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Crowd Counting with Prof Keith Still | Inside The Box

Author / Mark Breen
07 Feb ‘17
'Inside the Box' is a series of LIVE broadcast events where we'll be discussing various event-related topics with special guests in our boardroom (the box) here. First up, Prof. Keith Still on #CrowdCounting

The idea

We create a lot of content and this is another way in which we hope to create content that'll be of interest to our audiences. In particular, the Facebook LIVE platform will see us creating content that will be of interest to event students and younger people setting out on their events careers. 

The #CrowdCounting topic happened first, as we had Keith over teaching a course for us that week. The topics won't always be #eventsafety or #crowdsafety related. They'll more often than not be more general in nature.

#CrowdCounting

Click below to watch the video below.

 

The questions

There were a number of questions that we didn't get answer live on the night. Keith subsequently answered them and you can see them below. 

This question came through from Eric Kant:

Exaggerating crowd numbers is 'normal' nowadays. Can you explain why it is important to get the numbers right?

Keith's response:

Any event space can only hold so many people. If you think you can fit a million people in can that can only hold 50,000 - it can be disastrous. Density, flow, area, routes must all be risk assessed for capacity.

Paul Barnes asked the following, referencing Keith's work on the Trump inauguration crowd:

Were you depending on TV coverage or did you have access to CCTV? And do you think not being there affected / influenced your numbers?

Keith's response:

We had several live feeds and reporters on the ground. Plus the car parking and metro information. More information, from more sources, than being there in person.

Inside the box

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Further reading

Check these out:

Crowd Counting for Event and Crowd Safety  

4 Useful Tools for Counting Crowds

Crowd Counting Resources