably have to sit in the aisles or on the

floor . . . jeopardieing his safety and the

safety of othm If a fire or goieral panic were to break out, many, many people would be trampled to death. . . . BMause

civil people like to avoid these kinds of

canflagiadons, many concertgoers make a point of arriving at the cobseum two, three, and even four hours before the doors are 'scheduled’ to open. At the l^ul McCartney concert, for example, I arrived at VJO, two hours before the doors were to open. After a span of two hours, several thousand

people had congregated on the plaza in front of the doors. When they were finally opened (a half-hour late) the mass of people pressed forward, literally crusning

those by the doors—This u what happens v^n bekets arc sold on a 'festival seating’

basis, and it is no festival." On the night of De- (Con/, on 12]
12 aOUINC STONE, JASUAKYM, t9$0

Larry Alagid t a

promoter under fire

L

ess than two

1«an ago, FVcer Woanta; a fanner eraployee of promoter Larry Magid* t Electric Factory Concerti, warned of dir pouiinlity of

juit ucfi a tragedy as die one dut

occurred before die Who concert in Gneumad. Wemmer tea«£ed is a dep- oamon for an anatnot ant brought by a

rival promoeet, die Midnight Sun Company. for whom he also had worked. He

recaded that at some general-admission

Electric Factory shows at Philadelphia’s Spectrum. “TThett was no at- tempt to form any lines ocher than the ones that the people formed biiiially themselves. But as the doors would

open, there would be a huge crush for- ward mto those doers They’re large

glass or see-through doors that get pushed out into the crowd, and [with] the crush ofthe people into those doors, you have a situadon where people could

get pushed through the doors and, if IKK anything enreme, just a severe crush right at the point of contact be- tween the crowd and where those doors

were opening.” Magid responds to aOegaaons of

such past problems by saying, "I really don't want to comment on that —you’d have to speak to the lawyer about that. Whether I ’m aware of it or not remains

to be seen.” As to scaponsibility for

security at concerts, Magid says, "We

[promoters] ate not anything but ten- ants Wk are not owners ofthe building. I’m not pointing fingers at anybody. I hear this idea that it [Cincinnad ] hap- pened because the promoter didn’t have

his shit togrehet You hear people saying, 'It couldn’t happen here in Providence,’ or whatever. Bullshit! It’s a

tymptom of a society, and it coild have happened anywhere. In ^ct, it has hap- peied at soccer games in ocher countries I just think it goes a lot deeper, where the responsibility lies and who to blame, no matter who didn’t do whaL

After all, we didn’t trample anyone to death, and we didn’t step on anyone,and we didn’t push anyone." The tragedy Deoeaher 3rd in Gndnnad was not the first ame that Larry Magid has come under fire for the way

he tuns his business. Within the last three years, Magid, one of the country’s

largest promoters, has been the target of

at least five aatstmst uits filed by rivaJ promoters. One of those nnes was te- cendy seeded out of court and four ate

soli pending. la addidon, Magid was the

subject of a yearlong grand jury invet- Qgadcn Kiibaced by the Justice Department’s aodenue division. (The grand

jury adjourned without bringing any

indictments.)

' And there have been ocher problems. In two aiccessive jears, 1977 and 1978, members of Aetosmidi were scriausly mjuted onstage by flying objects during

concerts at (Philadelphia’s Spectrum,

where Magid books many of his concerts. Both concerts were sold on a general-admission and reserved-seal basisAs for the future of festival (goier- al-admission) seating, Magid says, "An

awful lot of attractians want to play

festival seating...and an awfiil lot ofthe audience want it,toa I think we’re probably not going to sec fesoval seating in bigger places anymore. I think dine’U

probably be legislatian against it now.

I may not wait until legislatioo comes

[Cont.from lO] cember 3rd, 1979, as Rschaid Klopp was caught up in the horror on the plaza and taw his wife away

fram him in the auth,it didn’t iaunediately occur to him that what he had fiaecast was

suddenly happening to him. He «mu just trying to nuvive. IGapp is six feet two and

weighs over 200 pounds, but he went down;

the pretauic from those behind him top- pled him. He was fiat on his fwce on the

concrete, and those mardung, charging

feet were all eround him. It tuas no great comfort that city coundlman Jerry Springer had actually replied sympatheiicaliy to

his letter —no oaie else did, and Springer

nevCT arttwlfy ««s able to get anything

done. What Klopp felt, oddly, at he wandered whether he wtaild live or die, was

tnger at Gndnnan’t establishment, at the

forces that made him get a gencral-admission ticket when he wanted a leaetved seat, at whoever it ««s that wouldn’t open those doots to relieve the crowd ptesBire. He

seldom went to rock concerts anymore, hut he (ud really wanted to sec the Who and had gone to Tkketron an hour early. All

tickets had been sold by the rime he got to the window; he saw scalpers buying a hundred rickets each. Klopp ended up paying sixty dollars for tickets for hiinself and

his wife. He had gotten to the plaza at 2:40 the afternoon of December 3rd because he

wanted to be sure they got good seats; he had brought a book with him to read. That

book, Stmcturalisl Poetics by Jonathan Gillec, was still in his right hand as he lay on the

concrete. Someone, muaculously, helped him to his feet and he was back in the crush,

his arms pinned to his sides. At one point he was within five feet of a dosed dooc, but he had no control over his movement At rimes

his feet were off the gnaind. Degiite the

cold, he was (benched in sweat He couldn’t

breathe. He and everyone around ham had

their heads rilted straght back, their noses up to try to get some ait He noticed that an

actual steam, a nfor, was rising off the crowd in die moonlight He would later be angered to read dut it was a "sampede,"

because to trim it was a coocentrarion oftoo many people in too aiuJl a guce with no- where to go but forward—people in the back

were yaBing, "One, two, three, push!” but they duln’t know people in the fiont were fdbng. There was litde noise. Some people

tried to calm those who were panicking. Some shcBited, "Stay up! Stay up or you’re gone!” Some chanted, 'Y)pen the fucking

doors!" The forward crush continued and

pressed up against those dosed doors; the crush had started around 6:13 and ground

CXI for an hour and a halfor sa fCcpp noticed

that there were actual human waves swaymg

like palm trees in a hurricane He saved his

life by seeking out die eye of the hurricane and he was swept out of the crush. He couldn’t find his wife He tan to the

first policeman he taw and shouted, "What

ate you doing? People arc getting trampled up there” The pobceman looked him over and asked, "%Vhat do you do for a bving?” Klopp repbed, almost in shock, "Working

on a Ph.D. in language” The pobceman

said, "Well, you just used a dangling parti- ciple" Klopp, caught up in the absurdity,

said, "I think I know more about buiguagr

than you da" The pobceman smiled: "Well,

don’t tell me how to do myjob, then." Klopp

lost his temper: "People are getting hurt’'

Tbe pnlicrman said, "VbD, «c can’t do

nydring." Klopp finally got inside and

found his wife A few feet away; Mark Helmkamp was

pleading with a pobceman to do something. He said to die cop; "Here take my ID and

bust me for feke infermarion if you don’t bebeve me" He said the pobceman told him

toauirealat^. A day iatee Hehnlcamp was still funous.

"1 was gready disturbed by WCPO-TV’s

depteticHi ofus at a drug-crazed mobThere

were too many people and just two doors

open. It was an incredihle botdeneck; it was a slow squeeze, no* a stampede] was stuck

in it f» farty-fire minutes I went down twice and wm’t «1R that I would make it I taw

guys with bhie bps — they couldn’t get oxygen. I tmi, I think, four ticket takers after

I w^ed over aD the shoes to get in. I couldn’t keep my feet on the ground the whole rime I kept my arms in front of my

‘Ropk WO'C

dimbingon other

peek’sshoulders.

SomepeofAe wat

berserk and

starteds\tHttgbig

theirelboM's.’

diest to keep from gertug crushed. IVople were climbing up on other people’s

shoulders. Some people wear berserk and

starred twinging their elbows. That was the only blood. There was no group panic After

I saw the dead people, it sink in. Dead. Just dead. It pissed me off to see Uncle Writer Oonkice blaming us for this.” The doors were officially opened at 7:03; according to eyevritnesses, four doors out of

die sixteen were open, and two of those were

closed and blocked at rimes by guards with

billy clubs. From where he was in tbe crowd.

Phil Sheridan saw only one door open. "It looked bke they attempted to open more but the crowd was so oghtlv packed, -it was

useless. I was maybe fifteen rows of people

back, scaring at this dooc and it hung Lke about sis inches open and they finally sprung

It open and that’s all 1 remember rill 1 got

inside. I could sec people smashed up

against the doors that weren’t open. 1 bad

ahold of my girifnend and my buddy grabbed me by the shoulders and I cook him

by the hand and we started to make our way

chnough the turnstiles. Well, in chat ten or

fifteen seconds it took us to get our act togechec we were now inside between the doors and the turntriles and the door was a frenzy and they’re still trying to cake tickets! God, it was insane! I was three [Coni, on 22 ]

E

PNOTOCRAPH Br NEIl. BENSON
KLUNC STONE, JANUAKY 21, 19S0 CINCINNATI

[Coni.fiom 12] abtcaK in this goddamn turmdlc, which was only

righiecn kches wide! I^ople «cr

gening hurled in and shoved

through the tumsolcs and the ochet takers were still saying, 'Hen vdiete’s your ticket?’ The

initial tush came about 6M) be- cause that’s when people smelled

blood, you knens the magic bout,

they’re finally gonna open the doors far us. There was continuous pushmg till seven and then the doors opened shortly after that. God, this one girl, it must have been twenty minutes before the doors opened and aD of a sudden I feel a tug on my arm; it’s this gui, and her head was at my waist and

she said, 'Eicuse me, my feet are back these somewhere.’ She was

honiomtal.

"I went back out to look for my

fnends; I saw—and this is after the show started, which was about 8:20 —I saw the same scene. It was still crazy. It tvas crazier between the

outside doors and the turnstiles than it was outside, ’cause by then people were really going for broke.

I found my friend Bill and he said he saw people going over the tops of the doors, he saw bodies piled m

front of the dooc, and people were going over them and around them

any way they could. At about nine,

I saw more waves of people. I looked outside and saw what must

have been thousands of dollars’ worth of personal articles strewn

everywhere, these temble piles of

shoes, shoes trapped in that chainlink fencing behind the turnstiles. I wonder about the lands of injuries chat weren’t reported.” HE TWENTY-FIVEman police force outside

finally found the first body

at 7:M pjn. After the ambulances and the fire department and the

fire chief and the mayor and the aty safety director and the Flying Squad from the Academy of Medicine and addinonal police and the TV crews and everybody elscgot

there, they finally understood that

this was serious. Gncmnan proper

put on la serious face. TV crews

were asking onlookers if drugs and

alcohol hadn’t caused chu ’stampede.” Mayor Ken Blackwell—this was

his first day on the job —was sum- moned from hu dinner with House

Speaker Tip O’Neill and said it looked to him like this awful trage- dy had been caused by ’festive seating.’ It was his decision to conhnuc the concert, lest the many

thousands inside not if the show

were stopped. Promoter Larry Magid said he

first learned of the trouble at 8:4) from a cohseum employee and

went backstage to cell the Who's

managei, Bill Girbishly that there were four dead, ’two OI^ and two

aushed.” Accardmg to Gnbishl%

the fire marshall arrived and said he thought there was a nuus over- dosage. He wanted id stop the concert; then he learned that the deaths were due to agihyxiatioa and that people were still being

treated on the plaza level Curbtshly told him it would be

senseless to stop the concert, that there could be a riot and people might stampede back across the

plara The fire marshall said, ”I agree with you totally” By the pit* the show was om,

Curbishly knew of eleven deaths. He told the Who that something

serious had happened and they should hurry their encore. After

the briefencore, he took them into the tuning room and cold them of

the deadtt. They were devastated.

"Initially we fdt stunned and

empryf said Roger Dalirey three days after the concert. felt we couldn’t go on. But you gota.

There’s no point in stopping.” Lieutenant Menkhaus said siz- leen doors were open and Cal Levy echoed that; Electric Factory at- torney Tom Gould said nine to eleven doors wm open and Roger

Dsltrey said three were open. Doaens of eyewimesses cold Rolling Stone that never during the trouble vwre more than four doors open and chat only two were open most of the tune. The coliseum management still refuses to say how many dekeo were sold, how

many guards were on duty, how

many ticket takers or ushers there H«re or anything else. Curbishly

said Electric Factory paid ^7800 to the coliseum for ushers, cickec

takers, interior security, cleanup. Including emergency ezits, there are 106 doors at the coliseum

(although John Tafaroigiokesmaa

for the coliseum, would not confirm or deny this number); why at limes only two at the main eocrance were open wiO be a point of

speailatian for some time When Riverfront Coliseum

first opened on September 9ih,

197), with a concert by the Allman

Bioihers, an usher on duty named

Donald Foz said chat the cokscum

had coo many outside doors and

chat gates rather than glass doors

should be installed at the main

entrance on the plaza. His was the

first of many warnings that were

ignored. Riverfront Cohseum was

trouble waiting to happen. R

iverfront coliseum eziso because a man named Brian Hcckin wanted a hockey team in Gocinnaii and therefore needed an

arena. Heekin and lus brother, ‘trey and their friend William

DeWin Jn, all great sporta fin,

were the guidiiig farces Miind the

coliscuin. In the early Seveniici, Brian — tvhoee great-grandfather farmed the Heekin Can Conpany

which was the family’s fortune and

its entree into Gncinnaii’s relatively small business and sodol ebce— had tried to buy the Kentucky Colonels of the American

Basketball Assodanon and bring them to Gnannah; he lost out to now-Kentucky Govemor John Y

Brown. But Heekin really wanted and sought a National Hockey

Leagueteam. WhenQncinnaii be- gan talking about a renewal project for the riverfront area, HecIdn popped up with the idea of a

initially wanted the dey to build

it and lease it to his Cincinnati Hockey Gub (later changed to Gndnnaii Sports Inc). The dty came close to financing and build- ing such an arena. Heekin tried and fiuled to get local banks to finance an ^ 18-million arena. Heekin was offering the dty an NHL

team, the ABA Colonds and a World Team Tennis franchise

After it seemed to him chat the dty

was not goug to help him, Heekin deaded to build his arena in the

suburbs. All of a sudden he got whathe called ’iinbelievable” pres- sure from local businessmen to

build at the waterfronL And all ofa sudden he began getting local support. The chamber of commerce

got behind the idea, the governor

iffeied to help with state revenue

bonds, and then, before anyme

knew what was happening, the diamber of commerce called a

press confoence on August 8th,

197), to announce that a sports arena would be built at the nverfferu, that local banks and savings and loon assocudons would put up

^10 milbon in state induscnal reve- nue bonds, that $1 million wtaild come from Heeldn’s Gndnnati

Sparta Inc, dsat osiothar ^mittoB woa forthcaming from diy stale and feslcral funds, and that a :naf

|l tniUiao would come {t^ kiixr- iag the arena’s poch n&y bcBtez to wealthy pontma. Heekin’s otr^tiy formed Gncimiati Ctwpctaiian bou^w uticv of

land nezt to Riwshocsi Szadium from the city for ^200,00u. The

McNulty Company of Mumeapolif drew up the plmi, asd the Universal Gootraciing Cotpotaciao of Norwood, Ohioy was coai- tracted to build it The dty ended up luing state highway funds and

federal funds tn build the elabome

sky bridges that connect the coli- seum concourse to street level. Thus, all the concrete right outside

the coliseum doors is dty p

roperty

That’s where the eleveo died. Heekin never did get the NHL

franchise he said he had, nor did he

get a World Team Tennis fran- chise The Krtinicky Colonels did play a few games there before puQing out Gradually as with so many

such arenas around the country

rock shows supported the place

Instead of an NHL team, Heekm

got the World Hockey Associa- don Sdngers, hardly a major draw: When dw viWA folded and the

Stiiigers wore absorhed into the Central Hockey I.«3gue, Heekin’s corporadon got what was said to be a settlement cIom to fi miUion and the Sdngers conttiuied to play

in the coliseum, paying rent of ^4000 a game The Sdngers played

there two nights after the NMk>and

drew 869 paying fiana. The Unevo'-

siiy of Gndnnad baskethoD team

still plays games at the eolisnim buthas ftportcdly consideced pull- ing out in the past becauae ofbeat- ing profalcma, among other ihinga. At the start of one game betwexo tvm other teams, the players sat huddled in blankets because the temperatuie inside was in the for- dea. After the Who show; the

NCAA “ecided SO ri..y-_ cs taum’t bid for baslrethat finiii these, sldv<s'.gf> thr NCAA djvnz

div dc-riaos Had Tbxiung to d,-: •k/Ai BwjeTM. Prottuaen cso- celed the two ahovnef tk . -

jour^iiis' tdd dtc ci'>

t.'aai’s filiate was not btiglir. Big

event! there the past year haste been a tractor-pulkng cootest and

ajehovah’s Witnesses convention. The coliseum’s first fatality came on October 4th, 197), when

sevmeeA-ycar-old Thomas Lambest,puiaied by police who said be had cursed them, jumped or fell to

his death from the plaza level to the

serect below

Security problems luwe been

nodceable at the coliseum. In

Martdi 1976, pobce officer Wslcer ScoR told the Crncinmtti Enquirer

that there had been many inddeno

in which coliseum personnel re- fused to cooperate in eneigency

situadons. He said he was worried

that a life-or-death situadon might

arise On August )td, 1976, when

Elton John played the arena, there was big trouble A crowd of about 2000 rushed the doors. No one was

hurt badly, but police and fire offi- cials found numerous fire-code violadcns, indudmg locked ezit doors. An editorial in the Enquirer the next day said that things

weren’t right at the coliseum during rock shows, but it concluded: ”Wt’d be surprised, though, if the Elton John fracas is repeated any- dme soon.” On August )th. 1976,

fire captain Ed Schneuer cold local media that problems were gening

worse at the coliseum because of

fesdval seating, and that lads were

gathering there earlier and earlier because of ic Hre captain James Gamm said that festival seating was a problem because, in a case of

serious trouble inside the coli- seum, bodies could '^xle up in a major catastrophe.”

big indoor sports arona there. He

CAL LEVX ELECTRIC FACTOIOrS CINCINNATI MAN

PHOTOGRAPH BY STEVE SMITH
24 KLUNG STONE, JANUAKY24, 19U

Giy counfilona Spriaocr said publicly that fctoVai seating caused a Idimatc c£ dbordci. Brian Heddn disagreed, saying dut Springer «as not qualified to conuneni on pccpie’s bebavior at concerts and diat kids liked fts- oval seating. Heekin also said be

wouldn’t mind TsPring widi dty

officials about die proMeai (/people unnanng outside tbe cobseum. Also on August )tb, -Brian Heekin, cobseum operations di- rector Ricbaid Mosmb and security director Junes Madgen were

each cbaiged witb one ctamt of

fiulure to comply wiib ten lawfij orders of tbe fat cbief regarding building-code violadons at tbe

Elton John show "The city is just trying to cover its tracks," Heekin

told die Ett^tartr. "It’s dty property cutside the doori.” Accoribng to tbe CntnokKi

Post. Heekin pleaded no contest to the charge and was fined ^100. The charges against Morgan and Madgett were dismissed. On August 8th, 1976, an un- named security guatd at die cob- seum told the Enqmrrr that fes- oval-seacing concerts were always

oversold — he duaight they were crowding 20,000 into the place. On August lldi, 1976,aneditonal in the Enqurrer said, "There is no reason to justify a Dcket-seUing procedure that encourages early cengregaaon on the...pl^. Experience has shown repeatedly that gatherings of this kind are open

inviuDons to trouble . . . Management would be prudent in install- ing staggered rails so that ticket bnes ccaild moire easily be kept

orderly," That same day dry manager

^A/|lllam Ocmaldson ^

cask force to draw up a pJ«" for secunty at rock shows at die cali- seum."\bk «smt,"said Dcmaldson,

to ^make sure (heir operaii cm

never again is an occasion for risk to die dtdens of Oadnuan."

Three of (be seven members of

this Pubhc Safety Study Team

were from die cobseum: Heekin, Morgan and Madgen. The other four were from aty govemmenL

Tk«ir report, ireuad August 24di,

1976i said m so auDy stmds that iu (be future, everyddag would be

fine and dandy at die ratanifa

Secoflo Three of die report, re- gaitbiig festival tcadag. said: ‘"The matter of 'Festival Seating* (noBwaerved seanng) iws fariefiy disaisaed; hovrevet, no fccom- meadaban is being mede at (bis

tiine. The team felt ibat «re sbouid

fest evaluate (be reauks of im- proved fire safety and security

tnethotfa before talang a firm poai- bon on seating arrangeraena. It •ould teem ibat if Inre Prevenbon Code requirements and scoutty

needs are fully met, (hat the meth- od of tcaang may bectanc a sec- ondary copcem." -A week earbet, on August Btb, VUE, Mayor Bobbie Scene asked

for a study of scat sales at rock shows and tefommmded d»ai afl teats be reserved. And bcftac that, on August

6di, I976i fire chief Bert Luganaaib sent a memo to a dty council member in which he said there were numerous fire-code violations at (he coliseum and that the number of guards and open exits was not sufficient. The diief also addressed himself to the matter of

festival seating: "Selling a concert on a gcsietal-aibnitsion basis (fes-, oval seating) allows for sale </ a beket for each fixed teat ^each

spedfied standing area (i-e., B,800

scats; 1800 people permitted on

(he arena floiv). Placement of the stage prahibia viewing the concert fiom approximately 4000 of

the seats sold. Those pososu have no recourse other than to congregate m the exit way if they desire to watch (he performers. It has been recommended that the concerts be sold on a reserved-seat

basis. It was felt by the responsible cobseum offidab that this would

create an economic hardship." Nothing was done. A second dty

safety rqxzt produced a similar oonreacuon. "Qndnnab as a dty," said one member of the local "kock & roll establishment" who preferred not

to be identified, "expects rock fans

to be like Reds fans — who are

actually worse. It’s bkr you’re upposed CO be going to church. It was

only a year ago char die Bengals

allowed banners at the stadium. Maybe this bappened because

rock fans were regarded as lower than qions fims, who can do anything (hey want. Maybe this is a dty (hat vanes to be cosmopobtan

without regarding rock fans as anything but a nuisance But a nui- sance that provided a lot of money. The cobseum was built as a sports arena. But rock 0C roll kept it afloat." The cobseum refused to comment about this. There had been so many crisis flags sou up before that were ig- nored. Fleetwood Mac pfayed the cobseum a month [Coot, on 24 J

[Coni, fnm 2) ] before the Whoi

and even though seating for the Mac show *as completely re- Mtwed, there waa a botdencck at dw emiance bccaiMc, according to on eyewitneas, not enough doon

note epen. The night of the Who concert, huiinrii coniiiuied as iinial until eleven people died. Some blamed

die victims for their own deaths, even (hough it has been proved

dsat some of them — like David Heck,who got out of(he cnish and

want back in to try to help others Acd while trying to stop (he mad- neu even as pobce ignored them. C

incinnati

mtwed quiddy to btaine

"festival sealing” for the

tragedy, although no one explained why festival seating had beim per- mined for so long at the cobseum when previous conceru had

proved it dangerous. No one ex- plained why even (hough Ticketten claims ticket sales were Umiced to eigfit per person, scalpers woe qmtted leaving oudets with

stacks of tickets. In the week after (hr concert only city coundlnun

Jerry Springer said there should

have been someone at the show

with the authority to opm the doors who there wns obviously a

disaster in die offing. No one said who could have had the authority

It had been biuiness as luual for everyone. Dozens of concoxgoers

told Rolling Stone that they had been treated like so many she^ CO be herded through so many doors The Cautmao Enpunr's banner hcadLne of December ^read: all dent niAMB

FOR tragedy. And that’s probably where it will stand. After the sho«s Pete Townshend said he felt partly responsible because, "It’s a rock St

' roll event that has oeated this and we feel deeply a part of rock Si

toll." Local conunentators tried to pitch drugs and alcohol as the rea- son for the alleged "stampede." A team of Rolling Stone re- porters visited the coliseum and

got as many *^0 comments" as it could use for ten years Electnc Factory’s Cal Levy did agree to talk Levy who actually was the show’s promocs—Magid

had comeinjust toscc the Who—

was visibly shaken. He contended

he had had no control over the tqwning ofdoers or the number of guards He paced his attorney’s office

in the twenty-sixth floor of Carew

Tower in dowmovm Cmcinnaii,

stroked his beard, and said, "Hey Pm no Bin Giaham, okay? I just think (hat when all (he fisets are known, aO the repam are completed, that it will show that there was a combinatiao of things (hat brought about an uncontrollable aaiadoo on that piaxa.

TAll the procedures used Monday night were the proce^ucs that

were i mplesncntad on aO die pre- vioua show* vdiare nothing evtr wmr wrong.” Could he hmc had the aushority to order (ba*c front door* opened when it became apparent they should be opened?

*T4o. Oir only twponmbitty is to get the group onstage, to pay for saffing at the cobseum” (although be said he had no tcqpanability for the sse of the sodf). He

said Eieciric Rotary had provid- ed ‘Veer security” (ix, young people vdio are not in unifiirm) ftn the

floor-level genenl-admiision area and had arranged to have para- medics and ambulances ready

Electric Factory’s attorney, Tom Gould, said be thought that everybody concerned had a zone of

responsibility and (hat everybody disdurged "what they thought

Business

continued

asusual

untileleven

people died.

was in (he best interest and was the

right thing to da” Levy and Gould

both said that maybe no one was at

fault; perhaps it was a natural disasrer. Levy was quick to point out that Electric Factory had promoted

Gncuinati’s first outdoor rock

show, the Eagleyat Riverfront Sta- dium."We had ^2,000 lads, general admission and the same parties involved in (he planning. Dale Menkhaus and I worked extensively on (he security And nothing happened. But what I think we’re faced with here is unusual araimstances that all merged at one time and in one place. Maybe there were enough doors; were they open

early enough? Whs there a high

level of drugs or intoxication? The

music from the inside?"

But, be was reminded, dungs

had gone wrong before. Some ear- ber shows had been vioienL T can’t deny chat there are problems at shows; it happen* ev- erywhere in (he country right? Nobody could predict it, and I don’t feel anybody could have cootrolled ic" Soon thereafter came the first of what will undoubtedly be an unending senes of lawouitx. Todd

Volkman, a person ivho was alleg- edly injured, filed a ^ L2-milli(Xi class-action suit (ivhich can be ex- panded to recover tens of millions)

agaiiist (he pramotet, the coliseum aM (he Wha Not the city of Gncianati, on whow property he was

allegedly injured. A second, filed by Betty Snydec, mother of the late Phillip Snyder, docs name the dty

0* one of the defendants. Iir that fKL2)-Riillion suit, the dty is ac- cused ofnegligence in its fiuhire to

fallow the advice from its owm Human Relations rVnmic«;ng, to ban festival seating. It also alleges the dty police were negbsent in

(ailing to enfotce drug and bquor

laws. (The pobce reported twentyeight arrests for drugs and tbsor- doly conduct on the plaza the

night of (he ccncerL) One local lawyer said gleefully (hat (here im’t enough babibty in- uance in the world to cover the

potential lawsuia that could come

out of the Wlio show Under Ohio

law; parties who feel injured physically or emotionally (a hot bne was immedutely set up for the emodonally warped) have two years to

file suit The dry of Gndnnad regis- tered immediate civic outrage. No

mace festival seating, proiatly, said the dty governmenL A task force was set up to find out what was

wrong. Frank Wbod of W^BNFM was named to it He said chat he was not sure what the task force could da all he knew was that he had read in the morning paper chat T’m not allowed to point a finger at anyone, and I clunk that's a shamc."The cask force has no ubpocna power, and it was widely viewed in Gndnnad as window

dressing. The coroner’s office said the dead apparendv died from "sufiFo- cadon by asphyxiaoan due to compression" and "sufiFocadon due to accidental mob stampede." Toxi- cology tests for drug or alcohol

residues in the victims were forth- coming. An editorial in the Cmatmad

Post said the coliseum had been

the dty’s "acadel of lawlessness." Mark Heimkamp called home to

cell his folks he was okay and he

got a pot lecture. The viedms were blam^

Promoters across the country blamed fesnval seadng. Larry Magid said that he felt ternble and

that he personaliv didn’t bke festival seadng, but that’s what the kids wanted. A lad in Gneinnao

printed up a few T-shirts that read

I SURVIVED THE WHO CONCERT.

Roger Daltrey, weary and shaken, said. "It was really a Freak; it’s not a nighdy occurrence, you know" The mayor of Providence, Rhode Island, canceled the Who

show there, saying chat after two p

erformances, the Who was aver- aging V) fatalides per show. Angry kids marched to Gncinnad

and in Providence to say that rock

St toll should not be automaocally blamed. They got btde support.
OBSERVATICNS OF CROWD

16 JUL5? 1980

CONDITIONS AT ROCK CONCERT IN EXHIBITIOI STADIUM, TORONTO

By Jake Pauls

Ottawa, Canada

INTRODUCTION

crowd incidents, in which people ate se^ously or killed due to

crnshina or trampling, are not restricted to emergencies such as fire to

conditions of crowd violence or even simply exuberance of some members o crowd Such events can occur, and have occurred at sports events, religio

gaS:e;i4s an^ rock TMrsic concerts. Serious injury ^TM^-ven death ^n^occur

during entry, occupancy and evacuation of a building. I co^Uions toat mi^t^in every other respect, appear to be norn«l even to

people in close proximity to those hurt in the incident.

Two manor crowd incidents in North America and Britain during the last decade

have 1^ to intensive investigation of design and operatirq measures toat migh

be useful in reducing the chance of serious cr^d

^^‘tators

orourred in 1971 at Ibrox Park, a stadium in Glasgow, Scotland, as spectator

St nSr toe eni of a soccer .;mtch. Here 66 people died in a

_ crowd crush on a wide stair. This led to an inquiry described in Lord ^eatley s RePo^t <1> ' includinq a study by a Technical Support Group described in part in toe SCICON

re^rt^lafet^n Ftotball Stadia (2). From this caito a new standard for crowd

safety at football grounds (3), legislation on regulations for implementing crowd safety neasures (5). One of the fintoi^s of

tol technical study coranissioned for Lord Wheatley's Inquiry was th^, tetween

1902 and 1972, 125 people had been killed and over a thousand ingur

afcLents at footbaU Ltches in Great Britain. Included were

incidents at Ibrox Park stadium, three of them resulting in 68 deaths and 219

injuries during egress on a stair (2)

Tn December 1979 eleven young people were killed and about the same numter were

inJuSl^ a cfowd attempting S Lter Riverfront Coliseum in Cincimati for a

rock concert by the group. The Who. No offical comprehensive report on this

incidrt has b^en Among published extensive

magazine Rolling Stone, 24 January 1980, is recom^ndrf

tol incident from toe point of view of partici^nts (6)

the Task Force on Crowd Control and Safety, set up by the City of Cincinnat , does not deal with toe specific incident but rather provides a useful general

discussion and set of recommendations relati^ to crowd manage^t, seaUng,

police services, architectural planning and design, emergency ^ical

ambulance services, successful crowd management techniques, natioral crwd

management standards, plus existing and proposed laws and guidelines for

Cincinnati (7)

The Cincinnati Task Force report was released only a week tefore a major

concert by The Who and other rock music groups was to be held on 16 July 1980

in Exhibition Stadium in Toronto. In addition to a general

problems of entry to toe stadium there was major concern by the City of Toronto

Department of Buildings and Inspections regarding the adequacy of exit

faSlities from the playing field area to be used, in addition to permanent

grandstands, for the unusually large crowd expected for the concert. A ^rt

injunction sought by the City, to limit the number of people on the playing
CROWD CONDITIONS AT ROCK CONCERT IN EXHIBITION STADIUM, TORONTO, 80-07-16, p.2

field, was not granted. On the morning of the concert, an invitation was

extended by representatives of the show promoter and the City to the author to

conduct observations of crowd conditions at the concert with a view to

providing technical inforiiBtion which might assist in establishing safety

guidelines for future rock concerts in Exhibition Stadium.

The following report records observations by the author during the event. With

the decision to conduct the observations coming only hours before the gates

were to open, and the need to travel from Ottawa to Toronto, it was not

possible to arrange detailed documentation techniques. Fortunately it was possible to conduct observations in conjunction with several staff frcxn the

City of Toronto Department of Buildings and Inspections. One of these filmed

crowd behaviour using a handheld Super-8 film camera, thus providing a useful

record of several important aspects of the event - a record that was subsequently edited into a 12-minute Super-8 film held by the City Department

of Buildings and Inspections. This film complements other photographic, audio

tape and written records made by the author.

Before considering the observations it is useful to note v^at management,

police and first aid resources were present in and around Exhibition Stadium

during the concert. Providing most of the ticket control service were 84

ushers and usherettes plus 50 security guards. All of these wore uniforms of a private security firm. There were 125 Toronto police, in normal uniform and

plainclothes, inside the stadium and around its perimeter. St. John Ambulance

had two first aid posts in the stadium along with many volunteers. There were,

in addition, regular ambulance services standing by inside the stadium and

immeditely outside its gates. (These were used to take some thirty concert

attendees to hospital before the event ended.) The show promoter provided

approximately 100 personnel. Many of these were peer security - individuals

who work closely and somev^at informally with the crowd to manage security

particularly in the forestage and back stage areas. Their background and

appearance influence their acceptance by spectators as peers. In this case

members of the peer security force wore jeans and blue T-shirts on v^ich was printed "Please feel secure" - an ironic comment in view of the tightly-jammed

conditions that occurred later in front of the stage.

These following observations cover a nine-hour period beginning several hours

after the gates opened at 13:00 through to 01:00 v^en the stadium was almost

clear of patrons. Until 20:30 observations were conducted from various places

in the stadium. After this, with movement through the crowd difficult if not

impossible, all observations were conducted from the press box on the roof of

the north grandstand v^ere a useful overview was obtained of most of the

stadium and its vicinity.

The show was scheduled to begin about 18:00 with three groups, Nash the Slash,

J. Ceils Band, and Heart, preceding The Who. The last of the three groups.

Heart, scheduled to end at 21:15, finished at 21:57. The Who began its

performance about one-half hour late at 22:37 and finished its encore at 00:48.
CROWD CONDITIONS AT ROCK CONCERT IN EXHIBITION STADIUM, TORONTO, 80-07-16, p.3

CONDITIONS AT 16:00

The grandstands were almost empty. The initial entry rush of people (who had

been waiting a long time for the gates to open) was long past and they were scattered at a fairly comfortable density in the field area. See Figure 1 for

a plan of the stadium and Figure 2 for a photograph taken from the south

grandstand looking across the field toward the stage. Several thousand people

were able to sit comfortably or even lie down in the area between two lighting

towers and the stage. (This is similar to the conditions shown in Figure 3.)

A similar number of people might have been scattered at lower density on the

field behind the lighting towers (Figure 3)

.

Not including circulation areas to each side, the total area of field available

for those holding "festival seating" admission tickets was approximately 3,350

square metres (36,000 square feet) in front of the two lighting towers and

8,360 square metres (90,000 square feet) behind the towers. Adding 1,500

square metres (16,000 square feet) for circulation paths and barricades

adjacent to the side grandstands gives a total of 13,200 square metres (142,000

square feet) for playing field occupancy. (Not included in this total is the area on and around the baseball diamond at the southwest corner of the field;

it was fenced off and not available for occupancy.)

Figure 4 shows an area approximately 9 metres (30 feet) deep immediately in

front of the stage that was being maintained clear at his time by peer

security. Two relatively unoccupied areas, with obstructed views of the stage,

were behind each lighting tower. Between the field area and the two side

grandstands, barricades were erected with several openings permitting control

of movement between the field and the grandstands v^ere washrooms and almost

all concessions were located. A movement corridor was left on the field side

of these barricades.

A few instances were noted of people who had passed out or were otherwise

suffering from the effects of drugs, alcohol, the heat, and perhaps food

(singly or in combination) . St. John Ambulance volunteers sent some of these

people to hospital. Late in the afternoon a short discussion was held with the

person who headed the operations of St. John Ambulance personnel at the event.

This revealed that most of the cases they dealt with were due to such

"self-inflicted" conditions. Accidents involving building features were

reported to be more common in a large local arena v^ere some aisle stairs

appeared to be unusually precarious.

Several other informal discussions with St. John Ambulance personnel and people

working with the Stadium Corporation stressed the different behaviour that

could be expected frc*n different groups of patrons depending on the particular

rock groups performing. The relatively rowdy and destructive nature of

football spectators was also noted; the use of alcohol is apparently more

prevalent in football games,

CONDITIONS AT 18:20

There were more people in the grandstands at this time and movement along the cross aisle in the new south grandstand was becoming difficult due to the

congestion. The clear area in front of the stage had disappeared about an hour

earlier and peer security had moved to a narrow barricaded area immediately in

front of the stage.
CRCM) CONDITIONS AT ROCK CONCERT IN EXHIBITION STADIUM, TORONTO, 80-07-16, p.4

The density, where it could be assessed at the edge of the crowd, was judged by

the author to be about one person for every 0.3 square metre (3 square feet) of

field area. The density appeared to be greater immediately in front of the

stage. Of course people were standing at this density, whereas previously many

had been sitting or lying down. Figure 5 is a newspaper photograph, taken from

the stage, showing the dangerously dense crowd condition that was maintained

here for up to seven hours.

The general mood of the crowd appeared to be quite good. Frisbees and large

inflated balls were being tossed around the field and the grandstands. An

exception to this relatively safe play occurred when someone in the southeast

corner fired a smoke flare low across the heads of the patrons in the direction

of the south lighting tower. This appeared to be a dangerous projectile

capable of seriously injuring people.

Movement through the crowd was still on an "excuse me" basis. Normal

conventions such as the "keep-to-the-right" rule were being adhered to in the

movement corridors that had been created on the field side of the barricades

separating the side grandstands from the field. Movement here was possible

with minor difficulty. Moreover there were still relatively clear areas on the

field immediately behind each lighting tower.

At least one instance was seen of what appeared to be small amounts of drugs

being sold on the field. The smoking of marijuana was prevalent throughout the

field and the grandstands. A very small amount of drinking was going on,

sometimes from 12 oz. size liquor bottles. There were dazed looks on the faces

of some patrons. (It should noted that, outside the stadium there was much

evidence of patrons drinking before entering the stadium.) Police searches for

contraband were being conducted at the entry gates just before patrons went

through ticket control. This search process at the west gate (Gate A) was

observed for approximately 20 minutes and inconsistencies were noted in the

thoroughness of the searches. Most patrons were unaware of the relative ease with which they could occasionally get by particular officers; however a few

people were observed to switch lanes and move relatively quickly and unchecked

past certain officers. There may have been other gaps in the search system at

gates for passholders where at least one large shoulder bag went through

unchecked.

The checking of tickets at the openings between the grandstands and the field

appeared to be inconsistent during the afternoon and the early part of the

evening. This process, being done by peer security, appeared to break down

completely during the evening and there was little evidence over most of the

evening that there was any control on the number of peole allowed onto the

field. After sunset, about an hour before The Who were scheduled to begin,

such ticket control was almost impossible because of the darkness and the

congestion of the crowd even in the relatively accessible movement paths next

to the barricades adjoining the side grandstands. There was effectively no control over the number or distribution of patrons on the field. Many of the

peer security personnel seemed to be concerned with protecting the stage area

and pulling patrons out of the dense mass in front of the stage. The people

being pulled out at this time appeared to be in good condition but it was difficult to tell from a great distance.
CRCMD CONDITIONS AT ROCK CONCERT IN EXHIBITICN STADIUM, TORONTO, 80-07-16, p.5

CONDITIONS AT 21:00

Observations from the vantage point of the roof-top press box overlooking the

field near the stage, along with closer observations earlier on the field level

and a general knowledge of crowd behaviour (from the literature and from

extensive experience with field studies) , led to the following estimates of the

distribution of densities and populations on the field and in the grandstands.

These are described in terms of the areas set out in Figure 1.

Area 1 immediately in front of the stage, with

approximately 700 square metres (7,500 square feet), was

occupied by patrons v^o each had about 0.2 square metre

(2 square feet) or less area. Those closest to centre

stage were packed so tightly that any independent movement

or egress from the area was all but impossible (as shown in

Figure 5, a photograph taken earlier in the evening).

Area 2, in front of and between the two lighting towers,

with 836 square metres (9,000 square feet), appeared to be

occupied at a density of one person for each 0.2 to 0.4

square metre (2 to 4 square feet) of area.

Area 3, with most of the remaining area in front of the

lighting towers, had 1,860 square metres (20,000 square

feet) in area and held a crowd with a density averaging

one person for every 0.4 to 0.5 square metre

(4 to 5 square feet).

Area 4, totalling around 8,360 square metres (90,000 square

feet) , was occupied at a wide range of density with patrons

each having between 0.4 and 0.9 square metre (4 and 10

square feet) of area.

Additional areas totalling perhaps 1,500 square metres

(16,000 square feet), at the sides near the grandstands,

v^iich earlier were routes of movement, had by this time

become congested with patrons at a density of one person

for every 0.3 to 0.4 square metre (3 to 4 square feet).

One reason for the high density along the sides was the

presence of a narrow, slightly elevated platform on the

north side which was tightly packed with people wanting

to get a better view over he field.

The population on the field at 21:00 is estimated to be as follows.

Area 1 held 3,800 persons.

Area 2 held 3,000 persons.

Area 3 held 4,500 persons.

Area 4 held 15,000 persons.

Remaining areas to the sides held 4,600 persons.

This estimate, with a total of 31,000 persons on the field at 21:00, is subject

to error; the actual population could have been about twenty percent smaller or larger (25,000 to 37,000 persons). There was no way to verify directly the
CROWD CONDITIONS AT ROCK CONCERT IN EXHIBITION STADIUM, TORONTO, 80-07-16, p.6

densities at the field except in the area immediately in front of the stage

vdiere there were indications that people were at critical packing density v^ere

each person has less than 0.2 square metre (2 square feet) available. There

were many empty seats in the grandstands, including of course the large areas

at the east ends of the grandstands where the stage could not be seen.

On the assumption that there were 71,000 persons in the stadium the occupancy

of the grandstands was estimated to be 34,000 to 46,000 persons at 21:00.

In the area immediately in front of the stage the human wave or surge

phenomenon was evident occasionally from 21:00 until the end of the concert

nearly four hours later. Photographs such as Figure 5 make clear that even

before sunset, when earlier rock groups were on stage and nearly two hours

before The Who appeared, densities were at this packing or crushing level where

individuals are not capable of independent movement. Judging from the extent

of the wave phenomenon, seen from the press box overhead, between one thousand

and two thousand patrons were in this area of critical density for at least

several hours. For these people there appeared to be only one way out and that was to be pulled up and out of the crowd at or near the stage. The removal of

such people continued throughout the evening and at tiroes more than one person

per minute was pulled out. This process was observed to require great effort

on the part of those doing the pulling and could easily have resulted in

injuries in addition to any suffered because of the crowd crush.

Other indications of distress for those in this crush situation included the

frequent dousings with buckets of water and on one occasion from a small hose

to help cool them down and relieve thirst. The field area was hot even without

the bodies packed together for up to seven hours. Another indication that the

density had reached extreme conditions was seen at the end of the evening as many shoes and miscellaneous personal articles littered the area immediately in

front of the stage. The loss of shoes has been reported in previous crowd

crush incidents.

CONDITIONS AROUND 22:00

Due to growing concern about the crowd crush conditions in front of the stage someone from a local radio station came on stage during the break before The

Who performance. Using the public address system he appealed to people to move

back. His tone was somewhat condescending and, for the most part, his urgings

either were ignored or were followed by so few people that there was no significant change in the crowd condition.

Following this, at approximately 22:10, another person used the public address

microphone to appeal again to the crowd. He sounded quite agitated and was obviously concerned about the critical nature of the crowd density. The

following is a transcript of his announcements taken from an audio recording

made as part of the evening's observations. The gaps in the transcript

indicate that the announcements could not be clearly understood even when heard

from the roof of the north grandstand far above the noisy crowd.
CROD CONDITIONS AT ROCK CONCERT IN EXHIBITION STADIUM, TORONTO, 80-07-16, p.7

As well as indicating the frustration, perhaps even some feeling of

helplessness on the part of the announcers, this transcript gives some idea of

the important background to the concert itself. Because of their potentially

large importance in crowd menagement the announcements are reproduced here as faithfully as possible.

"I'm not from CHUM FM. I'm with . . , productions and

together with CPI we've been bringing some nice concerts to

Toronto for a long time. We're going to continue to bring

spectaculars like The Who to this stadium but we're asking

you for a little cooperation right now. To continue to

bring the kind of acts that Michael and everybody else at

CPI would love to get you to cooperate now. The building

people, the City Police, all those people in the court are looking at you right now. They tried to stop the concert.

We've got to show them now that they have no jurisdiction

and no reason to do anything like it. I've got to ask you

to move back! For us and for future concerts, take a step

back and look out for your neii^bour. Please be careful and

please start to move back. It's going to be a great show

and a great final act .... Please start to move back.

(Loud cheering here.) We are going to prove to the rest of

the world that a major musical event can take place in

Toronto and work. Just a step back. Just keep taking a step back. Keep an eye on your neighbour. Seme of you

people are getting really crowded. There are some seats in

the stands. Be conscious of that. The lights that The Who

have brought with them you'll be able to see from anywhere

in this stadium so you can just move back a litle bit. . . . Just keep moving back, a step, an inch, keep moving back!"

This series of announcements had some effect and there was a movement back,

totalling several steps. Another announcer, apparently the one from the radio

station had attenpted the first set of announcements, followed with further

requests.

"Ladies and gentlenen, help your fellow . . . you're

standing beside and move back . . . middle. Ceme on. Listen they tried to stop this show but you people wanted to see it!" (At this point he was all but drowned out but

rythmic applause, v^istling, and cheering or jeering as he

continued in a very tense voice to coax people to move

back.) "Come on. Get yourself together. All you people at

the back . . . now come on. Just move back a couple of

steps. Watch out for each other. You don't have to trample

each other. You don't have to push; you don't have to shove;

you don't have to punch." (Continued clapping and cheering,

almost drowning out the announcer.) "Ladies and Gentlemen,

this is the largest audience this stadium has seen." (Very

loud cheering and whistling.) "I'm not . . . down here to

tell you that if we don't get people back here the City

fathers, the bureaucrats, the people have a say in this
CROWD CONDITIONS AT ROCK CONCERT IN EXHIBITION STADIUM, TORONTO, 80-07-16, p.8

are going to refuse the . . . and we can't ever have a big

concert like this here again. We're starting to get a little bit more room up front here. How about a little bit

more .... Move back a little bit. Come on!

(Uninteligible sentence.) Cane on! We're going to try it

again. We're going to try it again. Everybody move back

one step at the count of three. It will make it easier that

way. Are you ready? Help me out if you want to. One!

Two! Three! One step! That's the stuff. That's it.

Let's try it again. Everybody now. One! Two! Three!

Move back! It's happening in the front. We've got to make

it happen in the back here. All of you guys standing around

the middle, around the scaffoldings there, that's right, you

guys standing right there, you got to help us out here. On

the count of three let's try it one more time. Everybody.

One! Two! Three! Step back! . . . .We're not too f g

great eh? Cone on, one more time. I know that you can

count to three and you're not stupid. One! Two! Three!

Move back!"

This series of announcements, like the first series he gave earlier, had little

effect. There was no large-scale, simultaneous stepping back at the count of

three. The change in density was quite small in the most crowded section

(labelled 1 on Figure 1) where there was less than 0.2 square metre (2 square

feet) for each person. If there had been 3 metres (10 feet) of movement to the

back here (and this is unlikely) each person's area would only have been

enlarged by between 10 and 20 percent. This might be enough to reduce

significantly the chance of injury.

The tape recording for the above transcript was made in the press box high

above the crowd. Within the crowd itself there was a great deal of noise,

making the announcements even more difficult to hear clearly. Respect for the

announcer and clear announcements are needed for such crowd control measures to

work. The announcer not from the radio station had more rapport with the

audience and was more successful in moving people back. Later in the evening,

someone from the group The Who asked the crowd to move two steps backwards.

This had some effect.

During and shortly after the break between the third rock group. Heart, and the

final group. The Who, the aisle stairs and the cross aisles in the newer grandstand on the south side of the field were filled with people. Looking

across the field it was difficult to detect where the aisles were. The area appeared to be one undivided mass of people. This did not mean that this

grandstand was fully occupied. Apparently many people who should have been in

the grandstand were on the field adding to the pressures there. (An estimate

of the number of people in the grandstands was made at 0:00 and this is

discussed below.)

CONDITIONS AT 22:40, WHEN THE WHO BEGAN PERFORMING

The wave phenomenon signifying extreme crowd density, that was noticeable

during the previous group's performance, was occurring again in the area within
CROWD CONDITIONS AT ROCK CONCERT IN EXHIBITION STADIUM, TORONTO, 80-07-16, p.9

approximately 12 metres (40 feet) of the stage. It may well have been that any

small reduction in density that was achieved with the small steps back during

the break was reversed as people again crowded closer to the stage. The

density on the field appeared to be more uniform than it was earlier (as noted

under the conditions at 21:00) and at this time it may have been occupied by as many as 35,000 persons. This condition continued until around 00:00.

CONDITIONS AT 00:00

At this time some people started to leave. The grandstands were estimated to

have the following occupancies: north and south side grandstands were 75

percent to 90 percent full (including the largely enpty areas beside the

stage). The far end grandstand to the west, over 150 metres (500 feet) from

the stage, was about 40 percent full. This estimate suggests that at their

most crowded condition the grandstands held 35,000 to 40,000 persons while the

field held approximately 30,000 to 35,000 persons with a total audience size of

approximately 70,000 persons. (At 21:00 the field had t>een estimated to have

approximately 31,000 persons on it.)

CONDITIONS AT 00:20, AS THE WHO BEGAN ENCORE

Toward the end of their main performance and just before the encore there was more obvious egress flow from the field and the grandstands. Many from the

north corner of the field, near the stage, used an aisle in the north

grandstand to leave. At this time the aisle carried a maximum flow of

approximately one person per second. Gate A, the main entry to the field, was

also used for egress from the field. These egress flows almost stopped when

The Who reappeared for the encore but picked up again a few minutes later.

The average total flow from the stadium could easily have been as high as two

hundred persons per minute during the 20 minutes preceding the encore and three

hundred per minute during the next 28 minutes of the show which ended at 00:48.

Thus the population in the stadium at the concert's end could have been down to

between 55,000 and 60,000. The crowd density in the field area behind the

lighting towers was considerably reduced during the encore. The field

population could have been down to fewer than 25,000 at the end of the concert.

EGRESS CONDITIONS AT THE END OF THE CONCERT AT 00:48

At the end of the concert patrons on the field attempted to leave via three

main routes, in addition to the grandstands' aisles and vomitories.

Gate A, the main entry gate for many of people on the

field, had a width of 9.1 metres (30 feet). Beside it was

an egress gate with a width of 7,3 metres (24 feet). The

route to both gates narrowed to approximately 15 metres

(50 feet) between grandstands.

Gate 2, with a width of 6.1 metres (20 feet), was reached

via a route north of the stage with access through a 5.5-metre (18-foot) gap in baracades.
CROWD CONDITIONS AT ROCK CONCERT IN EXHIBITION STADIUM, TORONTO, 80-07-16, p.lO

The third (potential) route, to a gate 6.7 metres (22 feet)

wide, was located southeast of the stage and was narrowed

to approximately 5.5 metres (18 feet) beside the stage

(Figure 4)

.

The route to the north of the stage was opened immediately v\^en the concert

ended and barricades prevented people from getting into the backstage area. The route to the southeast of the stage was never opened. It is unlikely that

the concert organizers would allow its use because egressing patrons would then

move between the stage and dressing rooms as well as going through a barbeque

area with a tent set up apparently for a post-show party. Several minutes

passed before many patrons, waiting for barricades to be removed here, realized

the route was not available and they moved to other egress routes.

Intensive movement through the barricade opening to the north of the stage

lasted for approximately 6 minutes. The route's capacity is estimated to be

approximately 600 persons per minute for the young able-bodied patrons at this

event. It is thus estimated to have been the egress route for about 3600

persons during the first 6 minutes of egress.

This north route had defects that compounded the problem of lack of familiarity

by patrons. One of the large floodlights used in the light show was parked in

this route. The walking surface was somewhat poor due to cables and other

material on the ground. Lighting was relatively poor. The main field lights

which added a lot of light to the field and surrounding areas did not come on

until nearly seven minutes after the end of the show. When this egress route

first became available at the end of the rock concert someone collapsed in the

middle of the dark egress path. Quick-acting security personnel pulled the

person out of the way of the crowd which followed.

The largest entry and egress route, between the old and new grandstands at the

west corner of the field, provided a capacity estimated to be about 2000

persons per minute for the young able-bodied people present on the field. It

was extensively used for about 11 minutes by as many as 22,000 persons.

In the new south grandstand the cross aisle took about 8 minutes to clear

(except for stragglers) . The older grandstand on the north side was not

entirely visible from the press box overhead and its egress was not documented;

however it likely was clear within the same time as the new grandstand.

These egress times are quite good but not surprising considering the nature of

the crowd which was composed predominantly of young and relatively fit people.

Despite the widespread use of drugs and marijuana, with a very small amount of

alcohol (the effect of which would have been small later in the concert) , there was little evidence of people being unsteady on their feet, weaving or needing

assistance when leaving. The fact that many had been packed at very high

densities during the preceding six hours or more may have meant that the usual

relationships between density and flow perhaps did not apply here. Therefore

the capacity flows estimated above could easily have been attained.
CROWD CONDITIONS AT ROCK CONCERT IN EXHIBITION STADIUM, TORONTO, 80-07-16, p.ll

SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Although there were some flaws with the egress system (in terms of unavailable

gates and relatively poor lighting in some areas) the biggest flaw to be

rectified with future events of this kind is the lack of control of the number

and distribution of patrons on the field. Those responsible for this event

have much good fortune to thank for the absence of serious injuries or loss of

life. Those managing the event appeared to be incapable of rectifying the

crowd crush condition in front of the stage after they had failed to exercise

control over the number of people congregating there.

It has already been pointed out that this arrangement, called "festival

seating," is by no means seating. The word "festival" does not apply either.

If the comfortable crowd densities observed in the field area around 16:00

could have been maintained somehow the term "festival seating" might apply.

(See Figure 3.) At this density, with each person being able to sit with at

least five square feet of area, the Exhibition Stadium field can comfortably

hold 20,000 to 25,000 persons. There could be adequate space for circulation.

Moreover, sightlines would be improved for all.

Some means must be found for limiting the number and density of persons

immediately in front of the stage. Convenient circulation routes around that

area should be maintained. A combination of design and management techniques

might work here in conjunction with improved awareness by rock show audiences

of the hazards of high crowd densities encountered during this show and found

in tragic crowd incidents.

A design feature that apparently has been used successfully in rock concerts is an increased height for the stage so that anyone coming too close will not be

able to see all the performers on the stage. A refinement might be to

cantilever the forestage in such a way that any spectators who are pushed

forward by those behind will simply end up in a circulation space urxier the

stage instead of being crushed against a barrier or wall.

A crowd management technique that might be considered is to use closed-circuit

television technology to help solve a classic problem in crowd crush

situations, namely the lack of front to back communication. The people at the

back have an inadequate idea of the trouble they are causing for their

colleagues at the front. Here consideration might be given to displaying for

those at the back a closed-circuit television image showing the conditions at

the front. In other words, an attempt should be made to utilize patrons'

concern for their fellows rather than their obedience of the instructions of

authorities.

Lighting facilities permanently installed for general illumination, plus some of the complex temporary systems used for light shows accompanying the musical

performances, could be used to advantage to help solve problems of crowd safety

including crowd egress. Exit routes should not be left in relative darkness.

It is not within the scope of this report to list a large number of

recommendations for improved crowd safety in events such as the observed rock
CROWD CONDITIONS AT ROCK CONCERT IN EXHIBITION STADIUM, TORONTO, 80-07-16, p.l2

concert. A future larger report, to which the above observations may

contribute, will perhaps include a conprehensive set of recommendations. Such

reports may come from the current work of a committee set up by the

International Association of Auditiorium Managers to examine crowd safety and

management and to propose standards. One currently available set of

recommendations is found in the report by the Task Force on Crowd Control and

Safety set up by the City of Cincinnati following the tragic crowd incident at

the rock concert on December 3, 1979 (7).

In conclusion it is worthwhile echoing one broad recommendation of the report

by the City of Cincinnati Task Force. Public assembly facilities and events

deserve more technical attention than has been seen to date. We must find out

what design and operating measures work in such facilities and events, as well

as finding out what does not work, if we are to maintain or improve the comfort

and safety of the public. The observations reported above were organized on very short notice and they leave much to be desired by way of scope and

precision. They are nonetheless significant if they are part of a larger

effort to improve knowledge and technology of crowd safety.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Gratitude is expressed for the cooperation of management and

staff of the City of Toronto Department of Buildings and Inspections,

particularly Arnold Park, Ron Alderson and Werner Sommer who participated in

field observations. Special thanks go to Werner Sommer who produced the

Super-8 film record and with whom valuable discussions were held after the

event. The cooperation of Exhibition Stadium management during and after the

event is also acknowledged with thanks.

REFERENCES

(1) The Right Honorable Lord Wheatley. Report of the inquiry into crowd safety

at sports grounds. London, Her Majesty's Stationery Office, May 1972.

(2) SCICOsI (Scientific Control Systems Limited). Safety in football stadia: a method of assessment. Scientific Control Systems Limited, London, 1972.

(3) Home Office/Scottish Home and Health Department. Guide to safety at sports

grounds (Football). London, Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1976.

(4) British Parliament. Safety of Sports Grounds Act, 1975, Chapter 52.

London, Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1975.

(5) British Secretary of State. The safety of sports grounds regulations 1976,

No. 1263. London, Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1976.

(6) Chet Flippo. Why eleven died in Cincinnati. Rolling Stone, January 24,

1980, p. 10.

(7) Crowd nenagement: report of the Task Force on Crowd Control and Safety,

City of Cincinnati, July 8, 1980.
FIGURE 1

Plan of Exhibition Stadium

showing two lighting towers

black squares), egress rout

(each marked by "E” in circle) and areas occupied

by crowd at various densities during the rock concert.

(small
FIGURE 2

View from new south

grandstand to stage and

old north grandstand at

about 16:00, two hours

before the concert began.

The press box, from which

most of the reported observations were conducted,

extends across the roof of

the north grandstand.

FIGURE 3

Two hours before the

concert began people were

able to sit at a comfortable density on the field

which was covered with a tarpaulin protecting the

artificial turf.

FIGURE 4

Peer security maintained a clear area separating the

audience and stage (to the

right, off the photograph)

two hours before the

concert began.

Barricades, blocking the

southest egress route from

the field, are shown at the

lower right. These remained

in place even at the end of

the concert.
FIGURE 5

Toronto Star newspaper photograph, taken from the

stage, shows the dangerously dense crowd condition

that was maintained for up to seven hours. Cooling

thirst-quenching water, frequently thrown by the

bucket at these people, contributed to their unkempt

appearance as the evening progressed.

(Photograph by John Mahler.)
ATTACHMENT 5

SUPPLEMENTARY DISCUSSION ITEMS

Provided By

Dr. Irving Goldaber

Consultant on Social Conflict Management

euid Crisis Intervention

and Special Consultant to the

Cincinnati Task Force on Crowd Control and Safety

Architecture and Design ; How can places of assembly be designed to

improve the safety and efficiency with which places of assembly are entered, used, and exited? What architectural features or elements

are in particular need of review?

Arena Management : What aspects of arena management must be improved

to increase safety in places of assembly? What should be the roles

of ushering, security, and police personnel during theatrical and

sports events?

Psycho-Social Signals ; To what extent do events "on the playing

field" prompt mass behavior and crowd movement by spectators? How do

psycho-social signals influence spectator safety?

Educating Patrons of Theatrical and Sports Events ; Can (and should)

the general public be trained to enter, use, and leave places of

assembly safely?
APPENDIX D

POSITION STATEMENTS
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OFFICE OF THE CITY MANAGER

CINCINNATI, OHIO 45202

April 30, 1981

Dr. Fred I. Stahl

Environmental Design Research Division

Center for Building Technology

National Engineering Laboratory

National Bureau of Standards

Washington, D. C. 20234

Dear Dr. Stahl and Participants of the Ingress Workshop;

On behalf of the Cincinnati Task Force on Crowd Control and Safety atid the

City of Cincinnati, we would like to extend our support for the work you arc

undertaking.

During the many months of the Task Force research we became aware of the

need for initiating new research in the field of crowd dynamics. We, therefore,

recommended in Chapter IV "Architectural Planning and Design" of the Task

Force report that;

1. The National Bureau of Standards should review existing regulations

concerning pedestrian and crowd processing in, through and out of

buildings, and embark on new studies directed at establishing new

regulations whore appropriate.

2. The National Bureau of Standards should initiate new research into the

changing pedestrian flow patterns v'ith emphasis on, but not limited to,

high density rates, ingress flows, ticket processing, entrance configurations, the influence on environmental variables and crowd dynamics in

high density situations.

We hope that the participants of the Ingress Workshop will be able to distill

these general recommendations leaving particular areas and concerns for

agencies like the National Bureau of Standards to address through research.

The benefits of such studies will serve the tens of millions of Americans tliat

yearly attend carnivals, sporting events, concerts, parades and other activities

where large assemblages of people are encouraged. Law enforcement agencies,

facility operators, promoters and crowd management specialists ovc rwludmi ngly

support the spirit and goal of this workshop. A sample survey of 15*^'- of the

Equal Opportunity Employer
Dr, Fred I. Stahl - 2 - April 30, 1981

1300 recipients of the Task Force report in 35 states, the District of Columbia,

and four provinces in Canada supports our belief. Ninety-two percent of those

responding to our questionnaire agreed with our recommendations for new crowd

research. There definitely is national support for what the Ingress Workshop is

attempting to accomplish.

We believe that the recommendations that may be proposed by the Workshop can

save lives and property in the future and generally make large public events

more enjoyable. We are also aware that this effort may carry on past the oneday Ingress Workshop. Should this be the case, we will lend our support in any

way that we can.

Sincerely,

- ")

\David S. Mann

Mayor

City of Cincinnati

Paul L. Wertheimer

Public Information Officer

City of Cincinnati

Chief of Staff - Task Force on

Safety Director

University of Cincinnati

Chairperson - Task Force on

Crowd Control and Safety Crowd Control and Safety
Intemofional Associofion of Auditorium Managers

500 N. Michigan Av«nu*. Suit* 1400 • Chicago. IMInolt 60611 • 312/661-1700

April 28. 1981

Dr. Fred Stahl

Environmental Design Research

Division Center for Building Technology

National Engineering Laboratory'

National Bureau of Standards

Washington. DC 20234

Dear Dr. Stahl:

The International Association of Auditorium Managers (lAAM) is

the only association of professional public assembly facility managers.

Our membership of 900 executives manage most of the major public

assembly facilities in the U.S. as well as nine other countries including Australia. Canada, England. Mexico, Nigeria, the Republic of Panama,

Sweden and West Germany. This includes 393 auditoriums, 361 arenas,

116 stadiums and 385 convention/exhibition halls.

As working professionals, we are aware that recent tragedies ranging from rock concerts to hotel fires have spurred much interest in

and even more talk about legislating crowd safety. Many state and

local legislatures have rushed to judgment, enacting crowd management

and safety laws with more good intentions than actual knowledge of

what is involved in effectiv^^ crowd management.

lAAM has long taken the opposite' position, preferring a realistic

approach to evaluating and solving the problems stemming from crowd

behavior in public assembly facilities. Thus we are extremely concerned

that standardized legislation not be enacted to cover all types of

facilities. Our cumulative, diverse experience indicates that

there are many different types of facilities with significant differences

in design, ingress/egress patterns, physical barriers, police and

security 'personnel , ushers, ticket-takers and every other factor

affecting crowd management.

Because of the nature of our work, lAAM members offer an immense

amount of individual and collective experience in crowd behavior and

management. When one considers the thousands upon thousands of events

Th« proiowtonal orgonlcatlon of manogora of oudnortums, oronos. oxhibliion halla, convorMon contw> ond stocHums
Dr. Fred Stahl

National Bureau of Standards

April 28. 1981

Page -2-

held each year in the facilities we manage, the number of disturbances

or incidents which occur is actually quite miniscule. However, when

such an incident does happen, the numbers of people involved tend to

focus public and governmental attention. The glare from this public

spotlight can sometimes distort attempts to view the incident objectively

For example, because of what happened at the 1979 Who concert in

Cincinnati, most of the legislative attention has been directed toward

rock concerts. Yet, as any facility manager could tell you, the area with the greatest potential for crowd disasters is sports events.

Nevertheless, current sentiment leans toward passing legislation

to ban specific practices such as festival seating (which would be

ineffective in preventing such future tragedies) or toward broader

legislation to enforce uniform crowd handling practices upon all

facilities regardless of type or nature of events handled. The latter

approach would actually create more crowd handl ing' problems than it

would solve. The audience in an arena for a rock concert differs greatly

from that attending a hardware trade show in a convention hall. The

crowd at a stadium for a hockey game differs greatly in temperarrent

from the audience at a concert hall to hear a symphony. To attempt to

deal with all of the many types of crowds which' pass through our highly

diverse facilities with one set of uniform, standardized crowd control

legislation appears to us highly simpl istic.

The key to understanding this concept is the term "crowd control."

A' park ranger from the Badlands National Park in South Dakota was describing a buffalo roundup to the editor of our lAAM' publication,

Auditorium News . When asked, "Where do you herd the buffalo?" the ranger

replied, "Anywhere they want to go." The parallel is not meant

facetiously. One does not control crowds because once they reach the

point where they need controlling, it is not only impossible but it's

already too late. What one can do—if we are professional enough--!

s

to manage crowds . But this is done subjectively on a case by case

basis. This requires not legislation but professional experience,

training and judgrrient.

Thus lAAM feels that the rush by state and local governmental

bodies to legislate crowd control methods is not only ineffective but,

more significantly, one more sign of the deeper need for more intensive
Dr. Fred Stahl

National Bureau of Standards

April 28,1981

Page -3-

research into this entire area. The last major study of crowd behavior

was made in 1935 and then only considered crowd movement under normal

conditions rather than under peak conditions where the need is greatest.

For this reason last July the lAAM board of directors authorized the

appointment of an ad hoc "lAAM Study Group on Crowd Behavior and

Management." Dr. Robert Sigholtz, manager of Washington's Starpl ex/Robert

F. Kennedy Stadium and D.C. Armory, who is attending this meeting on my behalf, was named chairman, and Dr. Irving Goldaber, internationally

known sociologist and crowd management consultant, is serving as an advisor

Their preliminary report--ti tied "Spectators and Safety! The Development of Standards for and Their Implementation by Facility Executives

served as the prospectus for a three-year program for the first major

study of crowd behavior and management since the one in 1935. As a result

of board approval of the Sigholtz and Goldaber proposal , the committee has

been expanded to a five-person study group to pursue public and private

funding for the project and to seek support from related areas. Already

the lAAM project has created great interest among sports leagues, law

enforcement agencies, insurance companies and other groups interested in

public safety.

The third phase will involve a year-long intensive study seeking to

develop a program operated by'IAAM of safety certification of individuals

in the crowd management field. Such a program is the real answer to the

challenge laid down by the Cincinnati Task Force on Crowd Control and

Safety! to develop and implement universal safety standards for crowd

management. But it is also the culmination of more than five years of

cooperation in the field of crowd behaviorial study between Dr. Goldaber

and lAAM members like Dr. Sigholtz.

It is lAAM's hope that the study group's activities may serve to

balance any hasty attempts to legislate controls which essentially should

be management decisions made by 'professional s in the field. Ideally,

safety should not interfere as much as is necessary: However, lAAM

feels strongly that safety should not be an outside factor imposed upon

an event but rather a professional necessity ' inherent in the nature and

management of the event. If managers of public assembly facilities, with

the cooperation of other interested parties, are allowed to develop their

own professional program for crowd management, safety will not interfere

with entertainment and entertainment will not interfere with safety:

Sincerely,

JWF/ip

cc: John W. Lyons, Director

George Bohlinger, Acting Admn.

Dept, of Justice
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POSITION STATEMENT

Every public assembly tragedy in the last fifty years reveals

common traits of disaster. We act after the fact I In spite of blue

ribbon panels and enactment of legislation, we have very little enforcement of codes or laws relating to actual procedures in Public

Assembly.

There are municipal codes, County Disaster Plans, State Emergency

programs for tornados, earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, and even plans

for invasions of territories. We have carefully neglected the Public

Assembly area for over fifty years, and through a step by step process

we have backed ourselves into a cultural phase of poorly thoughtout

procedures to govern the assemblage of the masses.

Behavioural studies have been funded and researched for specific

movements of people at popular Public Assenbly areas. There is the

pre- World War II film produced by the neo Nazi, Hitler regime, about

experiments with youth in Public Assembly facilities, related to panic.

Walt Disney instituted studies before some of his famous parks were

opened. Mr. Ben Schlanger of New York City, assembled material about

crowd control in the 1960's. Dr. Quatranelli of Ohio State University

has researched crowd control and panic. The Office of Strategic Services,

OSS, during World War II, instituted a number of studies about terrorists, crowd control, and mass panic. Dr. Irving Goldlaber, present here,

has labored long in his work with the Center for Crowd and Spectator

Behaviour. My own experience has been related to Public Assembly and

the Entertainment Industry for longer than I care to admit.

It seems to me that we are here to address a number of behavioural
patterns in our culture. People's natures have not changed in the

billions of years, they have adapted to the culture of the tines,

vhich they inform. Perhaps they are more motivated and susceptible

to violence today. Perhaps. In my attendance at hundreds of Public

Assembly functions per year, I perceive the same groips that echoed

in the Roman Coliseum, but in a more frenzied fashion. I believe that

frenzy is activated by other causes and forces, i.e. drugs and alcohol.

There are other motivating factors as well, but I believe the above

substances raise the level of frenzy.

Attendant upon this behaviour are the Public Assembly structures

and areas of assemblage. Too many of these structures, aesthetically

may be pleasing to the eye, but have been designed to mass large groups

of people, or small groi5)s, and have not given attention to the wellbeing of these people in body and in movement. These movements are

the stuff of ingress and exiting. This seating is also the bread and

butter of each facilities fiscal health, but not the safety and health

of the patrons.

Our charge then is to examine the aberrated behaviour as it interfaces with the structures. If we add the untrained personnel, the lack

of management in crowd control, the ill defined security features, and

the stimulants, we have sufficient cause for new studies, research, and

guidelines.

Therefore, we should inquire as to certain areas of information, and

our task will be to design the matrix for that information and place it

in such a synthesis that it will be applicable to all Public Assembly
situations, and can be readily tailored to the control of definitive

risks in each locale and structure.

1. What information exists? What studies and research have been

done and how relevant is it to the problems of ingress?

2. Specific efforts should be made to document, through incident

and media, existing design deficiencies. This is a long task,

but I believe necessary to the final study.

3. Isolate all management practices, through incidents and

through documents. Actual practices, philosophy and

procedures have been ill conceived and egregiously initiated.

4. Dual factors of egress and ingress must be correlated. Recent

night club and hotel fires have pinpointed errors in the

codes and their enforcements in this regard.

5. All requirements for entrances, local, national, and international should be examined. European standard^ do not key

with ours.

6. Education, instruction, and training should be examined,

developed, and a system for its mass propogation should be

carefully pondered. The methods in piijlic and private

enterprise do exist for this function.

7. Technological data, with design parameters should be part of

all design functions, and detailed recommendations should be

sipported by architectural and construction organizations.

(We recognize the blind and the handicapped situations, by law

and by structure. Equitability should apply in all cases.)

The class play, the ZOO STORY, by the playwright, Edward Albee,

gives great insight into the behavioural climate of our times. It

poignantly illustrates personal confrontation with public seating.

Perhaps the perusual of this small tome might be suggested to those

who, by position and by organization, make decisions with the powers

that be, for movement of people in Pi±)lic Assembly areas.

Dr. Randall W.A. Davidson,

Public Assembly and Entertainment Industry Consultant

May 4, 1981
Mmvmtt-rmmrtk PICTUKES 17 ff. , J—wy>» ^&3> Forethought As Basic Rule Of Crowd Control;

Wisdom Dictates Strong Panic-Prevention

By RANDALL DAVI060N

(Natioml ComndMxantr For HeaUt it Safety VS. Itutititie For Theatre Technology) "A(Kan«-ptonning" is the krj ingredient (if often all too common one —to be entertained. to»all> The structure is at Recall Sinatra Idolatry

rare) in all types of crowd control, ranging from Mardi Gras their mercy. "I paid my money — I have a ri^ ' — ^te Of Times Square That Was

parades to California Jam. up to local disco operations and heard like a Upe loop — over and over again. It is in this

I remember the crowds in New York City in the 40's — all Philoisophy this attitude that tlw nurturing of the unique up in the street to get in the ParamouiU to see Woody

••crowd — complex or behavior" begins. ,0^ Sinatra. In the rain yet. Orderly. Six to seven hours. rw Tknut rinallyinside.upthetiereorbalconies — orderly— toaseat

t Only the girls were thiow-ing themselves off the balconies in Who s ara liieir AdmiSfaOP oblivious rapture — but not many Screaming yes — but One individual B joined by another, and another — like aemi-ocderly. And only a few users to control us Whew!

flotsam on a decadent lake. Their ••rights’^ are beyond any A crowd — a mob — all Ululate animalistic tendencies

accountability to a structure of those who own and manage Trapped — we fight . Wounded — we go for the juggler vein

ik much less thoae whose funds (hard earned) erected an At least wecan leash animals— and cage them Humansare care for this facility For several doxen years — even to the

political gatherings

fcvery facet oi every operation must be|^^

carefully planned and plotted, for each in- dividual event (The Saturday morning

parade may be entirely different from an

afternoon or evenmg one) Similarly, in’ any public assembly event, crowds vary _ from locale to locale, group to group (de- pending upon the appeal of the event and who it is slanted toward, i.e.. music, rock,

industrial. poUtical. Olympic meets, parades. large funerals, animal shows and

festivals The list of types of events is legion, but all most follow a common phikesophy when it comes u> planrting for safety. •There are major considerations and ground rules to be scrupulously followed and complied with, in order to ensure true and constant control of all acceptable risks In Enter- tainment and public assembly. The ‘Kind’ Of Audience Needs To Be Considered

Specific prinaples must always be used in developing the plan for potential crowd control 1 say potential, because in the first place, we are expecting an audience of specific types tainmenl hmction, the letsure time activity now turns into of people with specifK kinds of behavior, but more and more, melee. Tie ant-domino-rabbit theory plunks right into mod- we plan for ••crowds rather than audiences. entixing. Follow me! All architectural designs fail — imWMK

Crowds are groups of people motivated by •'emotiooar fortress-like they have used Lexan (safety glass) , bars, steel rather than "rationar' thining The emotions are translated locks and chains, metal doors and sealed entrances,

into emotion^ or irratiooal behavior. i.e.. the ^of 10;00 One frets about the crowd — in large or small quarters

A.M. at Jake s Department Store: limited, 100 items; auc- the one bull in the china shop — becoming a herd,

tions. concerts, lining-up for the theatre, soccer games! i recall fire drills — in which silence was mandated and We are dealing with momentum' The sheer, physical nie — until, coming down the stairs, someone pushed mass of bodies surging in one or nearly one directim. with or tripped —and dovm we went. We stomped on several peobut a suigie goal. 1 am sure you can fathom-up untold in- pic before line could stop — Sir-kUy rmiy p

pair of glnfroTT stances of European and Latin American soccer games, and a split lip ensued. Panic.

other athletic events (end of a series or tournament), fire. wj tried in England an experiment with crowds One

flood, earthquake, appearance ofa famous person or star or hundred fire men in a hall All doors had panic bars. We all idol, which deal directly with masses of people. knew what we were going to do. Evacuate the kail — peH Every public assembly ^ent has a purpose Whether it is mell. At a given moment, someone yelled Tire^' — and we all motivated by good or evil, is not the question here. The pur- gm the legal, required, width and number of exits. Only

Coliseum of the Roman timee —we hear the raucous cries of ••my rights'^ and ••entertain me.^' Forged by one will, all else fades into oblivion. Perhaps, as

1 have viewed it three or four hundred times, the unity (strange word in this context) of will, is fueled by other substances, other than desire. The Qitire world of d^-highs and alcohol enter into this scene. The crowd of individual, desperate people, now is cajoled by inner monsters seeking •Their way^^ — and •They

adll havetheirway." Ants, Rabbits Aiyl Domino

Tbeory — What Price Panic?

Restrictive parameters (gates, turn-stiles, doors walls, locked areas) become barriers to surmount. The enterpose IS usually obvious : a sale of some item, a performance,

a display of philosophy, a patriotic meeting, the Olympics, a

conference, parade, bingo, what have you. Even Funerals Definitely Require Crowd Control

Some public assembly gatherings are commercial, amateur voluntary public or private Each event attracts a specific type of person, depending upon the event. Each event is planne . 'or a specific locale or in a specific physical struc- the crowd everytime. The trolley car in San Francisco— the

ture Every event has its followers — yes. even funerals, subway — any group, can become a crowd. (Remember the Rudolph Valentino •not") Each locale or Perhaps we can remedy the architectural designs — xero

physical structure has its specific architectural or material barriers — wide enough — nothing to get bung on or imdesigns and limitations or barriers. paled by. what then? Some events, of a public assembly nature, do not conform Tripping and slipping — places — all smoothed out

18 were hurt — smashed against the side doors. Sober, intelligent, legal requirements, knowledgeable, broad daylight — et al. and still we hurt ounetves. Not sufficient numberofdoors. and not suSiciently wide (units) for the capacity of the hall — but legal and sufficient under nor- mal circumstances. NORMAL circumstances. Not usually your public as- sembly situadon Christmas crowds — final items — little time — you join

to space parameters, inside or outside, with a specific type or

size of audience or participants Today, this is becoming the norm m the public assembly area. It is not a matter of sunding room only — but of economics ECONOMICS —

how many bodies, at a given price can 1 manage to get into a

give space’

(TVe understand there are "capacity " designations and numbers of seats, etc ) The consideration is ECONOMICS,

i.e . profit, staying open paying the rent, as well as per- formers; coi'ering the bills; accommodating the producer or house fudging on capacity , providing the "audience" what

they want in spite of reguLaUons fire, safety, health. Something tiiat seemed reasonable at the time — or in the back of one smind — or just "donT give a damn, "

' pack 'em in Some

type of reflection or thinking, perhaps, occurred before the event or booking Sky- As-Tlie- Limit, As In Woodstock

An event, a dty. a building or locale, a booking, an opportunity. numbers of people, and profit. (Ekooomics) must all gel in order to fulfill a public assembly event.

I^’here does one go from there, in thinking of large groups

of people? Physical facilities falls loyally into place.

The Behavior Symptoms

Which Often Mark Crowds

What do we do with the crowd now? It is a crowd you know — (1) noisy , (2) boisterous, (3) single purpose, (4) deep desire for a common cause. (S) fueled by exotic substances. (4) deep desire for a common cause, (6) cardio vascular system

receiving adrenalin al a super rate. (7) packed tightly together (8) exhuding perspiration. (9) on their feet for a

lengthy period of time. (10) anonymous by virtue of the

locale. (ID stimulated by the weather — hot or cold (either one stoking their personal furnace). (12) the excitement of the moment — moments of expectancy, (13) perhaps a total crowd feeling of deprivation, either real or believed, but whether young or otd. — held back from a •'teeable'" or

••bearable" goal — only meters away. (14) needed and cajoled by sound, voices, touch, (ears, all surfacing and welded

into a common cause of immediate satisfaction. (IS) perhaps a tang of sexuality, and (16) maybe even hope that ahead lies some respite to what they are eixiuring new.

••Aduh? Child? Man? Woman? Anyone! A little lower than

the angels^^ — a crowd ain't. It reminds one of Afiiee's "Zoo

Story'• — «dth the taunting over the bench. Two adu^.

I recall a comment made In a ••crowd^^ in a very conserva- _ ... , — live corner of America, when] notified them that President Facibt^ Desij^ of the building or buildings is an im- John Kennedy has just been assassinated ••Whorara^l poriani industry today in our culture As we grow in enter- was stunned. Just as stunned as when I see the "crowd" winment fun^ns, we al» are growing in size of facility, pushing each other out of churth to be Gr« for the parking &TO of our^ctures hoW

the over 100,000 people, and in the lot . Just as stunned as when I see the tearing down ofSe^ sky IS the limit, a la Wood- verhial goal posts, or the crowds at Thr^iver Stadiuim itock, wTiat does one do? Part of the probiem and aolutioc So — besides architecturally weU-desianed maces for Sorely upon the designer of the budding. We are to crowds to rage In. we need to kriow all the^ve terns that

'*'*®'’* structure Into which we walk, pay- make them lick. Because we must make more than b^

mgweutodoso. is free of physical hazards Inu this struc- gestures at controlling them. We must exert our will on them

individuals of all ages, sizes, intelligence, races, creeds, (the crowd) in such a fashion as to modify their behavior and

and states of health, will enter. Their goals, for a fee. is a control it. to preveat bijuTfet. aerkous or fatal

dUferent. If we caimol provide sufficiently strong, well- planned physical barriers, then we have to find ahanalive

means.

Physical barriers are just a drop in the bucket. It goes back to planning buildings, yes. but to an entire pre-plan- ning of our total approach to people and those special people who frequent whatever events we produce, sponsor, or manage.

Hfaila on Procediiret

1. We must ae< the guidelines, and do so in a realistic manner.

2. Know from experience — what si» group we expect —

from years before, experience, ticket sales aix] aiteance hype.

3. Physical hazards must be removed, whether it is a table, a lamp, a door — rvfaatever. Do not remove safety barriers.

4. Continually post graphic guidelines (or all to see.

5. Be sensitive to the needs of the people coming to the evem — i.e., parade. baO game, race, concert.

S. Post ail regulations: few but exact. auBTraWng

7. All personnel who are ushering or in security or hawking

food. etc. need to be trained in handling large groups.

S. Training of total personnel for all events is necessary

9. Ascertain needs of personnel and number sin each

(acuity.

10. Rigorously apply your well-thought out safely and

health standards, gear^ to each event.

11. DonT wait (or a number of incidems. Firmly handle each one immediately. The sooner you take control — the sooner you calm or alert others to what action and sanctions

will betaken (Nightclubs, skating, games, wherever). Avoid Long Qneiiet

12. Break-up the long lines of people, if possible This re- beves anxiety and pushing to some extent.

13. Sufficient exits or entrances carefully manned —

perhaps two to three people — no blocking hazards

14 Do not got by width of legal limit — It is better to have widerdoors —qiecial —than costs of injuries (justmease)

15. Remember planning dictated numbers of ushers and

security personnel.

16. Emergency procedures: known to all trained personnel. KnowhigsiM

17. A definitive person in charge known to aO.

18. A definite means of communications so you know wfaai

is going on at all times

19. iOwwiedgeable in first aid (recommended first aid per- sonnel be there — as at many games) depending upon size of crowd and inside or outside attendance

20 Knowledge and communication means to get specifir help.

21. All part-time or alternative personnel must be trailed (Only use trained personnel)

.

22. Meetings to discuss all eventualities based on prior aid

present knowledge of groups (Usual customers, college audience, teenagers — ladies day at the races, etc.)

.

23. All risks must be examined. (Influence of event or per- formers or sports, on audience)

24. RkX equipment (flashlight, fire extinguishers, etc.) must be checked and in good order.

25. Decor must be such as not to impede passageways.

26. Well-lighted facilities No Smoking

27 No smoi^ by personnel— (fire and hazard danger)

.

28. CPR training useful.

29. Defuse incidents quickly by trained assessment and

sufficient numbers of security people.

20. No weapons used, unless life is threatened.

21. One person in charge —without equivocatioo and exact knowledge of hwo to report incidents.

22. Timing of events is crucial — allowing one to detee

confrontation situations.

23. Use regulations that can be enforced.

24. No bottles or cans inside large events. (Clubs, diaoa.

limit numbers of items and clean-up quickly. KeepPromiwt

25. DonT promise opening time (or play, perfomuace.

ballet, show — if you canT deliver Keep in cioee touch wkh

audience.

28. Elxamine attendance policy. (Continued on page 70)
c

Crowd Conbol I (Continued from page 17)i I 37. Examine when entertainmenl facility is to open — who is to

Ik* there and wluit reporting is to be

done about conditioas — from a disc^> to a high .sc1mm>I auditorium.

38. Co-ordinate all personnel

from mail re to usher.

39. Review ail fire ttides. Ufe

' Siifety Codes. Electriciil Codes,

dealing with your facility. AscerUiin

how many people necessiiry to enforcv them at each event. Be accurate. - The key to Crowd Contn»l and

Risk Management is planning! —

planning! — planning! All eventualities mast be coasidered by all. Each event is a newevent. Don't al- ways judge by past situations.

Small or large, adult or teen,

cmwds can be ctintrijlled with the"

correct planning and support.

Authority and management mast

be e.xercised. Bt*havior must and

can he mcidificd if a total pUin Ls |xit

into :Klkm and curried thniugh.
PUCE

75'

NEWSPAPER

tMOT4aM».O.b«

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Vol. 283 No. IS New York, Wedneoday, August 4, IfK M PAGES

PUBUC ASSEKBIY iICCIDENT (MS

100 OFTEN 'SAFETY LAST IS ROLE

‘Wety Last would be a more

accurate deacriptioo of m attitude

all too common to the United States as regards thousands of pubUc as- sembly sites The k»gtime pious

slogan, “Safety First,” popularises

after the notorious Iroquois Theatre

Fire (am dead) in Chicago in 1903, is frequently not respected .either because safety costs too much, or

inspection is lu, or the show muM

go on, or there never has beei an accident and the risk of one is daiied

or ignored, or there is undue faith tai fire-proofing ” Fire is only tte worst of the haurds Falls loom large. Occa-

•y ROBERTJ. LANDRY

Mona of structuraJ brsak are as

Insurance eom^ny dread. PubUc

assembly, Ute le^ d^itioB of which embraces entertaiiiment, profesaknal, amateur, ac»lenic or

church, counts in h^, arenas, lounges, barges, tests, grasdstands, gymnasiums, disastheques,

et al. An average k four duths

from acctdenu occur weekly,

liability from se^igence or mishap

is calcidated at over gsm,000,om

yearly. As regards diurchs there is the incredible detail that 11 of them hum down every day The above paragraphs represent a mere sampUng of quite grbi data

on ntbty earelasaoeM and mlDdlessnem supplied Vahtty by 1^. R.W. A. Davidson, president of the IntematiaQal Safe^ Isstitute of

Erie, Pa. He is aho Coounladoner

for Safety of the U.S. Institute for Theatre Technology, aome of wfaoae meetings have bMD reported in tfalB weekly in raccBt yean. A certain amount of the DavtdKO

evidence of entertainnteot lite dis- asten is actually feedback from Vanety Itself, stories from all over. These range from high d^idt mechanical failures like the

bendina of the revoivlnf stage the very ni^t the newMetroplitan

0pm opened to a routine noaedive from that stage when tenor Jameo McCrackenn tripped over a cumbersome costume. Ramindero

include the rsp.mo fire at Detroit’s secnni largest cafe, Lofy's; a girl fan crushed to death by the crowd at a David Cassidy concert in

Elnglaod. Or the Port Qieater, N.Y

tragedy (24 youths dead) at a

Qretrap disco. Or a U-too ”floUble'’

ceiling at tltt San Jose (CaUf.) Community Theatre collapsing, with two

stage riggers left dangli^ 90 feet above the main door. A failure of safety may only be the

risk to toee and ankles of dancers on

a concrete-hard stage floor as

recxntiy at the brand-new Minskofi Theatre in Manhattan dimnf the run of “Irene,” with Actors Equity

protesting at first and then

threatening to due the show to protect its monbers. A risk to singers vocal chords from douds of dust drew complaint not long ago

everytime stagehands moved fists for s musical comedy playing in an

antique Philadelphia playhouse. There was the horror at Ridgecrest.

Calif, when a 'blank” bullet kilM a amateur actor In Paramus (NJ.)

at tite high school, equipage from

the stage loA dropped on 400 maaaed

singers. i Due notoriety in recent times has

focussed upon the PCV dement

(Poly Vinyl Chloride) used In the pressing of phonograph disks szsi medically susped as peculiarly!

liable to encourage cancer in the

liver of workers. Od fiK unique side, though not entirely so, was a law ault la Maryland, parents of a 10-year old

girl charging that the seats in a film

theatre were vermin-infested and

that the child picked up Rocky' Mountain Fever ticks. Safety

problems are of all kinds end

degrees of liability . Just now a udoo

in HoU>-wood is agitating against a

film lab accused of excessive sad

kssuniciently protected uaeof unit chemicals, with a auspicion if cancer inducement Accidents to crew memben in shooting outdoor actkn risk scenes are well knowB. PaaiMacliWa

Probably k ramaina true thto cafe and theatre Area (not forg«.

ting hotels) are well up on the list of tnigediM. Tteatre fires were ri course almost an evnytlay haiard

In the 19th Century fint with can- dles, then oO. then gaslight. Thatb

the daasic case of the Boway

Theatre which burned down aevia tiroes, yet the fioai structun mana^to exist safely for 40 yean

But aU that is history. Rdativsh

stringent fire department reguls- tloos nowadays prevail Even so, I woman has recently oocnpiaiatd

that the top dielf of a New Yort

legitimate playhouse had locked It

fire escape, a charge vigoroudy denied by the owners, liDce it would be serious Indeed, if proved. It wii locked fire exits at Klaw g

Eiianger's Iroquois that resulted to most of the deaths by panic and pits- up Tio UtUe Aware? W^t is being done to mintmtoe accidents in entertainment Is- dustries or public assembly points! Far too fittle, thinks Davidsoo. He comments that it’s a slow-go because so often added cosu are feared, or long-pull budget increase

is needed a^ dreaded. Against which he shakes his bead over the deaths and hospital expentes. the insurance premiunu rise that result j

;

Davidson Jeers at the do- Dothingism implicit in such typical rejoiners as 'The rigging system hat always been adequate, lo why

worry about it?” or, even more i dramatic in evil omen, "Tbe

lighting instruments have always been hung by the curtains and tho

haveni caught fire yet”

Dtovidaon dies a note from t

professor about a tragedy at the U. of Illinois, to wit: “A boy, farussini

Hgtiting instrument in the dark on the studio theatre grid, fell off struck a batten half way (k^ snf broke his back. There ti no safely

rail on the edge of tbe grid." News of coooert shelf fsHingi, J- baun beoddags, noxious solventi emitting fiimes in theatre workshops,, miiairians electrocutad by

their own guitars, Ann-Margret a mast of biuken bones and bruises through a backstage cafe gear

failure. The enormous compilatloa

of small, medium and mi^ dis- asters in public assembly flfoatinhs

is, uys Davidson, "cnoi^tD fsM

the hair (and profit hiathii^ 4^
THS^S^.PARKS; EIG OV HAZARDS. BIG ON SAFEPY

I Theme-Parks have entertainment for the entire family. There is some-

,[ thing at every Theme-Park for all age groups. This year the Theme-

! Parks expect over 60 million customers, one-fourth of the population

of the United States, One Theme-Park indicates they will be seeing

10 million Americans and visitors at their park, this year.

Each Theme-Park is like a city unto itself. Their territory ranges

from under 100 acres to over 2100 for some of the large Theme-Parks,

They are the largest form of regional entertainment and they are

growing and they are expanding. Each year there are additional

facilities, new rides and more personnel. Contrary to national rumors,

there are a dozen which are in the drawing board stage and four more

being built. THE>3-Parks are big business. Big business is organized

to make a profit. In order to make a profit, business must not have

liability suits, breakdowns, poor images and ill-trained personnel,

Theme-Parks run a tight show. Only one this last year converted to

another type of similar operation.

As in all entertainment of such a vast scope plus the utilization of

the wide sprectrum of rides and personnel, there can be a multiplicity

of hazards. Iheme-Park founders take this into consideration when they

hire persorjiel and firms to design and build these gigantic entertainment meccas. Every facet of the park is scrutinized for safety and

health problems. In some of the Theme-Parks, 80,000 people move

through in a single day and this number is increasing. With this

amount of customers, nothing can be left to chance where it comes to
2

the health and safety of the customer, performers and other technical personnel. Consider carefully, those who are interested in

pursuing this type of occupation or career, the massive operation

a Theme-Park is. Because the appeal is universal, that is, fantasy,

historical, fun and thrills, all levels of participation are possible,

all ages attend, and all types of entertainment must be planned and

designed for these differences.

The differences apply to the employees as well. They also apply to

the performers. Permanent staff and seasonal staff. Permanent entertainers and performers and groups who come for a week at a .time.

It is these settings, these thousands of customers and hundreds of

technicains and performers which we must examine carefully in light

of health and safety regulations.

All of the Theme-Parks are subject to Federal Safety and Health Regulations (OSHA), There are movements toward simplification of the

OSHA application to Industry and a definite thrust toward aiding those

who come under its jurisdiction. It would be an exemplary study for •

all who work in Theme-Parks to familiarize themselves with the small

OSHA handbooks which can be ordered or purchased at regional Federal

offices or Bookstores. Remember, OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health

Administration or Act) has as its aim, the protection of the employee.

If the tools, venilation, surfaces, restrooms, equipment, shoes, etc.

are dangerous to the employee, OSHA is highly interested and by law

can visit the Theme- Park and examine the milieu within which the

employee, technician and performer, manager, etc, work. They can,

with court help, cite unsafe situations and practices, and enforce
3

those Federal Statutes which apply to the worker and his environment.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission also has a stake in the ThemeParks, Equipment. Big equipment, small equipment, exotic equipment.

The strict-liability law, upheld in the courts of the land, applies ^ /T*

to all areas and equipment in the Theme-Parks ^/\A defect in the product

be it a 135 ton moving piece of entertainment or a small rifle used

in the games section of some parks. Adequate warnings must be present

and enforced and reinforced to the customer and employee. Negligence

must be proved, but the plaintiff need no longer prove the manufacturer was negligent, and he can collect a sizeable sum even if the

product was used negligently. There is new legislation to clarify

"product safety" but the awards from courts, seem to favor the injured

person or persons. The Commission covers: the Flammable Fabrics Act,

the Hazardous Substance Act, the Poison Prevention Act, etc. Some of

these apply to possible hazards at Theme-Parks. There eire civil and

criminal penalties for violations.

Theme-Parks also come under the Jurisdiction of State and local

• regulations and ordinances. In some States, the Agricultural Agency

takes care of the Health and Safety, in other it is the Industrial

Relations Department, in others the Industrial Hygience Department,

Occupational Hazards Divisions, etc. It is important to know which

regulatory agency your area falls under. In some areas, you also

come under the County Health Department and city Fire Laws, It is

a complex maze of regulations, but once understood, and enforced,

very capable of aiding in the control of hazards and prevention of

accidents among employees, performers and customers.
k

Hemember, it is the health and safety situations and procedures

which officials are concerned about. State inspectors, by law,

are supposed to inspect these large installations at least once per

year. This is deemed sufficient because of the highly regarded safety

and health regulations and maintenance utilized by the Theme-Parks

on a day to day basis. Certainly, employees have a right to complain

to these officials and to be certain that confidentiality is kept.

If an instance should occur which you believe is not being solved

by your employer, after what you consider enough requests, notify

OSHA or the State or local officials. Request confidentiality. Keep

strict records of your incident or incidents, those involved, the

situation or procedure, injuries, dates, times, witnesses, names, and

pictures, if at all possible. Protect yourself. Keep several copies

of your documentation, with its presentation and disposition material.

In most cases, where there are problems in the Theme-Parks they can

be solved with the management. They are not anxious for injuries,

accidents, loss of image, undue publicity or liability suits, or

shutting down of rides and equipment, Be truthful, firm, and document

all you do. Your health and safety, and perhaps others, are part of

this concern. Remember, equipment is made and operated by humans,

and there can be breakdowns, even in the roost perfect of situations.

There are records of suits, some still going on, in major Theme-Parks,

so don‘t be bashful, if you believe your health or safety are in the

balance

,
5

In some States, amusement and Theme-Parks come under "elevator

laws," Permits are issued after inspections, on the basis of each

ride, and a seal or official sticker is attached after an inspection

of the total ride. Structural components, wire rope, electrical

corrections and attachments, limit switches, seals, special safety

devices and safeguards for the operator and the customers are looked

at carefully.

If all of this does not seem enough, in line with safety inpsections,

there is usually the maintenance crew in the evening, after the Park

is shut down, who inspect, check, lubricate and run the rides, and

other possible hazard items, each day. They are then tagged, in order

that the morning attendants can again check and run the rides and look

at ‘the total park facilities. Only then, are they ready to begin

another day of involvement with the customers. This type of check

and double-check reduces all accidents and injuries. These added

precautions, diligence and safety procedures are adhered to with

regularity and rigidity,

Management must consider all aspects of safety when expanding

the facilities, rides and personnel, especially when these have gone

beyond the original safety capacities. Parking areas, dressing rooms,

exits, numbers of extinguishers, entrances, all must be adjusted and

the safety factors designed in,

A few types of Amusement Parks have become Theme-Parks, and facilities

which have been antiquated and are being renovated, should be brought

up to the present Life Safety Code, the recent National Electrical

Code and all pertinent Fire Laws, In this respect, careful consideration must be given to vehicle capacities and access, pedestrian
6

access, concourses, sizes of bridges, showareas, storage capcities,

P

food and refreshment areas, shoping areas, exits to and from existting rest rooms and to restricted areas.

For the person v;ho is going to work at a Theme-Park, there are

a great many considerations, 1, The number of people the park is

going to have as paying customers. Large parks have upwards of 25,000

customers per hour on rides (in total) and seeing shows; 2, The age

levels of the customers. Babes in arms to parents with strollers,

to elderly people and to handicapped customers, with wheelchairs,

canes, hearing aids, seeing eye dogs. Large families moving through

the park together and some of the youngsters dragging their parents

to each ride, as well as many teenagers looking for high excitement.

These people come for a good time and are excited. The Theme-Parks

purpose is to provide adventure, thrills and excitement so the customer will get his money's worth. Precautions must be taken, beforehand to control all the forces which are unleashed in this milieu of

constant energy and merrimaking. The attendants and all who operate

the park must be on the alert every waking moment in order to ensure

at all tim.es the health and safety of the customer, 3* The personal

discipline necessary to work with large groups of such age diversity

and v:ho have paid for their enjoyment, and over such a long period

of the day. The rides and shows are repeated over and over again,

and a high level of professionalism and technical expertise must be

achieved and kept, each and every time. The employee is the key

factor in the relationship between the Theme-Park and the customer.

It follows, therefore, that the selection and training of the

person v;ho chooses to and is chosen to work at the Theme-Parks, must
7

be of the highest quality*

V/ho are chosen or selected? “Technicians of every stripe: mechanics,

engineers, attendants, supervisors, managers, lighting personnel, and

staging personnel of many types. Although there is training for many

of the full time and seasonal workers, it is necessary to select from

qualified and skilled personnel to begin with,l)The individual must

be mature, alert, thoughtful, responsible and persona' ble;2) I’he person

must have training and be skilled in the area for which he or she

applies; if that area be electrical, mechanical, computer or some type

of engineering skill, professional records of that skill must be

given; 3)?erformers must exhibit, via auditions or through agents (if

name performers) that they possess the professional skills in their

area of expertise, such as acting, singing, dancing, miming, etc,

4)Theme-Parks have numerous other positions of expertise, ranging from

lumberjack to glassblowing,

^he Park is a highly personal and technical mix and must have top flight

persorjiel at all times,

ihe seasonal employee is hired in large numbers and give excellent

.

training. If the employee is staying-on, he is give additional training and refresher courses, A few Theme-Parks have their own college

or training schools. Every moment of the training sessions gives

emphasis to the fact that the employees must have as their policy, the

health and safety of the customer. It is the foundation of their training.!. They are given hands-on training with all the areas they will

operating, 2, They are taught the rudiments of first-aid and how to

apply on-the-spot medical attention, until the first-aid station

personnel can be summoned and arr ive to alleviate the situation,

3. The must know what to do in the case of heart attacks, seizures.
6

patrons that might fall, care of the handicapped and elderly;

4,The must know what to do if the ride they are attending suddenly

stops and the riders are trapped (as in the case in Kay of 77, when

a group of riders was stranded, up in the air, for the better part

of eight hours, in 45 degree temperature) .5* The must be able to be

alert to persons they believe might cause problems, either on rides

or in other entertainment areas, such as shows* 6* They must know the

emergency plan for each ride they take care of or each show they work.

7. Vihat to do in the case of lightning, a rain storm, an accident, are

all part of the training for the attendant of rides. 8. Use of fire

suppressant materials, should the case arise, and the speedy, calm

evacuation of customers. 9. Hypervenilation, perhaps during a ride

or Hock show, exhaustion and fatigue, obstreperous individuals, all

comes under the aegis of the employee, and he or she is trained to

cope with this with alacrity and with amazing tenderness. It is the

attitude of the attendants and other personell which shows through at

the Theme-Parks. Handling large crowds, in states of excitement, takes

• maturity and thorough training. Expect the unexpected, and it will

occur, 10. They are taught to avoid monotony, and some parks switch

people from different areas in order to keep down this danger. The

attendant must always be super-alert, 11, If a ride or some other

area of entertainment becomes inoperable during the day, they must

know how to rope it off and isolate the area from the crowds. 12,

Certainly, there is to be no smoking or drinking or snoozing on the

job. 13* Personnel are expected to be in good physical shape and to

;; be able to take high stress for long periods of time. This, of course,

means the personnel must get proper nutrition and sleep.
p

9

The public demands are great and the Theme-Parks must meet them,

via the entertainment and thrills it offers, and this is done through

expertly trained personnel. It is the opinion of this author, that

Disneyland has the edge on training and the application of health

and safety, both for the customer and for the employee.

In high-stress situations like the Theme-Park, it is a good idea for

the employee to have First-aid training, (CPR) Cardio Pulmonary

Resuscitation, and other formal life-saving procedures. This will

stand the employee in good stead both in and out of the work situation.

The customer and the employee are both in a stress situation, one in

high excitement and the other in stress from constant alertness and

a high level of physical activity.

In one Theme_park, recently, I noticed roving employees, not attending the ride, constantly going back and forth and around the structure

of one of the "white knuckler" roller coasters, and this practice

kept up all afternoon. They indicated they were not looking for defects

but only checking on the safety of the ride during operation. Three

attendants were making sure the riders were safe and obeyed the regulations and the three other employees were checking the structure.

That illustrates a high safety attitude on the part of the management.

It is through this employee-customer contact, that one finds the

philosophy and policy of the management in health and safety most

noticeable.

Attendants and technicians are directed to observe carefully the

enclosure fences which hou se the rides and hold back the audiences.
<7

10

This is the sign of safety designed into a ride. The fences must be

kept in good repair and the rules and regulations are posted and

bellowed out carefully by attendants with speaker units.

Railings are checked carefully, all bolts, straps and bars are cheCkfi\LL A

ed constantly, high thrill rides have safety engineered- in,

^

two locks, one being an individual lock and the other a common lock,

by electronics, for all the straps and bars. Some rides have dual checks,

and two keys for locks, neither one being interchangeable.

Built into the systems are double protection: all over there are dual

motors, should one give out; each ride has its own switches and limit

switches and an emergency power sources; customer traffic is routed

so that patrons getting off a ride do not conflict with those getting

on; plexiglass is used where animals might possibly get to the customer or the customer to the animals; railings are full railings, so

small children will not accidentally fall through; pets are checked in

so that they will not cause any problems in the parks; refuse and sticky

paper is picked up constantly, so no -one might slip; even parking lots . come under the safety analysis: many Theme-Parks have the situation

where you don’t have to back up in the parking lot, only pull forward; special areas for campers and buses; non-slip concrete; structures are desisgned so the patrons, if they put arms or hands out,

on rides, will not be able to touch anything and get hurt; as few stairs

as possible and low ramps vfor the handicapped; and even though some

boat or train rides might hold more, with safety ratios being considered, the number if often less on each ride, for the added safety.
11

Patrons have been known to be dizzy when getting of thrill rides,

such as roller coaster, parachutes, etc,, and the attendants must

be alert to care for these customers.

Ihe employee is considered at one park in a special way, in the

food and refreshment area: money is sped to a central location via

pneumatic tubes, to reduce the hazard of a possible robbery,

Ihere are many food and refreshment areas, and these must be kept

clean. These areas feed thousands of people, all seemingly in a

hurry, and the personnel who work here, must also be alert and

calm, while being thoughtful and efficient. Hundreds of different

types of foods, representing hundreds of ethnic groups and countries,

r c

are prepared each day, Hefigerant units, eletrical units, all types

1

of wiring, pastic ware of all kinds, and many, many utansils, must be

taken care of, watching for wear and tear, chips, fraying, possible

fire problems, and in certain climes, bugs. Constant attention must

be given these areas and maintenance kept at a optimum, as in all

the areas of the Theme-Parks, Cleaning and cleaning materials are to

be part of the daily chores of these attractions. Cleaning materials

must be stored carefully and used carefully. Hygienic practices are

the order of the day, at all times. Inspectors from every area, are

highly conscious of the food and refreshment operations.

The other area which is closely allied with the refreshment and food

part of the park, is the souvenir and shopping part of the ThemePark. Again, it is the careful observance of the treatment of the
12

customer which is important. The purchase and selling of souvenirs

of all types is a a must for every park. It stands to reason, that

safety must be built into the types of souvenirs which are sold.

This area comes under the Consumer Product Safety Commission. All of

the Theme-Parks which I visited over a two year period, have set high

standards in quality, souvenir products. The souvenir is the memory

of the Park which you take with you, or at least one physical memory,

and it is wise that these items are produced as a safe souvenir.

Personnel finding items to the contrary are auivised to notify the

management. They are only interested in good will in this souvenir

bus iness

,

V/hat of the performers? The live entertainment? Yes, and the places

where they perform? Outdoors! Live gimfights.. Aqua shows. Glassblowing, Ice skating. Concerts, Dances, Gold mining. Train rides.

Fire engines. Steamboat rides. Performers with animals. Canoes and

rafts, row boats, other water craft. Horse and buggies and stagecoaches.

Blacksmiths, Weavers, High wire aerialists. Actors in animal cartoon

costumes. Theatre and mime acts of all kinds. Puppeteers, The list is

long and it is varied, but involved in all of these performances are

technicians, performers and places for them to work and perform. These

areas hold their hazards as well, and must receive constant maintenance,

repair, repainting, and the application of safety procedures.

The equipment these people use must be in first class shape. It is

used often during the day, and day after day. Breakdowns are costly

in terms of profit and in terms of morale and in terms of image.

Quality equipment must be the first line of operation, and care must
13

be taken, each day, and each performance, that it works efficiently,

and is safe for the technician and the performer. Remember, you are

setting up a show, many times per day, in the evening, day in and day

out. All physical areas, such as stairs, railing, ropes, wooden and

metal surfaces must be free of hazards, both on walls and on walking

surfaces. Performers move rapidly, and depend upon a good surface to

do-thei r- thing-in

.

instruments

Zlectrical equipment, such as lighting, follow spots, circuits,

dimmer boards, audio systems, winches, should be in first class shape.

If it is not, report it, get it repaired and do so with alacrity.

Ihe health and safety of the technician and performer are at stake.

All mechanical equipment, must likewise be checked and in running

or.Ii

order, all of the time. Replacement of worn items, cleaning and lubing

of v;inches, rigging systems, etc. should be mandatory. Entertainment

spaces, theatres, clubs, in Theme- Parks are large, some as large as

6,000 seats; There are also intimate 400 to 2500 seat houses, and these

need just as much care.

Be .cognizant of possible tripping hazards, both in the auditoriums

and foyers, as well as back stage. I-lake sure good housekeeping is

observed in all performing areas. If flammable materials are used

for repair or other applications, ensure everyone's safety, by

storing them properly in an authorized cabinet. Check platforms

for splinters, protusion of nails or loosening of bolts. All pressure

tanks, gauges, dials, connections should be checked each day for

possible leaks, loose connections or fittings. Unchecked situations
<-y

14

may lead to possible explosions, Kany pressure tanks, including

liquefied petroleum, such as propane, can explode if not carefully

handled and cared-for, and such accidents are a too common occurence ,

If there £ire many, many electrical and electronic appliances which

are used, groimding is required by Code, Connections can come loose,

wires can be frayed with such a deluge of shows, vibrations can cause

loose connections, shorts can occur and fires can be caused by these

defects in maintenance. Several Theme-Parks have had fires, in Theatres

and other structures, from electrical causes. Check your systems often.

Entertainers must take care of their health. Fatigue and heat exhaustion do occur to performers. A lot of activity, hot lights, added

performances, tension, etc. all contribute to fatigue. Noise levels. also

contribute to fatigue, if high enough for any great length of time.

There is pressure, because of the number of performances, no matter

how delightful and enjoyable for you and the audience. Rest and sleep

are absolute pusts for the performers at Theme-Parks. Correct eating

habits and proper nutrition are also necessary to maintain energy

levels and strength. Certainly unions watch over you, by contract,

but you must also add your individual initiative in human care of your1

self. This goes for the performer and the technican alike.

If you happen to be one of the cartoon characters in an animal costume,

then there are other hazards. Some Theme-Park employees have filed

grievances about some of these areas. The costumes are safety-engineered.

Venilation, sure-footedness, flame retardancy of materials, all these

are part of the safety engineering. The heat can get up to l4o degrees.
15

Some of the costumes are built of plastic, felt, leather, yam,

cotton, polyester and canvas. The materials have been used to

reduce the weight factors, and some of the heat factors too. Hov;ever , the effects of temperature extremes, be they hot or cold, can be

detrimental to anyone, actors notwithstanding.. Kan functions only in

very limited bodytemperatures. Above or below that, impair, markedly

performance of the human being. Beyond five degrees, hygienists tell

us, a health hazard exists. Heat stress and heat stroke can take

place. Energy levels are reduced with too much heat. These areas are

of concern to OSHA and State inspectors. Although one, does not wish

to do away with humans in animal and cartoon costumes, the efficiency

and health level in these costumes must become much better.

« To add insult to injury, the childlren of all ages and sizes, take

i

delight in kicking, pinching and generally brusing these animal

characters. Yes, they even kick and bite them. Ah, the life of a

cartoon character, is not even safe. True, there are hazards in

every line of work, and acting is no exception. We hasten to add,

the costumes are flexible, few parts to catch on anything, strong

material is used, they are well designed and maintained, and they

fit properly.

There are shows v;hich utilize live animals, as well as those ThemeParks which have large pieces of land with many animals from the

jimgle, loose within those confines. Yes, accidents can happen.

Rules are set up, regulations are enforced stringently for the safety

V of the patom, but some people infringe upon those regulations. When

this occurrs disaster and death do occur. If you are employed by the
16

initiate the repulatinns with rigidity, for the lives of all concerned. Their safe passage through the Theme-Park animal compounds,

no matter how large or small, is a matter of life and death.

If you are hired as a animal tender, precautions must be exercised

as in the cases of all the Theme-Park employees. 1. You must be always

conscious of the interplay between the customers and the animals,

especially small children. 2. If customers are allowed to feed the

animals, keep close watch that the eager children and the hungry

animals do not buffet one another.

It is becoming a standard practice for some Theme-Parks to place

plexiglass between some animals and the audience. Eagerness on both

parts could be unsafe, without this piece of equipment. Always treat "

animals with respect, when you are tending them. They are used to

the excitement that is constant and are fed and motivated that way

by their trainers, but as an attendant, caution is always your rule.

Observe carefully the trainers and follow their guidelines, both for

you and for the customers.

Hides: Kiddie Hides, middle children rides, teen rides, medium

exciting rides, and the “white knuckler" or high thrill rides.

Each Theme-Park tries to outdo the other, in most instances. There

are some exceptions. Bigger, higher, faster, more loops, more curves,

more people. The roller coaster and the parachute are the best examples

of this competition.Next comes the skylifts and tlie flume rides. All

guaranteed to get '.you wet from perspiration or drenching.
17

thrill rides. Safety practices in these areas are highly rigid,

Persorj!iel are trained very carefully, and must be extremely alert,

60 D,p,h, in 1200 yards of track, strapped-in doubly, is high excitement, No chances are taken. Safety ratios for steel, for weight, for

stress, for heat and for deflection are measured very carefully in

the design and construction of these high speed rides. Twenty story

high parachute drops also have built in high safety ratios for wire

rope and cable and crosby clips. Limit switches are also of the highest caliber, lesting is done over and over again. Air pressure tanks , and brakes on all high speed and drop rides are checked over and over

again, and checked while they are operated during the day,

i

Some of the high speed thrill rides requre two people to go in them.

They will not allow one person to go up. You must sit with another

person and both of you are held in by bars and you have handles to

hold onto for safety.

Age limits are kept also. There are roller coasters and special rides

for the young or kiddie group. Two decker carrousels and carrousels

built on the hovercraft principle at one Theme-Park, are becoming very

popular,

Skylifts have doors locked. Attendant is given definite training in

each of the thrill rides, and specifically, safety precautions for

the ones he is running. He or she is the key to these safety compliance regulations for the customer. Others assist him, but he still

must apply these regulations.

Some rides will not let children of a certain size on them. As an

attendant, observe that rule of the Park rigidly. Too small a child
18

may slip out of the safety harness. Keep In mind, the rules were

made for the health and safety of all.

If you are employed at a Theme-Park, it is a good idea to keep in

mind another aspect of your training. People, thousands of them,

especially for the rides, are waiting in lines, sometimes for over

an hour. They get tired, fatigued, some even faint. Some have to go

to restrooms. Keep in mind the stress factors on the customers. They

like you, may have been at it all day, are away from home, noise

factors get to them, screEuning, etc. Be very alert and attentive

to those needs.

If you are a knowledgeable technician, in some area of the entertainment spectrum, and you think that you want to work at one of the

thirty or more Theme- Parks in the country, remember, you can call

upon the skills you have learned and practiced, but the Theme-Park

becomes the ultimate in Entertainment, because there is more of

I everything, more of the time. In some ways its a rigid, disciplined

way of life. One thing you can bet ypur life on, neeirly literally, *

Theme-Parks are conceived, designed, engineered, constructed and

operated vjith the health and safety of all in mind. They seem to

believe there is no other way to do business. Would that the rest

of the entire entertainment industry take their cue from Theme-Parks,

Dr, Randall V/.A. Davidson, President of International Safety Institute, Inc

a Safety and Loss Control corporation dedicated to saving lives and

resources in the Public Assembly and Entertainment Industry,

Author of numerous articles on safety and health; involved in the

Entertainment Industry for over forty years; member of the American

Society of Safety Engineers; Commissioner of Safety for the U.S,

Institute. for Theatre Technology, Inc, (US ITT)
APPENDIX E

ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF TECHNICAL PUBLICATIONS

PERTINENT TO CROWD CONTROL AND MANAGEMENT
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APPENDIX E Annotated Bibliography of Technical Publications Pertinent to

Crowd Control and Management

R. A. Beck

Northwestern University

Evanston, Illinois 60201

"A Gaming Approach to Crowd Behavior"

American Sociological Review , 197A, June, 355-373

ABSTRACT - A presentation of an argument that proposes that emphasis on the

irrationality of crowd behavior is at best misplaced. Building on a detailed

examination of a particular Instance of crowd behavior which took place on the

campus of Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, in May of 1972, and a blend of several different theoretical perspectives, a new approach to crowds

is proposed, in which participants exercise considerable cognitive skill while

consciously trying to produce concerted rewarding action. The affects of environmental conditions, and factors are considered for an enumerated evaluation of

collective decision-making in crowds. Based on Decision Theory, two traditions

for a "gaming approach to crowds" are discussed. The events at Northwestern

University are analyzed through use of a revised collective decision-making

approach offering supported for the proposed concerted rewarding action.

John T. Cheffers

Benjamin Lowe

Roger D. Harrold

Boston University

"Sports Spectator Behavior Assessment by Techniques of Behavior Analysis"

International Journal of Sport Psychology , 1976, Vol. 7(1), 1-13

ABSTRACT - Presents the thesis that sports spectator behavior is predictable. A

methodology for analyzing collective behavior at sports events is described;

The individual reaction gestalt (IRG), based on techniques of interaction analysis.

Implementation of the technique depends on training groups of observers to code

behavior. The technique maintains the integrity of the sports crowd in the natural

laboratory setting of the sports stadium.

I. Goldaber

International Association of Chiefs of Police

Gaithersburg, Maryland 20760

"Yet a New Kind of Violence"

Police Chief , V 41, N 4 (April 1974), p. 46, 1974

ABSTRACT - Discussion of violence that has erupted in sports arenas around

the country and the accompanying crowd control problem that faces ushers, guards

and police. Psychological causes of this phenomenon are analyzed.
APPENDIX E (continued)

J. P. Gunning

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Blacksburg, Virginia 24061

"An Economic Approach to Riot Analysis"

Public Choice , 1972, 13, Fall, 31-46

ABSTRACT - A riot is defined as an unlawful act (or set of unlawful acts)

committed in the presence of a crowd which is sufficiently large and/or

sympathetic that ordinary law enforcement procedures are inadequate.

The economic model of behavior asserts that an act is the (sometimes

indirect) result of a conscious choice. The criteria for choice are defined

to be the subjective benefits and costs. Thus, to reduce riot, one need

only to alter the nature of the benefits and cost. Before one can do so,

however, he must identify the benefits and costs that appear to be relevant.

The potential benefits to riot participants are delineated. On the basis

of this typology, eight different ways of reducing riot participation are identified. The inefficiency of group punishment in reducing riot participation is discussed. Since there are various alternative means of reducing

participation, the policy-maker is faced with a choice. The alternative he

chooses will probably depend largely on his own evaluation of the Importance

of the well-being of the various types of riot participants and of the wellbeing of taxpayers who must pay the bill. In essence, he must make an ethical judgment (at least implicitly). Two such judgments and the type of

riot-prevention recommendation that would be redistributed in favor of rioters

would lead to a recommendation of the techniques which appear to be the most

popular. The judgment that the deterrent power of laws should be the same under all circumstances leads to the advocacy of higher penalties for persons

who riot.

N. R. Johnson

Maryline Glover

University of Cincinnati

Cincinnati, Ohio 45221

"Individual and Group Shirts to 'Risk' : Two Laboratory Experiments on Crowd

Polarization"

ABSTRACT - Crowd behavior is regarded as an example of the "risky shift" or group polarization. It is hypothesized that polarization occurs because of:

(1) the shift in individual choices (polarization), and (2) the shift in crowd

composition due to individual entering and leaving the crowd situation. Two

small-groups experiments, viewed as analogous to crowd situations, were conducted.

Experiment (1) focuses on the shift to risk by individuals in a closed system,

while Experiment (2) creates an open system in which the "observers" may enter

and crowd "members" may leave and focuses on shifts due to composition changes.

Generally, the results support both hypotheses.
APPENDIX E (continued)

N. R. Johnson

Deborah Hunter

James G. Stemler

University of Cincinnati

Cincinnati, Ohio 45221

University of Portland

Portland, Oregon 97203

"Crowd Behavior as 'Risky Shift': A Laboratory Experiment"

Sociometry , 1977, 2, June, 183-187

American Sociological Association

1722 N Street, N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20036

ABSTRACT - Crowd behavior can be conceptualized as an example of "risky shift"

insofar as crowds shift either to caution, which causes their dispersal, or to

boldness, which causes more radical actions that individual members might favor.

A number of collective protest actions are arrayed on a "riskiness" dimension

to form a Guttman scale. Questionnaires dealing with choice of an action in each

of four circumstances were given to 76 male and 76 female college students

organized in same-sex groups, both for individual completion and for subsequent

group choice on a unanimously preferred alternative. It is hypothesized that

group choices will show willingness to tolerate higher levels of maximum risk

than will individual choices; results support this hypothesis.

L. D. Libby

Federal Bureau of Investigation

Washington, D.C. 20535

"Seattle Police Special Activities Section - How to Provide Maximum Police

Service at Minimum Cost"

FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, V. 47, N 9 (September 1978), p. 16-21

ABSTRACT - Efforts of the police department's Special Activities Section (SAS)

in Seattle, Washington, to provide adequate service under budgetary constraints

are addressed. The SAS often must provide more than 250 police officers as a security force for activities such as rock concerts and professional sporting

events. The police department consists of approximately 1,000 sworn officers,

with 650 assigned to the uniformed patrol bureau and traffic division of the

department. Consequently, there are not 250 officers available for security force

duty. The SAS is headquartered at the Seattle Center, a complex of cultural,

entertainment, and convention facilities including the Metropolitan Stadium

and three auditoriums. The Center was the reason for the SAS unit's existence.

The first regular assignment of police personnel to the center was in 1965.

Responsibilities of the SAS are varied, but one of the most important functions
APPENDIX E (continued)

from a police point of view is the provision of security at center events.

The thriteen officers in the SAS obviously cannot provide adequate security

at an event with an attendance of 15,000. Particularly if that event is a popular rock group. To minimize expenses of the SAS, promoter of events

at the Center are required to make direct payment for security services

to a private accounting firm. In addition, there is a volunteer reserve

unit comprised of unpaid officers who work under the direct supervision

of sworn officers. These volunteers fulfill the SAS* responsibility

for moving traffic through the main parking area of the center. A

group of young volunteers is employed by the SAS to deal with crowd

control at various center events. The SAS also is involved in providing

for security at the 65,000-seat Kingdome Stadium. The Crimes Specific

Section of the police department augments efforts of officers in the SAS.

Elizabeth Mackintosh

Sheree West

Susan Saegert

Graduate School and University Center

The City University of New York

33 West 42nd Street

New York, New York 10036

"Two Studies of Crowding in Urban Public Spaces"

Environment & Behavior , 1975, June, Vol. 7(2), p. 159-184

ABSTRACT - Conducted two studies in densely populated public urban places to

(a) determine whether information overload occurs as a result of large numbers

of people in close proximity (high density) and (b) measure the performance

and emotional consequences of high density settings. Study 1, which investigated cognitive clarity, compared descriptions from 28 female students

who were exposed individually for 30 minutes to either crowded or uncrowded

conditions in a shoe section of a department store. Crowding affected

incidental recall (accuracy of maps drawn after the exposure) but not

focal recall (descriptions of shoes and people made during the exposure)

.

Study two, which examined affective responses to overload compared reactions

of 20 male and 20 female New York City adults; subjects were exposed for 30

minutes to either crowded or uncrowded conditions at a railroad terminal.

Half of the subjects received an orientation to the terminal (tour and map).

Neither density nor orientation affected performance on simple, inconspicuous

tasks typically found in the setting (performed during exposure). Density,

however, affected emotional reactions (measured after exposure). Sex density

interactions for emotional reactions are examined.
APPENDIX B (continued)

A. P. Mcentee

International Association of College

and University Security Directors

Atlanta, Georgia 30329

"Stadium Rock Concerts - Survey"

Campus Law Enforcement Journal , V. 7, N 3 (May-June 1977), p. 46-47, 1977

ABSTRACT - This article is the result of a survey taken of university police

departments in discerning common problems in providing police services for large

events such as rock concerts. Seven common concerns were expressed by the police

agencies: early arrivals creating health, safety and party problems; traffic

control; involvement in the total community; crowd management and control;

medical concerns; clean-up and repair; and external community relations.

Stanley Milgram

Leonard Bickman

Lawrence Berkowitz

The City University of New York

33 West 42nd Street

New York, New York 10036

"Note on the Drawing Power of Crowds of Difference Size"

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 1969, 33(2), 79-82

ABSTRACT - Reports on the relationship between the size of a stimulus crowd,

standing on a busy city street looking up at a building, and the response of

passersby. As the size of the stimulus crowd was Increased a greater

proportion of passersby adopted the behavior of the crowd. Subjects were

1424 pedestrians. The results suggest a modification of the J. S. Coleman

and J. James model of the size of free-forming groups to include a contagion

assumption.

Susan Saegert

University of Michigan

"Effects of Spatial and Social Density on Ardusal, Mood and Social Orientation"

Dissertation Abstracts International , 1974, January, Vol. 35(7-B)

DESCRIPTORS - Overpopulation, personal space, emotional responses, physiological

ardusal, social behavior.

IDENTIFIERS - Spatial and social density, physiological and behavioral ardusal

and mood and social orientation.
APPENDIX E (continued)

M. J. A. Stark

Walter J. Raine

S. L. Burbeck

K. K. Davison

California State University

Long Beach, California 90804

"Some Empirical Patterns in Riot Process"

American Sociological Review , 1974, 6, December, 865-876

American Sociological Association

1722 N. Street, N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20036

ABSTRACT - Studied is the riot process. Detailed temporal and spatial data on over 1,850 instances of crowd action recorded during the Los Angeles riot are categorized, quantified and analysed. Data are generated using an adaptation

of team reporting in which a number of segments, or pieces of behavioral

action, are combined to increase the amount of information available on a complex

event. Common crowd characteristics and riot clafficatory and conceptual schemes

using monolithic concepts ("generalized belief," "the foray of pillage,"

"the rampage") fare poorly under the scrutiny of a large-scale empirical inquiry.

The emerging patterns indicate the need for studies which approach collective

violence as a complex, diverse and dynamic behavioral process. Two Figures,

two tables and Modified HA.

T. J. Sullivan

Northern Michigan University

Marquette, Michigan 49855

"The 'Critical Mass' in Crowd Behavior: Crowd Size, Contagion and the Evolution

of Riots"

Humboldt Journal of Social Relations , 1977, 2, Spring-Summer, 46-59

ABSTRACT - Ghetto riots are typically analyzed in terms of the prior sociological

and social psychological conditions which motivated them. This ignores the

question of why they occurred in a specific place and at a specific time. A

process approach is appropriate to this question, for which riots arise due to

the communication and social interaction at the scene of a potential riot. The

likelihood of a disturbance can be conceived as probabilistically related to the

number of potentially precipitating events which occur and to the likelihood

that one of them will cause a critical mass of people to form. This offers a means of reinterpreting previous findings about riots. One figure.
APPENDIX E (continued)

Joe Shirley

Atlanta Braves

Atlanta, Georgia

"Stadium Security: A Modern Day Approach to Crowd Control"

FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin , V. 49, N 8 (August, 1980), p. 22-25

ABSTRACT - Stresses importance of stadium security liaison with local. State

and Federal law enforcement agencies, security force presence at key access

points, video taping of incidents for later forensic uses, and availability

of emergency medical services including evacuation by ambulance. States that

"An otherwise law-abiding citizen experiences the safety of anonymity in a crowd.

That feeling of anon)aiiity can be removed by breaking up the crowd, by using a camera, and by shouting explicit orders while pointing at a specific individual."

Stephen B. Flynn II

Specta Guard, Inc.

Philadelphia, PA

"Matching the Mood"

Security Management , V. 25, N 8 (August, 1981), p. 50-54

ABSTRACT - Describes successful practices of a security and ushering services

company responsible for event as well as 24-hour security for a variety of

sports, fine arts and entertainment facilities. Discusses how of crowd control

psychology informed management decisions, stressed selection factor in recruiting

security personnel, new communications devices and pre-event advisories broadcast

over local radio stations.
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APPENDIX F

REVIEW OF DBR/NRCC (CANADIAN GOVERNMENT) STUDIES

OF MOVEMENT OF PEOPLE, 1967-1981

REVIEW OF DBR/NRCC STUDIES OF MOVEMENT OF PEOPLE, 1967-1981

by Jake Pauls

Division of Building Research

National Research Council of Canada

Ottawa

31 August 1981

This review, for which only an outline appears below, is being prepared

primarily for participants of the International Life Safety and Egress Soninar

to be held at the University of Maryland, 23-24 November 1981. The outline is

being made available for an appendix to a report on the National Bureau of

Standards workshop on crowd ingress to places of public assembly, held at NBS

in May 1981. The review is the first complete record of the sites, methods and

output of DBR/NRCC research (by Pauls, Johnson, Henning and others) on movement

of people in and around buildings. Some preliminary findings of field studies,

vi^ich formed the bulk of the work, will be outlined in the complete review.

An indication of the evolution of the work is given by the titles of DBR/NRCC

projects headed by Pauls who directed the majority of the work outlined here.

From 1967 to 1970 the title was "Geometry of building spaces." It is

noteworthy that during this period the title "Responses to emergencies in

buildings" was used for Pauls' undergraduate thesis (Ref. 1). This reflected an early interest in broad behavioral issues that influenced studies conducted

subsequently at DBR/NRCC and possibly elsewhere. From 1971 to 1974 the title was "Egress arrangonents in buildings." The current project title, dating from

1974, is "Movement of people in buildings." Administratively the project has

existed in three successive DBR sections: Building Use Section, Building Design

and Use Section, and Building Performance Section.)

The project began with an abstract, geometrical approach with emphasis on topological aspects of egress systems. It very soon broadened to include human

behavioral aspects but with the focus of attention still very much on egress.

In its maturity there was a widespread concern for human movement in and around

buildings including both ingress and egress, problems faced by disabled persons

and psychological factors relating normal and emergency conditions. What

started as research on building geometry quickly became applications-oriented

research dealing with behavioral and management aspects influencing not only

major emergencies but also everyday safety, amenity and cost effectiveness.

(Stair use arai design has received particular attention throughout this work.)

Beginning in 1974 opportunities for field studies quickly began to overwhelm

the resources available to analyze data and publish findings. By the time of

the massive Olympic Games field study in 1976 it was clear that the many

records produced by these studies could not be entirely analyzed and published.

Another strategy was developed. This emphasized complete indexing of film and

video records followed by partial analysis on a problon-oriented or demand

basis. Thus a long-term resource was being built, a resource that could be

accessed readily for particular data analysis v^en particular questions arose.

(Incidentally, this resource also includes several thousand 35-mm slides.)

Using special perimeter-punched "key-sort" index cards produced for about 800

separate films and videotapes one can in minutes determine, for example, which

films and videotapes deal with crush-type crowd entry phenomena at entrances to

buildings. Qualitative or quantitative data, relevant to the problem at hand, can then be generated from the visual records found in the search. The latest

version of indexing system is outlined in Appendix A. Further information

about the indexing system is found in references 2 and 3.
REVIEW OF DBR/NRCC STUDIES OF MOVEMENT OF PEOPLE, 1967-1981 p.2

The following is an outline of the studies. Numbers in parentheses refer to

publications and other output (totalling over 1100 pages plus one documetary

film) describing the studies, their findings and recommendations. These

references are listed following the outline of studies. Not included in the

references are brief reports to officials and others requesting some of the

studies noted below for particular buildings. Also omitted are DBR/NRCC

digests or practice-oriented papers, based largely on work by others outside

DBR/NRCC, on movement problems faced by disabled persons. (In addition to

extensive coverage in mass media the research on movement in buildings was also

described in conference and seminar presentations - about 100 since 1971.)

1967-1968: "Desk research" on geometry of building spaces.

1969-1974: Observations of evacuation drills in tall office buildings.

Emphasis was on crowd egress down exit stairs (4-27)

.

1971: Survey of physical features of stairs in Ottawa.

1971-1976: Filming, videotaping and direct observation of crowd movement

in shopping plazas, cinemas, theaters, arena and stadium in Ottawa

(28-31)

.

1974-1975: Filming, videotaping and direct observation of crowd movement

in the new Calgary Stampede Grandstand.

1975: Field and laboratory data collection relating to difficulties

in patient movement via stretchers in elevators and on stairs (32)

.

1975: Filming, videotaping and direct observation of crowd movement in

new grandstand of Exhibition Stadium in Toronto.

1975: Filming and direct observation of crowd movement in GO Transit facilities

at Union Station in Toronto.

1976: Filming, videotaping and direct observation of crowd movement in

Place des Arts opera house in Montreal.

1976-1978: Filming, videotaping and direct observation of spectator

movement in Olympic Park and transit system in Montreal.

This was the largest single field study undertaken, totalling

over 3,000 person-hours of work by a ten-person study team

in the summer months of 1976. Approximately 85 hours of film and

video records resulted. A minor portion of this work involved

advisory activities requested by Olympic Games organizers, facility

managers and transit authorities in Montreal (33, 34)

.

1977: Videotaping and instrumented collection of data on normal use of

stairs and elevators in three Ottawa office buildings (35, 36).

1978: Filming and videotaping crowd movement, under controlled conditions,

on stairs at DBR/NRCC in Ottawa. This study, plus two earlier

tests, repeated some influential classical tests of high flow.
REVIEW OF DBRAJRCC STUDIES OF MOVEMENT OF PEOPLE, 1967-1981 P-3

1978: Filming, videotaping and direct observation of spectator movement

in the Coliseum and new Coninonwealth Stadium in Edmonton.

This study, undertaken by a six-person documentation team,

focused on spectator movement on long, steep aisle stairs,

Afproximately 50 hours of carefully sampled film and videotape

resulted. A minor component of the work dealt with broad system

aspects including management and transit services (2, 3, 37-42).

1978: Videotaping circulation in an elementary school in Ottawa for data on energy loss through opened doors.

1978: Filming, videotaping and instrumented collection of data on use of

doors by disabled persons (in field and laboratory settings).

1978: "Desk research” on security and building circulation (44-46).

1978-

1979: Filming and direct observation of movement of people on new

Robson Square stairs and ramps in Vancouver,

1979: Filming and videotaping spectator movement in aisles of

Exhibition Stadium in Toronto,

1979-

1980: Filming, videotaping and direct observation of spectator

movement in newly expanded Winnipeg Arena.

1980: Filming and videotaping door use by individuals and crowds

in Vancouver (47)

.

1980: Direct observation of crowd behavior in a rock concert at Exhibition

Stadium, in Toronto (48)

.

1980: Photography and direct observation of spectator movement in aisles of

McMahon Stadium in Calgary.

1980: Photography of quarter-scale stair models and mannequins showing stair

use problems. This was done for presentation and research purposes.

REFERENCES (Asterisks indicate papers with information not found elsewhere.)

(1)

* J.L. Pauls. Responses to emergencies in buildings. Undergraduate

dissertation in Architecture, University of British Columbia, May 1969.

(2)

* W.R. Rhodes, B, Barkow, F.D. Bell and D.A Wallis. Human factors in large

public assembly facilities. Final report: Film/video indexing system.

National Research Council of Canada, Division of Building Research, Ottawa, one of three reports for contract No. 079-018, February 1980, 55 p.

(3)

* W.R. Rhodes, B, Barkow, F.D. Bell and D.A Wallis. D.B.R. film/video

indexing system user's manual. National Research Council of Canada, Ottawa, one of three reports for contract No. 079-018, February 1980, 45 p.

(4)

* J.L. Pauls. Evacuation drill held in the B.C. Hydro Building, 26 June

1969. National Research Council of Canada, Division of Building Research,

Technical Note No. 543, February 1970. This was later revised and is

distributed as Building Research Note No. 80, September 1971, 19 p.
REVIEW OF DBR/NRCC STUDIES OF MOVEMENT OF PEOPLE, 1967-1981 p.4

(5)

* J.L. Pauls. Questionnaire results for a high-rise office building

evacuation drill; General Purpose Building, Ottawa, Unpublished draft widely

circulated and referenced, November 1971. (Plans are to distribute this as a DBR/NRCC Building Research Note.)

(6)

* J.L. Pauls. Building evacuation and and other fire-safety measures; some research results and their application to building design, operation, and

regulation. Proceedings of EDRA 5, Man-Environment Interactions; Evaluations

and applications. The state of the art in environmental design research -

1974. Part 4, p. 147-168. (Reprinted as NRCC 14708.)

(7) D.N. Henning and J.L. Pauls. Building use studies to solve building

regulation problems; Some Canadian examples. Proceedings of Sixth Congress of

CIB, Budapest, October 1974, p. 26-29, (Reprinted as NRCC 14745.)

(8) J.L. Pauls. Fire emergency evacuation; Problems and procedures.

Proceedings of conference. Fire Protection in Interior Design, Cleveland State

University, April 1975, p. 85-103.

(9) J.L. Pauls. A study of personnel evacuation. Proceedings of Second

International Fire Protection Engineering Institute, University of Maryland,

April 27 - May 9, 1975. 18p.

(10) J.L. Pauls. Building evacuation and related fire safety measures. Proceedings of twenty-second National Conference on Campus Safety, Caitpus

Safety Association of the National Safety Council, University of Calgary,

July 1975, p. 22-29.

(11)

* J.L. Pauls. Evacuation and other fire safety measures in high-rise

buildings. ASHRAE TRANSACTIONS 1975, Vol. 81, Part 1, p. 528-534. (Reprinted as NRCC 14808.)

(12)

* J.L. Pauls. Fire safety and related man-environment studies.

Man-Environment Systems, Vol. 5, No. 6, November 1975, p. 386-394. (Reprinted as NRCC 15505.)

(13)

* J.L. Pauls. Canadian studies of crowd movement in buildings and sports

grounds. Proceedings of MAUDEP seminar/workshop on Planning, Design and

Inplementation of Bicycle and Pedestrian Facilities, Toronto, July 1976,

p. 208-210.

(14)

* J.L. Pauls. Movement of people in building evacuations. Human Response

to Tall Buildings (Edited by D. Conway). Stroudsburg, PA, Dowden, Hutchinson

and Ross, 1977, p. 281-292. (Reprinted as NRCC 16253.)

(15)

* J.L. Pauls. Management and movement of building occupants in

emergencies. Proceedings of Second Conference on Designing to Survive Severe

Hazards, IIT Research Institute, Chicago, November 1977, p. 103-130,

(Reprinted as NRCC 16845.)

(16) J.L. Pauls, Design and building evacuation, Canadian Architect,

May 1978, p. 41, 42, 62.
REVIEW OB' DBR/NRCC STUDIES OF MOVEMENT OF PEOPLE, 1967-1981 p.5

(17) J.L. Pauls. Evacuation of high rise office buildings. Buildings,

May (18) 1978, p. 84-88.

* J.L. Pauls and B.K. Jones. Human behaviour and fires: A review.

Proceedings of Conference "Cooperating to Fight Fire" sponsored by the Society

of Plastics Industry of Canada, Ottawa, October 1979, p. 167-188. This

subsequently was the basis for an article. Research in Human Behavior, Fire

Journal, May 1980, p. 35-41. (Reprinted as NRCC 18340.)

(19)

* J.L. Pauls. Effective-width model for evacuation flow. Preprint,

Workshop on Engineering Applications of Fire Technology, National Bureau of

Standards, Washington, April 1980, p. 151-173.

(20) J.L. Pauls. Building design for egress. Journal of Architectural

Education, Vol. 33, No. 4, Summer 1980, p. 38-42.

(21)

* J.L. Pauls and B. K. Jones. Building evacuation: Research methods and

case studies. Fires and Human Behaviour. (Edited by D. Canter) John Wiley

and Sons, 1980, p. 227-250.

(22)

* J.L. Pauls. Building evacuation: Research findings and recommendations.

Fires and Human Behaviour. (Edited by D. Canter) John Wiley and Sons, 1980,

p. 251-275.

(23) J.L. Pauls. Characteristics of personnel movement in evacuations.

Unit 13 of text for course "Fire Related Human Behavior," Open Learning Fire

Service Program, International Association of Fire Fighters, Washington, D.C.,

August 1980, 38 p.

(24) J.L. Pauls. Psychological aspects of exit design. Unit 14 of text for

the course "Fire Related Human Behavior," Open Learning Fire Service Program,

International Association of Fire Fighters, Washington, D.C., Aug. 1980, 42 p.

(25) J.L. Pauls. Fire safety in high rise buildings. Unit 15 of text for the

course "Fire Related Human Behavior," Open Learning Fire Service Program,

International Association of Fire Fighters, Washington, D.C., Aug. 1980, 46 p.

(26)

* J.L. Pauls. Building evacuation: a review of the literature. Draft of

paper for International Life Safety and Egress Seminar, November 1981. (Plans are to distribute this as a DBR/NRCC Building Research Note.)

(27)

* J.L. Pauls. Means of egress: Progress towards a realistic technology.

Draft of paper for Society of Fire Protection Engineers, Technology Report

Series.

(28)

* D.N. Henning and D.A. Archibald. Populations of parking garages.

National Research Council of Canada, Division of Building Research, Building

Research Note No. 83, April 1972, 26 p.

(29)

* D.N. Henning. Seme population characteristics observed in enclosed

shopping plazas. National Research Council of Canada, Division of Building

Research, Building Research Note No. 91, March 1974, 25 p.
REVIEW OF DBR/NRCC STUDIES OF MOVEMENT OF PEOPLE, 1967-1981 p.6

(30)

* D.N. Henning. The use of washroom facilities in a theatre complex.

National Research Council of Canada, Division of Building Research, Ottawa,

NRCC 14669, 1975, 44 p.

(31)

* D.N. Henning. Public Washrooms. Building and Environment, Vol. 12,

No. 3, 1977, p. 175-179. (Reprinted as NRCC 16348.)

(32)

* B.M. Johnson and B.K. Jones. Problems with moving patients in buildings

National Research Council of Canada, Division of Building Research, Building

Research Note No. 127, February 1978, 26 p.

(33)

* J.L Pauls and B.M Johnson. Study of crowd movement facilities and

procedures in Olympic Park, Montreal. National Research Council of Canada,

Division of Building Research, Internal Report 438, 1977, 46 p.

(34)

* B.M. Johnson. Movement of crowds at Montreal Olyirpic Park. Procedings

of MAUDEP SeminarAforkshop on Planning, Design and Implementation of Bicycle

and Pedestrian Facilities, Palo Alto, California, July 1977, p. 425-433.

(Reprinted as NRCC 17095.)

(35)

* B.M. Johnson and J.L. Pauls. Study of personnel movement in office

buildings. Health Impacts of the Use, Evaluation and Design of Stairways in

Office Buildings. Health and Wefare Canada, Health Programs Branch,

April 1977, 15 p.

(36)

* B.M. Joiinson. Survey of activity patterns in two government office

buildings. National Research Council of Canada, Division of Building Research

Internal Report 454, 1979, 35 p.

(37)

* J.L. Pauls. Documenting the "Stair Event” using film and video methods.

Draft of report on study at Edmonton Comonwealth Games, 1978.

(38)

* J.L. Pauls (Producer) The Stair Event. 18-minute, 16 mm, colour, sound

film based on a study of spectator movement in the aisle stairs of the new

Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton during the 1978 Commonwealth Games.

Information about loan and purchase can be obtained from the Division of

Building Research, National Research Council of Canada, Ottawa.

(39)

* J.L. Pauls. The Stair Event: Some lessons for design. Proceedings of

Conference, People and the Man-Made Environment, University of Sydney,

May 1980, p. 99-109.

(40)

* W.R. Rhodes, B. Barkow, F.D. Bell and D.A Wallis. Site file: Edmonton

Stadium. National Research Council of Canada, Division of Building Research,

one of three reports for contract 079-018, February 1980, 37 p.

(41)

* W.R. Rhodes, B. Barkow, and D.A Wallis. Studies of stair ecology in

public assembly facilities: handrails, speed, density, flow, distribution, and

foot placement. National Research Council of Canada, Division of Building

Research, report for contract 079-072, May 1980, 49 p. plus data appendices.
REVIEW OF DBR/NRCC STUDIES OF MOVEMENT OF PEOPLE, 1967-1981 p.7

(42)

* W.R. Rhodes and B. Barkow. A visual data record analysis system.

National Research Council of Canada, Division of Building Research, report for

contract 080-027, April 1981, 54 p.

(43)

* B.M. Johnson. Door use study. (Plans are to distribute this as a DBR/NRCC Building Research Note.)

(44) B.M. Johnson. Crime prevention through building design. Specification

Associate, Vol. 20, No. 1, January/February 1978, p. 8-9.

(45) B.M. Johnson. Sorting out fire exit vs. building security needs.

Specifying Engineer, Vol. 43, No. 5, May 1980, p. 93-96.

(46)

* B.M. Johnson. Conflicting requirements of exit doors. Building

Security, John Stroik (Ed.), American Society for Testing and Materials,

Special Technical Publication 729, 1981, p. 108-120.

(47)

* R.W. Seaton. Use of doorways and multi-leaf sets of doors; An

exploratory study. National Research Council of Canada, Division of Building

Research, report for research contract 079-078, December 1980, 137 p.

(48)

* J.L. Pauls. Observations of crowd conditions at rock concert in

Exhibition Stadium, Toronto, July 1980. Unpublished report, July 1980, 15 p.

(Plans are to distribute this as a DBR/NRCC Building Research Note.)

APPENDIX A

INDEXING SYSTEM USED BY DBR/NRCC FOR FILM AND VIDEO RECORDS OF PEOPLE MOVEMENT

This system, the latest form of which is described in references (2) and (3)

,

makes use of 5-inch by 8-inch perimeter punched, ''keysorf cards, one for each

numbered film and videotape record. On the front face of the cards, using a standard format, are recorded information on;

Where the recorded action took place.

Time of filming or videotaping.

Sampling method.

Person operating the film/video equipnent.

Identifying numbers of films/videotapes preceding and following.

Numbers of films/videotapes of same action with different views.

Technical details (film type, camera settings, etc.).

Highlights of the record (with identifying frame numbers)

.

Special entries required by certain indexing terms.

The front face also has two 35-mm contact-print frames of the most busy and

least busy shots on the film/video record to permit visual searches where it is

important to determine what range of activity is recorded. The back face has

space for recording information about subsequent analysis and refers to

particular data files.
REVIEW OF DBR/NRCC STUDIES OF MOVEMENT OF PEOPLE, 1967-1981 p.8

Of the 102 usable indexing positions on the perimeter of the card only 79 are

currently assigned to particular search items which are grouped as follows;

FACILITIES;

Seating, standing facility

Aisle, cross-aisle

Corridor, lobby, concourse

Ramp

Stair

Handrail

Escalator, moving walkway

Concession

Door, doorway, gate, vomitory

Turnstile

Plaza, prcMTienade, open concourse

Sidewalk

Transportation system

Washroom

Cluster generator

Disarray

ENVIRONMENTAL CHARACTERISTICS;

Geometric nonuniformity

Irregular wall surface

Misleading cues Cognitive errors

Other defects

Information sources

Steep pitch

Unusual scale

Obstacle

Skewed abnormal geometry

Vendor

Unsheltered facility

Hazards

CHARACTERISTICS OF USERS;

Footwear

Upper encumbe ranees Young users Elderly users

Sex

Handicapped users Helping behavior

CHARACTERISTICS OF MOVEMENT;

Open (crowd spacing)

Impeded ” Constrained " Crowded " J arnned ”
REVIEW OF DBR/NRCC STUDIES OF MOVEMENT OF PEOPLE, 1967-1981 p.9

CHARACTERISTICS OF MOVEMENT (Cont'd.):

Density (codable)

Speed " Flow ” Intra-event movement

Ingress

Egress

Body contact

Group configuration

Queuing

Path choice, mixing

Merging

Crossing conflicts

Deference behavior

Gait

Cadence

Crabwise gait

Missteps

Stumbles, arrested falls, accidents

Body sway

Fast athletic style

Handrail

Cross-over behavior

Special & idiosynchratic behavior

RATIONALE OF FILMING & MISC:

Calibration

Very good image quality

Very poor image

Crowd attraction

Views of setting

A-level sanpling

B-level sampling

C-level sampling

D- level sampling

E-level sampling

Aerial view

Frontal/back view

Lateral view

Unusual camera orientation

Cair^ra follows subject

(site scale)

(buildir^ scale)

(facilties and context)

(single facility)

(micro-scale)

References (2) and (3) describe the developnent and use of this system
U.S. DEPT. OF COMM.

BIBLIOGRAPHIC DATA

SHEET (See instructions)

1. PUBLICATION OR

REPORT NO,

NBSIR 81-2361

2. Performing Organ. Report NoJ 3. Publication Date September 1981

4. TITLE AND SUBTITLE

Crowd Ingress.-to Places of Assembly: Summary and Proceedings of an Experts'

Workshop

5. AUTHOR(S)

Francis T, Ventre; Fred I. Stahl; and George E. Turner

6. PERFORMING ORGANIZATION (If joint or other than N BS, see instructions) 7. Contract/Grant No. national bureau of standards

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE • 8. Type of Report & Period Covered

WASHINGTON, D.C. 20234

9. SPONSORING ORGANIZATION J'JAME AND COMPLETE ADDRESS (Street. City, State, ZIP)

Center for Building Technology

National Engineering Laboratory

National Bureau of Standards

Washington, DC 20234

10. SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES

I I Document describes a computer program; SF-185, FIPS Software Summary, is attached.

11.

ABSTRACT fA 200-word or less factual summary of most significant information. If document includes a significant

bi bliography or literature survey, mention it here)

The movement of large crowds into places of assembly has resulted in death and

injury to facility patrons and staff. Facility designers and managers seeking

guidance have found little relevant information in the technical literatures of

architectural and crowd control. The Law Enforcement Assistance Administration

and the National Bureau of Standards convened the most knowledgeable persons in

North America in the topic of crowd ingress to places of assembly to: identify

best current design practices; identify best current facilities management practices;

and define research needed to support improved practices in design and management.

The report documents the design and management practices suggested by the assembled

experts, reports related activities of the International Association of Auditorium

Managers and suggests a program of research leading to improved quantitative design

and evaluation procedures for crowd ingress.

12.

KEY WORDS (S/x to twelve entries; alphabetical order; capitalize only proper names; and separate key words by semicolons)

Auditorium; building standards; crowd ingress; design procedures; evaluation

procedures; facility design; facility management; public assembly; public safety;

stadiums

.

13.

AVAILABILITY

Uni imited

I I For Official Distribution. Do Not Release to NTIS

r I Order From Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C.

20402.

14. NO. OF

PRINTED PAGES

146

15. Price

Order From National Technical Information Service (NTIS), Springfield, VA. 22161 $12.50

USCOMM-DC 6043-P80