NFPA Journal - July/August 2019 - 46

Perspectives

It's really a series of questions. We
decided that, if subjective judgment
is such an integral part of crowd
management, let's honor that by
helping event organizers make their
subjective judgments in a reasonable
fashion. Our standard poses questions
for the crowd manager to consider in
order to tease out important answers.
When the crowd managers pose these
questions to themselves-or to venue
operators, security companies, event
promoters, or medical staffs-they're
going to acquire the knowledge necessary in that context to manage crowds
most effectively. It may be putting too
fine a point on it, but the way we've
written the standard encourages
people to think. That's a very different
approach than most standards.

What's an example of a question in the standard that a lay
person like myself might not
immediately think of when
planning a live event?
I have the standard up on my
computer right now, and completely
randomly I just came upon section
4.2.3, "Signage." And the first question
after the narrative reads as follows:
"When evaluating the effectiveness of
signage related to wayfinding, exits,
and essential services such as medical
care, crowd managers must consider
the circumstances in which patrons
will experience it during all phases
of the event, including arrival and
departure." So what does that mean in
English? It means if your wayfinding
signage is a lot harder to see than the
signage for the beer vendor, you probably want to rethink your wayfinding
signage. People ought to be able to
find the bathrooms, the medical tent,
and the exits at least as easily as where
to get their next drink.

I assume the type of crowd
also factors heavily into a lot of
these decisions?
A lot. If my crowd is likely to be alcohol drinkers, they're going to need
someplace where they can sober up

46 | NFPA JOURNAL * J U L Y /A U G U S T 2 0 1 9

for a while before they pick up the
keys to their vehicles. If it's a crowd
that's going to consume ecstasy, they're
going to need a different medical environment-probably more hydration
stations. Some people roll out of bed
thinking about this stuff, but even a
small show has so many moving parts
that they might not have necessarily thought of everything. So the draft
crowd management standard prompts
them to think about these things.

How does this document differ
from or complement the Life
Safety Code and the life safety
evaluation process? Do those
things work together?
Absolutely. First of all, the Life Safety
Code is the foundational material
referenced in a number of places. It's
obviously the leading code regarding
the movement of people in confined
spaces. It has the force of years of
existence in the industry as well as a
vetting process that's second to none.
The Life Safety Code also has these
long lists of things that one should be
doing or circumstances in which a life
safety evaluation ought to be applied.
These are things all crowd managers need to know, and rather than
reinventing that wheel, or just paraphrasing it in a new place, we simply
reference it and tried to build upon it.

What are the main differences
in substance and approach
between the new ESA standard
and the Life Safety Code?
The ESA standard has a lot of focus
on "why," and the Life Safety Code
doesn't-the code generally doesn't
explain, it just says "do." The Life
Safety Code Handbook includes a lot
of "why," but the handbook isn't the
legally adopted document-the code
is. One of the things we can improve
about live event production is encouraging people to think reasonably, and
to make reasonable decisions. The only
way you can do that is to help educate
people about what a good reason
might be and why it's a good reason.

You mentioned this was developed by a crowd management
task group. Who is in that group?
I'm the chair of the task group, which
has roughly 35 members. Those
people are either ESA members
or members of the Entertainment
Services and Technology Association
who have identified themselves as
people with knowledge in and interest about creating an ANSI standard
regarding crowd management. Like
ESA itself, the range of life experience and expertise includes every
facet of live event production. There
are promoters, producers, and people
with technical expertise like stage
rigging and lighting. There are security companies and people who have
worked in music, sports, and corporate activations, all of which have
crowds and crowd-related issues.
There are insurance people. I'm a
lawyer. We've tried to span the entire
range of operational experience and
expertise.

Where do you see ESA going
from here? Will there be other
standards?
There will be more standards development, such as one titled Safety
Requirements for Special Event
Structures, which is currently in the
revision cycle, but frankly that is so
labor intensive that it probably won't
ever be ESA's primary focus. We are
very glad to leave that to other bodies
that are more equipped to do that sort
of work, such as NFPA. We are very
glad to partner with NFPA and take
full advantage of all the hard work
that NFPA members have put in over
these years. Education and outreach
are really ESA's primary mission, and
a lot of that is cultural. But cultural
change requires time and a lot of
conversation. We need to show that
people talking about safety aren't
scary or angry-we're you. We are
part of the industry that we're trying
to change. We speak the language of
our industry because we're so deeply
invested in it ourselves.
NFPA Journal - July/August 2019

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