big events there are many big events which happen during the coming months, such as the fa cup final...

Big EventsThere are many ‘big events’ which happen during the coming months, such as the FA cup final at Wembley, the Premiership Rugby final at Twickenham and various music festivals in the Summer.

The organisation of these events is mind-boggling when you consider the numbers involved: up to 90,000 at Wembley, 82,000 at Twickenham and 135,000 people at Glastonbury.

Big Events

For one of these events, what facilities, services and other issues would designers and organisers need to think about for people attending the event?

Big EventsYou might have come up with some of the following:

Security: lots of different aspects

Ticket sales

Toilet facilities

First Aid

Food and drinkEntry to the event

Seating

Car parks

Public Transport

Merchandise

Emergency procedures

Publicity and marketing

Information points???

Litter bins

Cleaning

Big Events

One of the key considerations for designers and organisers is providing enough of each facility to ensure that on the day of an event, queues don’t build up too much. On the other hand, when building a venue, more facilities cost more money to provide and maintain and also take up more space.

Toilet FacilitiesFor a popular event at Twickenham or Wembley, how many toilet cubicles would you need?

How many:• Toilet cubicles for males? • Toilet cubicles for females? • Accessible toilets?

Would they be better placed in one or two big blocks or several smaller ones?

Toilet Facilities: Hints

You might think about:• How many people are there in your school

and how many toilets there are• How long people spend in a cubicle• What proportion of people might want to

use the facilities at half time or during an interval

• How long the break or interval is

Entrance Queues

At big events, there is usually a system for checking tickets and a security check.

Checking tickets is either a manual check involving a member of staff checking each person’s ticket, or an electronic check, usually with some type of turnstile where people present their tickets to a scanning device.

Entrance Queues

Each entrance at large arenas such as Wembley and Twickenham has several electronic turnstiles.

How many turnstiles would be needed if very long queues are to be prevented?

Wembley 90,000 people. Twickenham 82,000 people.

Entrance Queues: hints

You might think about the following:• How long before an event will people be

admitted?• Do they all turn up at once?• How long would it take each person to

present their ticket? Trying out a simulation of people presenting tickets may help.

Entrance Queues: evidence

Entrance Queues: evidenceThe photo from TripAdvisor shows the turnstiles at Wembley entrance D.

There are 14 such entrances, plus 4 special ones for Club members.

http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/LocationPhotoDirectLink-g186338-d1574807-i42050148-Wembley_Stadium-London_England.html#42050132

Teacher notes: Big EventsThese problem solving activities are designed to encourage students to think about real life situations where they have little given information, but can draw upon their own experiences to come up with a reasonable estimate.

They could be used with a wide range of age groups.

Working in small groups, sharing approaches and discussing responses within the class is encouraged.

Teacher notes: Big Events

The emphasis with these problems is on the students reasoning and justification for their calculations rather than on obtaining ‘the’ correct answer – although sensible reasoning should give answers of the right magnitude.

Suggested minimum or maximum values are given together with considerations that would affect the answer. Where possible, some real life evidence is also given.

The problems are presented for two of the issues ‘toilet facilities’ and ‘entrance queues’, but any of the other issues on slide 4 could also be explored.

A selection of facts and figures for Wembley can be found on slide 23.

Teacher notes: Toilet FacilitiesIf everyone wanted to use the toilets at half time or an interval, the maximum number of toilets required is:

Number of attendees ÷ (Time available (secs) ÷ no. of secs per person)

A ‘quick use’ including walking to the toilet door from the queue takes about 40 seconds.

The half time interval at football matches is 15 minutes, at rugby matches it’s 10 minutes.

At Wembley: 90 000 ÷ (15 x 60 ÷ 40) = 4000 toilets

At Twickenham: 82 000 ÷ (10 x 60 ÷ 40) = 5466 toilets

Accessible toilets:

How many people would need to use these facilities?

Number of registered disabled:• 6% of children• 16% of working aged adults• 45% of pension aged adults

But “Disabled people remain significantly less likely to participate in cultural, leisure and sporting activities”. http://odi.dwp.gov.uk/disability-statistics-and-research/disability-facts-and-figures.php#gd

Teacher notes: Toilet Facilities

http://odi.dwp.gov.uk/disability-statistics-and-research/disability-facts-and-figures.php#gd



Teacher notes: Toilet FacilitiesIn reality, also consider:

Would everyone use the facilities at half time?• probably not, perhaps 1/3 to ½ of attendees might wish to use them

Is 40 seconds a realistic estimate for a quick use for males and females?

Are there equal numbers of male and female facilities?• At some venues, yes. However, if females take longer than males,

they’ll need more facilities.

Toilets are usually found in many places around the ground so that people don’t have to walk too far and queues are shorter.

Teacher notes: Toilet FacilitiesThere are 2618 toilets at Wembley and 147 accessible ones.

It’s likely that there are 147 sets of toilets, with one accessible toilet alongside each. This would mean about 20 toilets in each set of toilets – split between males and females. (Less dense areas with executive boxes etc. are likely to have far fewer in each set).

Teacher notes: Entrance QueuesGates tend to open 2 hours before an event at Wembley and 4 hours before an event at Twickenham.

Walking up to a turnstile, inserting a ticket and walking through takes a minimum of 4 seconds - could test this in the classroom.

If everyone was queued up, alert and ready to go, the calculation for the absolute minimum number of turnstiles would be:

Number of attendees ÷ (Time available (secs) ÷ no. of secs per person at the turnstile)

At Wembley: 90 000 ÷ (2 x 60 x 60 ÷ 4) = 50

At Twickenham: 82 000 ÷ (4 x 60 x 60 ÷ 4) = 23 (22.77 rounded)

Teacher notes: Entrance QueuesIn reality, also consider:

Is everyone ‘ready’ to go through the turnstile? – is 4 seconds a reasonable average? • probably higher than this

Does everyone turn up to the turnstile in a regular intervals?• No, it’s likely that there will be something akin to a ‘normal

distribution’ of arrivals. People don’t tend to arrive very early or very late. Those arriving at 1 minute to Kick Off, for example, wouldn’t have time to get to their seats.

Teacher notes: Entrance queues

This photo from TripAdvisor shows that there are 10 turnstiles at Wembley entrance D.

There are 14 such entrances, plus 4 special ones for Club members.

This suggests that there are at least 140 turnstiles plus the special ones

… in fact there are 168.

Wembley Facts and figures

• 2,618 toilets (147 accessible ones)• 47 retail units • 164 turnstiles • 26 lifts • 30 escalators• 34 bars• 8 restaurants • 688 food and drink service points• 98 kitchens• The seats are spread over three tiers: lower 34,303, middle 16,532

and upper 39,165

http://www.wembleystadium.com/Press/Presspack/Stats-and-Facts



Acknowledgements




All accessed 7/5/14.








