Crowd management vs. crowd control was the topic of training in Green Bay this week as local officials prepare to host the 2025 NFL Draft. PC: Fox 11 Online
GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – Green Bay is used to hosting 75,000 people on a Sunday, during football season, but that number could more than triple next April during the NFL draft.
As the Green Bay area prepares to host the draft, public safety agencies are taking a closer look at risk assessment to see what they can do better.
Crowd management versus crowd control, that was the topic of discussion during a training for law enforcement and venue personnel in Green Bay this week.
“When we’re event planning we’re in crowd management. If our event turns into an incident then we’re in a crowd control situation,” said Steve Miller an instructor with TEEX/NCS4.
The training comes as Green Bay, which already deals with big crowds during Packers games and other events in the stadium district, is preparing to see upwards of a quarter of a million people converging on the area for next year’s NFL Draft.
According to Green Bay Police Chief Chris Davis, “This is part of a much larger project to plan for the 2025 NFL Draft. We need to make sure all of our training and managing big public events is up to date.”
Green Bay Police are the hosts of the training, inviting Texas A&M Engineering Extension Service and the National Center for Spectator and Sport to present Crowd Management for Sport and Special Events. Working with FEMA and Homeland Security, the training offers concepts and tactics to help communities plan for any size event, putting procedures in place in an effort to alleviate problems.
“Just here this morning we were talking about line queue and how we form lines to come into a venue and the flow rate at which people enter a venue. If people aren’t real happy coming into a venue they could cause issues outside and then that ends up taking resources away from inside the venue. Law enforcement has to respond to put out something that may have been, could have been better planned,” said Miller.
While the national recommendation for crowd management is one crowd manager for every 250 event attendee, it’s not always possible. Green Bay Police recognizing this is not a major metropolitan city with endless resources, which is why training like this is important ahead of the draft.
And something city officials will be thinking about and analyzing as they head to Detroit next week to observe the 2024 NFL Draft.
“What you don’t want to do, is just assume that because we are an NFL city we do these events all the time that we’ve got it all figured out. So there have been lots of those things that I know I’ve taken away and our team has taken away from this training and I’m sure there will be even more in Detroit next week,” added Chief Davis.
This week’s training is just one in a series of sessions being brought to Green Bay ahead of the draft. A major incident management training session is scheduled for later this year.
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