Active Tethered UAS at Festivals and Events
Festivals are especially challenging when it comes to logistics, space planning and crowd movements. During the preparation there is an entire infrastructure with electricity and water planned onto a green field which then has to function when used by thousands of visitors. The larger such events grow, the more difficult it gets to plan crowd movements, arrival routes and decide on security or emergency plans.
Besides festivals are a space in which large amounts of people often meet narrow space, for example infront of a stage or whren queueing and an entrance. Situations like these need special attention, as in case of emergency there is only little time to react, decide and instruct visitors and staff how to handle the situation.
Using an active tethered drone to have a constant overview over the area allows festival organizers, security offices and emergency responders to make decisions based on more information than when having only ground personnel that needs to be send to a situation for further evaluation. Furthermore, when streaming crowd movements directly into the production office, the organizers may use the information for future planning and ideas on how to solve known route issues.
As an active tethered drone does not need to land and therefore interrupt its mission, one can get a constant overview over the whole event site.
Real-Time Flow and Bottleneck Monitoring
To maximize safety for vistiors and staff as well as situational operations, it is essential to have an overview over moving crowds and bottlenecks at the area, at which the festival is held. With a live stream by our tethered drone straight into the festival production office and to the security headquarter, it is ensured to have a fast reaction to unforseen situations.
Besides by monitoring visitors' movements across the infield, between stages or across the campground, the analysis may help by planning ways and spaces to move for future events. Also new ideas of how to create ways which vistitors use, can be monitored with a tethered drone to measure the efectiveness of changes.
Situational Support for Security and Operations Management
Smooth festival operations require the ability to make quick decisions, especially when it comes to topics relevant for overall security. With aerial monitoring of the site, the security office is provided a live stream from a site-covering persective.
In case of unclear situations, such as sudden smoke at the campground in dusty weather conditions, it can be further investigated zooming in from the air instead of directly having to send security staff off via quad. After that it can be decided, how to react. Using the opportunity to firstly check out situations via tethered drone enables the security office to assign their staff more efficiently.
Analysis of Arrival and Departure
Analyzing visitor movements especially before and after events provides valuable insights for future festival planning. Using a tethered drone for aerial monitoring of visitor movements in the area sorrounding the event may help evaluating routes to the event without impacting the normal traffic on the roads more than necessary. Also by having an eye on peak travel times or movement patterns, event organizers can easier work on minimizing waiting times during arrival for visitors. This does also apply to departure routes and time slots to prevent high traffic in the sorrounding area.
Evacuation and Emergency Response
In an emergency, every second counts. Our tethered solutions support emergency responders and event organizers by providing a constant overview over visitor movements across the event site and especially in critical areas, where it is especially crowded, example givving directly infront of a stage. The aerial overview can help in decision making in case of emergency, as the situation viewed from above may make it easier to estimate its dimensions. In case of evacuation of the site being necessary, the tethered drone can continue monitoring the evacuation routes. The overall enhanced situational awareness is key to organizing an event that is safe for everyone.
Day Parking and Visitor Movements During the Event
Not only arrival and departure are a challenge for large events. During the events there is still a large amount of visitors walking, waiting or attending the festival for one day. With aerial monitoring the festival organizers gain an overview over all capacities and spaces, wheter it comes to day parking lots or entrance waiting queues. This allows the organizers to make evaluations on how space on the area is used in the best ways or what to improve in future planning.