VISITOR & CROWD MANAGEMENT IN EVENTS (VCME) - 2021/2

Module Overview

The ability to plan for and manage visitors and crowds within a wide range of event scenarios is a key area of applied knowledge of professional event managers. In all forms of events there are legal and regulatory requirements for event planners and managers to ensure the safe and orderly assembly of visitors and crowds and provide a level of service that is appropriate for the event and customer profile.

Planning for visitors and crowds involves a range of activities, such as determining a safe and suitable occupancy level for a venue, determining the requirements for the ingress of customers into venues, planning for visitor use of the internal venue space and circulation throughout the venue, the egress and departure of visitors from the venue and emergency and contingency scenarios.The principle areas of knowledge, practice and theory that will be drawn upon within this module will include event and crowd management and crowd science.

The focus of this module is on developing an understanding of the practical considerations for planning for visitors and crowds who attend events of all kinds. Students will be required to undertake site visits and work on practical case studies. The module will furthermore support the practical considerations for the running of the students own events in this same semester. Study for this module may require working alone or in teams outside the set sessions and carrying out research, therefore not all sessions will be held with the tutor. This module will also include access to industry professionals engaged in the management of visitors and crowds.

Module provider

Hospitality, Tourism & Events Management

Module Leader

GRAINGER-JONES Owen (Hosp & Tour)

Number of Credits: 15

ECTS Credits: 7.5

Framework: FHEQ Level 6

Module cap (Maximum number of students): N/A

Module Availability

Semester 1

Prerequisites / Co-requisites

None

Module content

Indicative content includes:
• Principles of Visitor and Crowd Management
• Key Processes within Crowd Management operations
• Planning for visitors and crowd to events
• Introduction to crowd psychology and dynamcs
• Site inspections: Planning a site inspection for a crowd management and opperation.
• Crowd Management documentation
• Key risk issues during an event
• Contingency and emergency planning
• Workforce requirements documents and briefings

Assessment pattern

Alternative Assessment

NA

Assessment Strategy

The assessment strategy is designed to provide students with the opportunity to demonstrate a comprehensive and accurate understanding of the fundamentals of project and logistics management of events. Thus, the summative assessment for this module consists of:

Assessment 1 - Report evaluating crowd management operations during a two live events utilising accepted principles and ‘best practice’ as to visitor and crowd management planning (1,500 words).
Assessment 2 – Industry report (Crowd Management Plan) on an event Case Study (2,500 words)

Formative assessment and feedback will be organised during the semester. Unmarked formative feedback will be provided to students through a range of approaches, including question and answer sessions in class, case study discussions and via Surrey Learn.

Module aims

• • Explore the fundamentals of planning for visitors at events and large crowds at major events
• • Become knowledgeable in the legal and regulatoiry requirments to be met in the planning and operations required to manage visitors and crowds at events
• • Understand and apply principles of crowd management and crowd science to planning for visitors to events
• • Develop professional skills in order to develop and document visitor and crowd planning documents

Learning outcomes

Methods of Teaching / Learning

The learning and teaching strategy is designed to encourage students to respond to formal presentations but also take responsibility for their own learning by combining lecture presentations with self-directed learning based around the core text and supporting material on SurreyLearn.

The teaching and learning methods include:
• Weekly 1-hour Interactive lectures to provide a framework of knowledge with class discussions and illustrations of real-world case examples.
• Weekly 2-hour interactive tutorial workshops including both classroom-based case discussion sessions
• Guest lectures to enhance students’ understanding of the applications of visitor and crowd management theory and practice.

Students are expected to support the work undertaken during each lecture by undertaking a number of independent learning activities:

1. Preparatory reading of the relevant chapters in the module set text.
2. Application of the learnt theories to written case studies.
3. Guided further reading to enable them to extend their knowledge and understanding.

• SurreyLearn will be used to support student learning by providing them with additional resources and links to useful websites. SurreyLearn will also be used for further discussion of the module topics between the students and the lecturer as well as the students and their colleagues. Additionally, lecture notes and other materials will be placed on SurreyLearn before the lecture so that students may print off copies for the lecture.

Indicated Lecture Hours (which may also include seminars, tutorials, workshops and other contact time) are approximate and may include in-class tests where one or more of these are an assessment on the module. In-class tests are scheduled/organised separately to taught content and will be published on to student personal timetables, where they apply to taken modules, as soon as they are finalised by central administration. This will usually be after the initial publication of the teaching timetable for the relevant semester.

Reading list

https://readinglists.surrey.ac.uk
Upon accessing the reading list, please search for the module using the module code: MAN3173

Other information

NA

Please note that the information detailed within this record is accurate at the time of publishing and may be subject to change. This record contains information for the most up to date version of the programme / module for the 2021/2 academic year.