Story as told to me by The Festival Nomad (aka Gary McWilliams)
"I can remember as a
young man working at the Canadian National Exhibition (CNE) and being amazed at
the crowds that came to visit. Back then I never felt threatened by the crowds.
In fact, I loved them! I used to make a game of walking through the crowds to
see how quickly I could maneuver my way through them! I was never rude, but I
did say a lot of “excuse me’s”. Back then I could move quite quickly and was
very agile! Now, of course, it’s different. I’m a lot older and not quite as
quick or agile as I use to be! I still love walking through crowds! For Judi,
it’s a completely opposite story. She hates crowds! This “love/hate” is the
challenge that all successful festivals and events organizers have to face,
because success brings bigger crowds. So how does a festival prepare for this
type of success? First of all, traffic control, vehicle and people, has to
become an intricate part of the planning process. If your traffic control is
poor or non-existent, your success will be short lived! Festival and event
visitors will only stand for so much inconvenience. I have talked before about
parking and shuttle services, so I won’t talk about them in this blog. Rather,
I want to talk about pedestrian traffic flow."
To be Continued in Part 2...
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