Principal | CrowdEx
Principal | CrowdEx
Walk into a major sports stadium on any given day and you might witness a last-minute winner that sends tens of thousands of people into collective celebration. Come back a month later and the same bowl of steel and concrete might be hosting a sell-out concert, a couple exchanging vows on the pitch, or during the very quietest of moments, a room full of people asking the question that underpins all of it: how do we keep everyone safe? In 2018, over 320 delegates gathered at the Etihad Stadium in Manchester for exactly that purpose, as the Sports Grounds Safety Authority held its annual conference. I was in that room, and it was a reminder that the stadium itself is often the most fitting place to have that conversation, a living example of the very multifunctional spaces we were there to discuss.
Beneath every one of those moments is a deliberate architecture of safety that makes it all possible. Fire engineering, crowd dynamics, structural integrity, emergency planning: these are the foundations on which every event is built.
At the heart of that framework sits one document above all others. Tony Nichol, Principal at DC Partnership specialising in Crowd Experience and Safety, discusses the history and application of a formative document at the heart of that architecture, the Guide to Safety at Sports Grounds.
The Guide to Safety at Sports Grounds — universally known as the Green Guide, it is the authoritative document for the design, management and operation of sports stadia in the United Kingdom. Safety practitioners and designers from around the world reference it, and build their own frameworks around it, and nowhere is this more evident than in Australia, where it has become the go-to reference for stadium design, capacity assessment and operational safety. Stadium operators here don’t turn to it because legislation demands it, they turn to it because nothing else comes close. Decades of knowledge and some of the most devastating lessons the industry has ever learned, have made it the most credible and comprehensive framework available, shaping how Australian stadia are built and ultimately, how the people inside them are kept safe.
The Green Guide has been shaped, edition by edition, by some of the most devastating events in the history of British sport. Ibrox in 1971, where 66 fans died in a stairway crush. Bradford in 1985, where fire tore through a wooden stand in minutes, killing 56 people. Heysel that same year, 39 fans killed in a crowd crush. And then Hillsborough in 1989, where 97 Liverpool supporters lost their lives at Leppings Lane in what became the defining moment for stadium safety in the UK.
These disasters were the product of grounds that had been designed and managed without any real understanding of how crowds behave under pressure. Each tragedy demanded answers, and each inquiry delivered them. The Taylor Report of 1990, commissioned in the wake of Hillsborough, was the most significant of all, recommending that top-flight grounds become all-seater and that the entire approach to stadium design and management be fundamentally reconsidered. Safe standing has only recently returned to some grounds in the UK, and the guidance published by the Sports Grounds Safety Authority on exactly that subject was one of the topics discussed at length at the Etihad Stadium conference in 2018.
The Green Guide absorbed every one of those lessons. Each edition that followed carried advances in fire life safety principles, improvements to evacuation design and more sophisticated frameworks for understanding crowd behaviour and density. That knowledge existed because people had died, and the weight of that fact sits behind every page of every edition that has followed.
The Green Guide is exactly what it says it is: a guide. Following it is essential, but following it correctly, with the right expertise and genuine professional judgement is what actually keeps people safe.
No document, however comprehensive, can replace the specialist knowledge needed to apply it to a specific venue, a specific event and a specific crowd. The Green Guide sets the framework, but it takes experienced practitioners to make that framework work in practice, and nowhere is that more important than in the two areas that most directly determine how events are designed, planned and managed within stadia: fire risk and crowd density. Both are more complex than they first appear and both have consequences when they are not properly understood.
Fires at stadia are not a relic of the past. On 10 May 2026, a fire broke out at Strawberry Arena in Stockholm, Sweden’s 50,000-seat national stadium, during an Allsvenskan derby between AIK and Djurgårdens, forcing the evacuation of players and fans. Just two days earlier, on 8 May, a Copa Libertadores match at the Atanasio Girardot stadium in Medellin between Independiente and Flamengo was abandoned after home fans lit f lares and set fires in the stands, with authorities evacuating the stadium entirely. Two incidents, only days apart, on two different continents. A reminder that fire risk in a stadium environment is live, dynamic and ever-present.
Understanding that risk requires a genuine assessment of how fire behaves in a specific space, how smoke moves, how quickly conditions deteriorate and how temporary structures or event infrastructure can change the risk profile entirely. Bradford is rightly held up as the case study that changed how the industry thinks about fire. Modern stadium design has come a long way since then. Flares, temporary structures and event overlays can change the fire risk picture quickly, regardless of how modern the venue is. The Green Guide sets out the principles but translating them into a workable evacuation strategy requires specialist input.
Crowd density is one of the most frequently misunderstood areas of the Green Guide’s application. A concert crowd behaves very differently to a football crowd and the density standards appropriate for one context are not automatically right for another. Density is not a single number. It changes across a space as an event progresses and dangerous conditions can develop in localised areas even when the overall headcount looks fine on paper.
The Oasis concert at the City of Manchester Stadium in July 2005 illustrated this vividly. As the band took to the stage, a wave rippled through the crowd with such force that the front-of-stage barrier broke, halting the show while it was repositioned and temporarily f ixed. I was in that crowd and felt it first-hand. It prompted an immediate rethink of barrier design and location, and the industry responded, acknowledging the very real crowd safety risks that stadium concerts present. The footage has since become a widely referenced example in crowd safety learning. The numbers in the Green Guide are a starting point. Understanding what they mean for a specific venue, a specific event and a specific crowd is where the real work begins.
Ultimately, the Green Guide is a foundation, not a rulebook. No two stadia are the same, and no two events are the same. The qualitative judgements it requires, around condition, management quality, event type and crowd profile, can only be made by people who genuinely understand the environment they are working in. As my experience at the Oasis concert in 2005 shows, and as the fires in Stockholm and Medellin remind us, the risks are real and present at every event. Specialist fire life safety and crowd safety expertise is not an optional layer added to the process. It is what makes the Green Guide’s framework genuinely effective.
Ellie is the powerhouse behind DC Partnership’s financial, operational and people performance. With over a decade of experience in consultancies, startups and corporate environments, she’s a master at combining big-picture strategy with hands-on problem-solving. Since joining DC Partnership in 2021, Ellie has streamlined operations, expanded the company’s footprint and kept everything running smoother than ever. A champion of diversity, inclusion and female leadership, Ellie is all about creating a workplace where everyone feels valued—and where no challenge is too big to tackle.
