“COOPERATIVE CROWDING”:
MITIGATING DISASTERS AND SAVING LIVES AT EVENTS

Crowds don’t cause chaos—complacency does. Discover how trust, real-time action, and cooperative planning can transform live events from potential disasters into safe experiences. This isn't just crowd control—it's crowd collaboration.

Dr Alison Hutton (University of Newcastle, Australia).

  • Most crowd disasters are preventable — failures in planning, trust, and communication, not the crowd itself, turn celebration into catastrophe.

  • Building trust before events — across different silos; security, medics, organisers, and performers — is the single greatest safeguard against crowd tragedies.

  • Understanding audience behaviours and tailoring event design — not just following generic templates — is critical for real-time crowd resilience.

  • Real-time monitoring and communication frameworks - offer practical, flexible tools to intervene before risks escalate, including the Traffic Light System presented in this article.

  • Siloed thinking and commercial pressures remain major barriers — but leaders who prioritise cooperative crowding will create safer, more vibrant events.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

When thousands gather in one space, the greatest danger isn’t the crowd—it’s complacency.

History repeats itself too often: events like Astroworld (Hutton, 2021) and the Love Parade (Sieben and Seyfried, 2023) reveal a brutal truth—most crowd disasters are not freak accidents. They are the final result of overlooked warning signs, siloed decision-making, and the failure to act when small issues snowball into mass casualties.

INTRODUCTION

The energy and emotion that make live events magical also make them fragile. Without a deliberate, coordinated approach to crowd management—one rooted in trust, communication, and real-time action—we gamble with lives.

THE PROBLEM AND/OR OPPORTUNITY

Despite decades of knowledge about crowd dynamics, tragedies like Astroworld show that critical lessons are still being missed. Crowds are not inherently dangerous; it is the failure to anticipate pressure points, monitor behaviours, and act quickly that creates fatal conditions. Events too often operate with a fragmented approach: security, medics, stage teams, and organisers work in silos rather than as a unified system. Early signs of trouble—such as swelling crowd density or distress signals—are either missed or ignored because protocols are unclear or absent. Yet these disasters are preventable.

Cooperative crowding, where trust, agreed protocols, and shared real-time action form the backbone of event planning and delivery, offers a proven alternative. It’s not enough to react once chaos erupts; safe, energising events require proactive, coordinated effort long before gates open (Hutton, 2025).

“Disasters don’t erupt out of nowhere—they fester in the spaces where preparation should have been.”

The urgency to address crowd safety has never been greater. As live events rebound post-pandemic, audiences are bigger, more diverse, and often more volatile, fuelled by heightened emotions and complex crowd behaviours. Festivals, concerts, and sports events are becoming denser and more commercially driven, with safety sometimes sacrificed for profit or spectacle. Meanwhile, social media accelerates crowd dynamics: flashpoints escalate faster, misinformation spreads in real time, and reputational fallout from safety failures can be immediate and devastating.

WHY DOES THIS MATTER NOW?

This article builds on Alison Hutton’s concept of cooperative crowding, reframing crowd safety not as a matter of control, but of trust, shared responsibility, and dynamic collaboration. It challenges the complacency embedded in “business as usual” crowd planning, proposing a more integrated, real-time approach that blends crowd psychology, performer influence, and environmental design to foster safe, vibrant experiences.

HOW DOES THIS ADD TO WHAT WE ALREADY KNOW?

While existing crowd management guidelines emphasize barriers, staffing ratios, and emergency protocols, they often neglect the human and relational aspects of managing live audiences. Current practices tend to treat crowds as problems to contain, rather than communities to guide.

Astroworld was a global wake-up call, but the core issues it revealed—poor communication, siloed teams, and lack of proactive planning—are still happening. In an era where public trust is fragile and scrutiny is fierce, event organisers must move beyond compliance checklists toward a culture of active, cooperative crowd management.

WHAT IDEAS DRIVE THIS ARTICLE?

This article draws primarily on the concept of cooperative crowding—an approach centred on building pre-agreed protocols, shared real-time communication, and mutual trust across all event stakeholders, including organisers, security teams, medical staff, performers, and audiences themselves. It also incorporates real-world examples, particularly the Astroworld tragedy, to illustrate how a lack of cooperation and pre-planning can exacerbate crowd risks.

Methods discussed include pre-event audience profiling, real-time crowd monitoring using behavioural cues, integrated communication systems, and adaptive event design features such as chill-out zones and flexible barrier arrangements. The article introduces a simple but powerful Traffic Light Model  (Brown and Hutton, 2015) for crowd risk assessment during live events, offering practical tools for dynamic decision-making that prioritises prevention over reaction.

“Safe crowds are not spontaneous—they’re deliberately built through trust, teamwork, and constant vigilance.”

  • Crowd safety begins long before gates open. Without trust—between organisers, performers, security, medical teams, and the crowd itself—emergency plans are fragile. Trust is built by creating shared expectations: performers briefed to support safety messaging; security trained not just in restraint, but in proactive crowd engagement; medical teams ready to intervene quickly (Robertson, Hutton and Brown, 2018). Astroworld illustrated what happens when trust is missing: despite visible distress signals from the crowd, no coordinated action occurred. Had there been pre-agreed trust protocols—including a performer-led stop-the-show clause—lives could have been saved (Hutton, 2021) .

  • Not all crowds behave the same (Drury and Reicher, 2020). A death metal festival demands different crowd management strategies than an opera gala (Brown and Hutton, 2015). Event design—layout, barriers, medical presence, signage—must be tailored to the crowd’s expected behaviour (Roberston et al, 2018) . At Astroworld, a mismatch between expected crowd energy and event infrastructure (especially funnelling corridors) created dangerous choke points. Understanding audience demographics, behavioural triggers (e.g., moshing, crowd surges), and substance use patterns should directly inform site design and contingency planning.

    Example: Fatboy Slim’s outdoor concerts in Australia offer a successful model: clear zoning separated active dance areas from more relaxed picnic spaces, allowing attendees to self-regulate density based on their energy levels.

  • When danger emerges, minutes—or even seconds—matter. Crowd disasters often escalate because communication systems fail, either technically or procedurally. Event personnel must be wired into a unified system with clear escalation protocols. Everyone—from security guards to stage managers—should know who decides when to stop the show, how distress signals are escalated, and what visual and auditory tools can be deployed immediately to calm crowds. Silence, confusion, and crossed wires kill.

    Example: During Pearl Jam concerts post-Roskilde tragedy, strict real-time communication protocols were implemented. The band now stops performances immediately if security signals crowd distress, demonstrating a model of artist-crew synchronization.

  • Events are often planned around operational silos—security plans separate from medical plans, separate from artist management. This fragmented approach leaves critical gaps in live response (Hutton, Robertson and Ranse, 2025). Cooperative planning requires integrated risk assessments, shared training sessions, and common incident protocols, so that all teams see themselves as one safety unit, not isolated specialists (Hutton, 2025). Siloed thinking at Astroworld contributed to the tragedy, as security, performers, and production crews appeared disconnected when crowd collapse began (Hutton, 2021).

    Example: At London’s 2012 Olympic Games, joint Emergency Operations Centres co-located police, medical, transport, and event organisers, enabling real-time integrated decision-making that swiftly averted crowd bottlenecks on key days.

  • Effective crowd management is dynamic, not static. It’s not enough to “hope for the best” after doors open. Monitoring systems must be active and responsive, using real-time behavioural cues—density surges, temperature rises, crowd mood shifts—to trigger early interventions before conditions become critical. Brown and Hutton’s Traffic Light Model (watch & wait, standby, act) (Hutton and Brown, 2015) offers a practical framework for assessing crowd states continuously and responding decisively.

    Example: At major marathons like the London Marathon, real-time crowd heat mapping is used to monitor areas of rising density, allowing stewards to redirect flows before bottlenecks form.

Key Arguments

THE TRAFFIC LIGHT MODEL FOR REAL-TIME CROWD MANAGEMENT

Managing crowd safety effectively requires simple, actionable tools that everyone—security teams, event managers, even performers—can understand and use in real time. Brown and Hutton’s Traffic Light Model offers just that: a straightforward framework for assessing and responding to crowd risk dynamically as an event unfolds.

The model categorizes crowd states into three easy-to-understand levels:

  • Assessed Risk

    Low Risk

    Action Required

    No immediate risk, normal monitoring

  • Assessed Risk

    Emerging Risk

    Action Required

    Heightened observation, staff on alert, pre-identified action plan ready

  • Assessed Risk

    High Risk

    Action Required

    Immediate action needed - implement emergency response protocols

HOW IT WORKS IN PRACTICE

Before an event begins, stakeholders agree on clear indicators of what each colour looks like based on crowd density, behaviour, temperature, noise levels, and other context-specific factors (Hutton and Brown, 2015). They also agree in advance on pre-defined actions for each stage.

For example:

  • Green: Normal operation. No specific intervention needed.

  • Orange: If crowd density hits a pre-agreed threshold, a slowdown in programming is triggered (e.g., quieter music, encouraging audience dispersion).

  • Red: If distress signals (e.g., people falling, screaming for help) are detected, the event is paused or stopped immediately, crowd control barriers may be opened, and emergency medical protocols initiated.

This pre-emptive structure prevents hesitation, confusion, or dangerous delays.

WHY THIS MODEL MATTERS

The Traffic Light Model transforms crowd safety from a reactive, seat-of-the-pants activity into a disciplined, proactive process. It gives every team member a shared language for real-time decision-making under pressure (Hutton and Brown, 2015).

Rather than reacting only when a full crisis erupts, event teams can intervene early—potentially saving lives and preserving the event's atmosphere.

Case example: Applying the Traffic Light Model

Imagine a major music festival where the mosh pit area starts to tighten rapidly as a headline act begins.

  • At Green, stewards keep a general watch.

  • As density reaches a pre-set limit (Orange), front-of-stage security gets into standby formation and the lighting team prepares to subtly brighten the crowd area.

  • If individuals start needing physical help (Red), music is lowered, performers are briefed to engage in calming the audience, and emergency lanes are activated to extract those in distress.

It’s a sliding, flexible system that empowers decision-making without panic.

CONCLUSIONS

Crowd disasters are not acts of fate — they are preventable failures of planning, trust, and communication. Events like Astroworld and the Love Parade have shown, with devastating clarity, what happens when warning signs are ignored, when teams work in silos, and when proactive crowd management is missing.

The scale and intensity of live events are only increasing. With bigger audiences, more complex behaviours, and faster information flows, the risks of unmanaged crowds are greater than ever before. This makes moving from reactive crisis management to proactive, cooperative crowding an urgent priority for all event stakeholders.

Embedding shared trust, pre-agreed protocols, real-time communication, and flexible action plans into the DNA of event management isn't just good practice — it’s a moral responsibility. Lives literally depend on it. Events should be spaces of collective joy, not sites of tragedy. Getting crowd management right is not about stripping away the magic of live gatherings. It's about safeguarding that magic — ensuring that energy, emotion, and connection can flourish safely.

The future of events will belong to those who treat crowd safety not as a box-ticking exercise, but as a dynamic, living practice of shared responsibility and vigilance.

PRACTICAL ACTIONS

1. Build Cross-Functional Trust Early

Host pre-event workshops with all key stakeholders: event managers, security, medical, police, performers, and production teams.

  • Develop a shared mission statement focused on crowd wellbeing, not just operational success.

  • Conduct joint risk assessments (walk arounds and table top) where everyone shares data and insights, breaking the cycle of working in silos.

Action Tip: Trust is built before the event, not during a crisis.

2. Profile Your Audience with Precision

  • Use pre-event data collection (ticket demographics, expected crowd behaviours, event genre analysis) to anticipate likely crowd dynamics.

  • Plan event site design, security needs, medical resources, and crowd flow based on behavioural profiles — not generic templates.

  • Understand program influence: a punk gig has different risks than a classical concert.

Action Tip: Design events for the crowd you’re expecting, not the crowd you wish for.

3. Establish and Rehearse Real-Time Communication Protocols

  • Implement unified communication systems so that stage managers, security, medics, and performers are all on the same channel.

  • Rehearse intervention scenarios: crowd surge alerts, evacuation signals, performer-led crowd calming.

  • Train staff to escalate issues immediately without fear of blame.

Action Tip: Silence in a crisis is deadly—over-communicate.

4. Adopt and Train on the Traffic Light Model

  • Introduce Brown and Hutton’s Traffic Light Model (Watch & Wait, Standby, Act) as the real-time risk assessment tool.

  • Make sure every team member knows the signs of “green,” “orange,” and “red” — and the agreed actions for each.

  • Empower frontline staff to call for escalations based on pre-agreed triggers, not hierarchy or hesitation.

Action Tip: If you wait until it feels obvious, you’ve waited too long.

5. Involve Performers in Crowd Safety Planning

  • Brief performers on their role in maintaining crowd energy safely: slowing down music, calming messages, crowd observations.

  • Agree in advance that artists have the authority—and responsibility—to stop performances if necessary.

  • Encourage performers to see themselves as co-stewards of audience wellbeing.

Action Tip: The stage isn't a separate world—it's the front line of crowd influence.

6. Monitor, Adapt, and Learn in Real Time (Create a positive legacy) 

  • Assign designated "crowd watchers" to monitor live crowd behaviour continuously, not just at entry points.

  • Be ready to adapt the environment dynamically: increase lighting, slow down programming, open new exit routes.

  • Debrief after every event to capture lessons learned and improve crowd protocols for next time.

Action Tip: Crowd management is a living system — stay fluid, stay ready.

IMPLEMENTATION CHALLENGES

While cooperative crowd management provides a strong framework, several real-world challenges can complicate its application:

  • Resource Constraints: Smaller or underfunded events may lack the capacity to implement comprehensive planning, training, or communication systems.

  • Organisational Inertia: Resistance to change, entrenched silos, and outdated habits can block the shift toward cross-functional cooperation.

  • Unpredictable Crowd Dynamics: No plan, however detailed, can fully anticipate spontaneous crowd behaviours; real-time flexibility is essential.

  • Commercial Pressures: The drive to maximise ticket sales or maintain show momentum can sometimes overshadow safety priorities.

  • Leadership Gaps: Without strong leadership championing a safety-first culture, efforts to build trust and cooperation may stall.

Addressing these challenges requires courage: to rethink traditional models, to act swiftly when needed, and to prioritise human lives over immediate commercial gains.

REFERENCES

Brown, S. Hutton, A. (2013) Developments in the real‐time evaluation of audience behaviour at planned events, International Journal of Event and Festival Management 4 (1), 43 – 55

Drury, J., & Reicher, S.  Crowds and Collective Behavior. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Psychology. Retrieved 30 Apr. 2025, from https://oxfordre.com/psychology/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190236557.001.0001/acrefore-9780190236557-e-304.

Hutton, A. Brown, S. Verdonk, N. (2013) Exploring Culture: Audience Predispositions and Consequent Effects on Audience Behaviour in a Mass-Gathering Setting, Prehospital and Disaster Medicine 28 (03), 292-297

Hutton, A. Brown, S. (2015) Chapter 16 Psychological considerations, Public Health for Mass Gatherings: Key Considerations, 149-158

Hutton, A. Ranse, J. Munn, B. (2018) Developing public health initiatives through understanding motivations of the audience at mass-gathering events Prehospital and disaster medicine 33 (2), 191-196

Hutton, A. (2021) Astroworld tragedy: here’s how concert organisers can prevent big crowds turning deadly, The Conversation, https://theconversation.com/astroworld-tragedy-heres-how-concert-organisers-can-prevent-big-crowds-turning-deadly-171397, Nov 8th

Hutton, A. Robertson, M. Ranse, J. (2025) Exploring safety at Mass Gathering Events through the lens of three different stakeholders, Frontiers in Public Health 12, 1451891

Hutton, A. Strategies for event managers to safeguard against deadly crowds, Events and Society: Bridging Theory and Practice, 18

Robertson, M. Hutton, A. Brown, S. (2018) Event design in outdoor music festival audience behaviour (a critical transformative research note) Event Management 22 (6), 1073-1081

Sieben, A. and Seyfried, A. (2023)  Inside a life-threatening crowd: Analysis of the Love Parade disaster from the perspective of eyewitnesses, Safety Science,Volume 166, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssci.2023.106229.

AUTHOR(S)

Dr Alison Hutton - Assistant Dean, University of Newcastle (Australia).

Ally is a Professor of Nursing whose work primarily focuses on emergency health care in high visibility, high consequence events that are either planned (mass gatherings events) or unplanned (disasters).  Her research interests are in the psychosocial dynamics of crowds, their motivations, and the ways in which different stakeholders can work together at events. Her work into the psychosocial nature of mass gathering space is used globally at large events including the Olympic Games, the Hajj and World Cup Soccer events.  

Disclaimer
The views and insights expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and reflect their research and professional expertise. They do not represent the views of the Centre for Events & Festivals CIC or its partners.