Stadiums
I ntelligent crowd management is one of the most important skill sets in sports. Decades of trial and – often tragic – error have led to a status quo where venues are, more often than not, a place you would feel comfortable bringing your kids. Controlling fans is as old as competition itself. The ancient Olympic Games entirely forbade the attendance of women, on pain of death. The story is that only Greek men were considered citizens, and since the Olympics was an important political event, it wasn’t
requiring all trainers to strip before entering the arena. Romans turned sports from religio-political ritual into big business with their magic formula of ‘bread and circuses’, so the building of venues became high art. But although the Romans were geniuses at tech, they still couldn’t imagine a fully egalitarian society (building an empire on the back of slave labour will do that). Emperor Augustus, first and best among control freaks, established the Lex Iulia Theatralis, with rigid specifications about where each
appropriate for females to attend. Of course, the real reason was that husbands did not want their wives watching completely naked young men, with oiled-up bodies, being far more awesome than they were. In one famous incident, a widow named Callipateira – whose son was competing in the Games – had sneaked into the venue disguised as a trainer. After he won, she jumped onto the field to celebrate – blowing her cover. Organisers let her go without a fine, out of respect for her son’s achievements, but a regulation was passed thereafter
BIRDWATCHING Beijing’s Bird’s Nest (below) is an architectural marvel with vastly different construction to the Colosseum, but a similar capacity
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