Crowd surges

by tboothhk

Crowd surges kill people. You only have to read a little about some of the major ones, such as the Bethnal Tube Station Tragedy in 1943 (where 173 people were killed, more than twice the number directly killed by any wartime bomb attack) or the Hillsborough DIsaster in 1989 (where 96 soccer fans were killed) to see how deadly they are and how important crowd control is to the safety of the crowd.

People are hurt every year at events like Black Friday sales. Because few stores do anything to control crowds. YouTube is full of them.

The most fearful I have ever been for my life was before a Who concert in Anaheim in 1976. No reserved seating for us. We were going to sit on the field for the almost day long concert (J. Geils and Little feat were also going to perform.) So we camped out the night before, about 10 feet behind the barricades that had been set up.

When we woke up, we were surrounded by people who had come in after us and planted themselves in all the free space. We were able to get up but shortly found ourselves pinned in by the crowd. We were then pushed forward by the people behind, up against the barriers.

Luckily someone (I think it was security and a very brave man), removed some of the barricades and quickly got out of the way. The crowd surge was terrifying. I was swept along, without touching the ground at all for perhaps 10 yards.

Then we hit a curb. Of course none of us could see the curb coming and almost all tripped. Most of us did not go down because the crush of the crowd kept up upright. There was no room to fall. However, I came close and was kept upright by the grasp of the man beside me.

Almost everyone was scared because we had absolutely no control over where we were going but knew that if we went down, there would be serious consequences.

I never heard if there were any injuries. I did see an ambulance there later. I am still amazed to this day that there was really no deaths. I think the only that that prevented that was that the surge happened in a parking lot so that the edges of the crowd had space to disburse a little. This meant the surge itself only lasted a few moments.

You always get a crowd surge when a large group of people want to get through a small space. The people at the front are not the ones pushing. It is those at the back who can not see. The small pressure of each individual adds up to tremendous pressures.

I never go to any Black Friday sales for this very reason. There are almost always crowd surges at these stores and most places of business do little to control the crowds.

This video from last year shows just how dangerous these crowds can be and how inadequate crowd control often is. It starts kind of funny but gets scary very quickly. There is a chokepoint where there is only 1 door open. People are getting crushed against the glass and it is impossible to open another door because THEY OPEN OUT! Some brave security guys tried to take control (you can hear them yelling).

You can see the pressure of the crowd pushing people forward. Everyone looks terrified of going down or getting crushed. Watch the surge at about 4 minutes in. If anyone had gone down there, the crowd would have trampled them in no time.

People who deal with crowd control every day know about the possibilities and know how dangerous crowd surges are. Check out what Apple does for a store opening or the introduction of the iPhone, both instances where people camp out early and there are great savings on items for sale.

They use barricades to put people into queues. Employees came out and gave water to the groups waiting. There is little surge and people are quite orderly. That is good crowd control.

I have yet to see a store use such approaches. In fact, many chains want people to be a little out of control. If they had orderly lines, many people would know they had no chance for the items on sale since there are only limited quantities of them. If you are not one of the first, you are out of luck.

So, channeling barricades and a line would have provided better crowd control. It would also demonstrate to most people they are were too late to get the best goodies.

But an uncontrolled opening means that anyone could be first, if they only pushed hard enough. When 500-1000 people make that same decision a crowd surge develops and people will get hurt.

The problem is that the stores want everyone to feel they have a chance at the limited quantities of stuff. An orderly line negates that and lessens the number of people going to the store.

Instead of opening at 5 am or 4 am, the stores should have hourly specials throughout the day. Don’t have everything out all at once and create the sorts of crowd surges we have seen.

Maybe then I will even consider going out on Black Friday. Because I will always avoid the sorts of crowds that it currently generate. I expect the same is true for many people. Would the stores actually get more people overall if they tried to control the crowds a little more or spread out the savings throughout the whole day?

Technorati Tags: General, Health

Magazine covers and social networks

Your Turn: Annie Leibovitz Turns Tina Fey Into New American Sweetheart … Or So She Exclaims:
[Via BAGnewsNotes]

“Annie’s going to photograph my soul, right?”

As perhaps the biggest star (after Obama) to emerge out of Campaign ‘08, I’m curious about your take on the new Tina Fey Vanity Fair cover. (I’m sure VF was thrilled to have her, by the way, after telegraphing — through a sour grapes set of parody covers — how they missed the boat with Barack.)

The scene is photographed by Annie Leibovitz, known for her commercial mastery in playing to and with the intersection of politics and entertainment. Besides my interest in just about every element on the page, I’m curious — just like Annie’s Vogue LaBron James cover was born out of a World War I propaganda poster — what the historical references and implications of this image are.

And then, what’s with that quote, and the situation of Tina between AL and Maureen Dowd? And exactly where is that flag planted?

What Tina Wants (VF Modo Cover Story)

(image: Annie Leibovitz. Vanity Fair. January 2009)

Most people would see just a cover photo but read the comments from BAGnewsNotes and you will find that this is a remake of a very specific pinup from 1945 called ‘The Winning Combination” by Rolf Armstrong.

Both hold a 48 star flag (a subtle dig at Alaska?). The flags are both flowing from right to left. The angle of the flag pole is almost exactly the same in both. The flag is planted in the Northern Hemisphere in both.

To me, the dead giveaway – notice where the only real color is on both lady’s outfits. They are wearing the same color panties. And the interior lining of their skirt is the same color. Well, Armstrong was a pinup artist. And Leibovitz is obviously recreating his work.

Of course, we are 60 years past 1945, and this cover has to sell magazines, so there is a little more burlesque in the cover pose than in the pinup. But it is very obvious, especially when you include the LeBron James cover (which is a remake of a WWI poster) that Leibovitz is doing a series based on older posters.

So, I would say that Leibovitz is not attempting to get to Fey’s soul with this picture as much as updating America’s past images with newer remixes.

But I never would have been informed about this without having access to the Internet and the many eyes model of information gathering. Only Leibovitz and a select few would probably have known what was going on. But the social connections found on the Internet allow those small few to educate others.

Today, this education is just about a WW2 poster. However, it could just as easily be about the activity of a novel protein or a unique catalyst for generating electricity.

In some technologies, the trivial is expressed first. But the substantial is not far behind.

Technorati Tags: Entertainment, Social media, Web 2.0