Stand closure capacity and egress impact simulator
Problem
When a stand or section needs to close, for repair, a safety issue or phased redevelopment, the decision gets worked out in a conversation between the facilities manager and the safety officer, checked against whichever version of the egress plan someone can find, usually a spreadsheet or PDF from the last safety certificate renewal. Nobody recalculates the steward numbers the reduced capacity would need, or checks whether pushing more people through the remaining routes still meets the certified egress time. It is assumed fine unless someone objects. The gap surfaces days before an event, when a closure agreed weeks earlier turns out to overload one exit route and the plan has to be redone under time pressure.
Product idea
A scenario tool built on the capacity, route allocation and steward ratio figures already documented for the safety certificate. A facilities manager or venue operations director picks a scenario, close section 14, reduce capacity in the north stand by a third, and the tool recalculates total capacity, shows the loading each remaining egress route would carry, and flags any route that would exceed its certified time. It applies figures already agreed for the venue rather than modelling crowd physics itself: no new egress calculation is invented, only the arithmetic of redistributing a known capacity across known routes. Output is a plain scenario report attached to the closure decision.
Who it is for
Facilities managers and venue operations directors weighing a stand or section closure, and the safety or stewarding supervisor who has to sign off the revised staffing.
Possible first version
A single-scenario tool. Baseline capacity, egress route allocation and steward ratios per section are imported from a spreadsheet matching the venue's existing safety certificate documentation. A user selects sections to close or restrict and sees recalculated capacity, route loading against the certified threshold, and the steward count the new configuration would need, exportable as a PDF. Out of scope for version one: comparing multiple scenarios side by side, any live feed from ticketing or turnstile systems, and any automatic recalculation of egress times themselves, which stay as the certified figures already on file.
- Build classification
- Workflow application
- Rough effort
- 3-4 week first release
- Roles involved
- Venue operations director, Facilities manager, Estates coordinator
- Relevant to
- Venue & stadium operator, Professional club, Federation / governing body, Collegiate athletics
- Systems in play
- Spreadsheets, Paper inspection forms, Booking and scheduling calendars
- Product framing
- Test or simulate
Questions we get asked
What do we need to have ready before this is any use?
The baseline figures: capacity per section, which egress routes serve it, the certified time for each route, and the steward ratio your safety certificate assumes. If those numbers only exist as a PDF from the last certificate renewal, someone needs to transcribe them into the import sheet once. That transcription is most of the setup work; the tool itself does the arithmetic afterwards.
Does this replace the conversation with our safety officer?
No, and it should not try to. It gives that conversation a number to argue about instead of a guess, but the judgement about whether a scenario is acceptable, and the sign-off on it, stays with the safety officer and the safety advisory group. The tool produces the working; it does not produce the decision.
We usually just phone the safety officer and it works out fine. Why change that?
It works out fine until a closure agreed by phone turns out to overload one exit route, and that is usually discovered close to an event rather than weeks before it. The phone call is not wrong, it is just undocumented and unchecked against the certified thresholds. This does not remove the call. It gives both people on it the same numbers to look at.
Does it calculate egress times itself?
No. It applies the egress times and route capacities already documented for your venue's safety certificate and redistributes load across them when a section closes. It does not model crowd flow or invent a new egress calculation, because that is a specialist exercise that belongs with whoever produced your original certified plan, not with a scenario tool.
Is this your workflow?
Tell us one sports workflow that still runs on paper, spreadsheets, WhatsApp or an outdated system. We will map it and show you what a simpler product looks like.
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