Stadiums
architecture reveal a key to effective crowd management – making sure fans have a good time is as much about physics and mathematics, as crowd psychology. Still’s education was in physical sciences, before pursuing an early career in operations management and electronics design. “I had the right mindset when, one day, I found myself stuck in a queue at the turnstiles and realised, ‘Wait a minute, this isn’t physics!’” Still recalls. “Imagine the grains of sand in an egg timer: the quickest flow is down the middle. But if you look at a crowd, it turns out it often moves fastest around the edges. As I was stuck in a queue watching this, I thought, ‘Maybe we’ve got the maths for crowd movement wrong?’ And that led to a PhD in crowd dynamics.” Still’s research observed that the success of ancient stadium architecture depended on obeying mathematic principles. These were informed by an understanding that the entities moving through spaces were intelligent, responding to their environment and each other. The ancient Romans learned through their mistakes. One of the worst disasters in sports history occurred in 27 CE, when a wooden gladiatorial amphitheatre collapsed onto spectators and shops in the arcade, killing about 20,000 people. “The Colosseum in Rome, Pompeii stadium and the earlier Greek stadium at Ephesus put a
hold many thousands of people. The stadium at Capua, where Spartacus fought, had a capacity of 60,000, and Pompeii’s held 30,000. In fact, a lot of problems encountered by stadium operators today were faced – and solved – in the sports venues of ancient Rome. CLASSICAL GEOMETRIES The Romans understood how to move crowds around – Rome’s crazily efficient deployment of armies, for example, was the terror of the ancient world. Ancient ruins that history has bequeathed us tend to highlight the architecture, materials and craftsmanship that went into them, but the Romans were always thinking of buildings as technologies for moving and housing humans. "If you look at the geometric layout and design of the Roman stadium in Pompeii – an example of one within a city complex – as well as the optimisation and movement of people, they had it pretty close to mathematically perfect," says Professor Dr G. Keith Still, a world- renowned expert on crowd safety, planning and education. Professor Still has advised some of the world’s biggest event producers on how to make crowded spaces safer and more efficient. Among his clients are major sports venues, building developments and public events, supporting the Saudi government on Hajj projects. His study of the geometries of classical
social group was to sit in public amphitheatres. This included – sure enough – women separate from men, up in the nosebleed seats. The Colosseum in Rome was built in the 1st century CE by the emperor Vespasian and could host an average audience of 65,000 people – even 80,000 at a pinch (Beijing’s Bird’s Nest Stadium, home of the 2008 Olympics, has a capacity of 80,000). It was the largest amphitheatre ever built – and as an ‘amphitheatre’ per se, it still is – but other venues around the Empire could still comfortably
ANCIENT WISDOM The amphitheatre at Pompeii (bottom right) is an example of a stadium built for complex crowds
“Imagine the grains of sand in an egg timer: the quickest flow is down the middle. But if you look at a crowd, it often moves fastest around the edges”
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2022 FEED:XTREME 67
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