Scientific Notions of Crowd Dynamics

Mind Over Matter Consultancy (MOM) and Cranfield Defence and Security Services Ltd (CDSSL) are offering an online course which focuses on crowd dynamics, crowd sciences and crowd management in practice. 

This course will deal with the use of space by the participants of an event, but also the use of space as a resource by those in charge of security and crowd management, in normal or degraded situations (emergency procedure, evacuation planning, policing management, etc.)

Thinking about space, anticipating congestion or high-density zones, calculating audience flows in order to guarantee good experience for spectators while providing the best possible security conditions are activities that are needed today in the event management. As a consequence, space design management is a key skill when managing crowds.

Key Speaker

The key speaker is Pascal Viot. He is a specialist in crowd management and emergency planning.

Active in the event safety management since 1992, Pascal Viot has been involved in health and safety of many sporting (football), cultural (concerts, festivals) and business (conferences, exhibitions) events on various scales, in Switzerland and Europe. Specialized in crowd management and emergency planning, he has been asked to develop and manage the emergency procedures and the crisis management plan of major concerts or events like the Rolling Stones in Lausanne and The Police in Geneva (2007), Dalai Lama conferences in Lausanne (2009) and Sonisphere Festival Yverdon (2012). As an expert, he has been recently mandated for consulting and training by major event organizers like Eurockéennes de Belfort (2013), Montreux Jazz Festival (2015-2016), Fête de la Musique de Genève (2015-2017), Rock-en-Seine Festival in Paris (2016-2017-2018).

Being also a sociologist and a researcher in the field of risk and urban safety analysis, he was between 2000 and 2006 a lecturer in several French universities. Between 2006 and 2009, he has lead a collective research (financed by the FIFA) at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) on the Security of Major Events, including the case study of the Euro 2008 in Geneva. He achieved his PhD in 2013 with a research project dealing with urbanism and security during major events.

Between 2013 and 2016, he has been running a research with Prof. Olivier Fillieule at the University of Lausanne on public order management and policing of major gatherings. He is now Associate researcher at the Urban Sociology Laboratory at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne.

After 15 years of collaboration as volunteer at Paleo Festival Nyon, including a position as Security manager of the main stage for 5 years, Pascal Viot is now Head of Department Heath, Safety & Security. Since 2008, he has also become a member of the steering group of the YES Group (Yourope Event Safety Group, consortium of European major festivals). In 2016, he created iSSUE, the Swiss Institut for Urban and Event Safety (www.issue.ch).