It’s crucial when organising an event that you ensure it runs smoothly, and wayfinding is integral to supporting this end. Without clear and accurate wayfinding, it’s all too easy for the flow of people to collapse, creating congestion and damaging the experience of the attendees. So what is quality wayfinding in the context of event management? That’s what we intend to explore through this blog.
Setting up effective wayfinding begins even before attendees arrive at the event. You need to ensure that it’s simple enough for anyone to navigate to where it’s taking place. This means being certain that there is sustainable transport taking accessible routes to the venue. It’s useless to set up effective wayfinding if no one can find their way to the location in the first place. Another thing to think about is ticketing, whether it be physical or digital. Either way it helps to plan around attendance numbers to effectively control the crowd and direct them at their discretion.
Flexibility is important because many venues are used for a variety of different events throughout the year. The NEC in Birmingham is a perfect example of this. The building is essentially an empty space that can tailored towards whatever is required of it. A useful means to accomplish this is adaptable signage, which can be easily altered. Whether through a changeable panel or a digital screen, adaptable signage can be changed easily for any ongoing event. As different events will be organised to best reflect their content, this is invaluable to ensuring wayfinding continues to be effective.
To keep things running smoothly, a venue must be maintained properly from event to event. Therefore, having aspects of the location that ease that maintenance is incredibly useful. For example, if the structure of the building fails, it might cut off parts of the venue due to health and safety considerations. This in turn may create blockages in the flow of the crowd which damages the ability of the attendees to navigate efficiently. Another issue that might arise is that of graffiti, which may obscure important signage or simply be an eyesore. To prevent these problems staff should be on hand to ensure they don’t begin to pile up and become overwhelming.
Within an event, ease of navigation is an obvious requirement for good wayfinding. One way to ensure this is through the clear and obvious designation of zones. These can be for a food court, a trade floor, a place for children, or anything else that may be appropriate. By splitting up an event into smaller sections it can make a large space feel less overwhelming. It also becomes easier to navigate by recognising where you are in relation to other zones. This doesn’t invalidate the use of maps, though, which are still as useful as they have ever been. For some a physical map may be preferable, whereas others may prefer digital navigation. Depending on the circumstance, therefore, it might be useful to supply both.
This blog has been published in the week immediately following the Euro 2020 final at Wembley Stadium, which faced two significant security violations. The first, before the game, occurred when a small number of ticketless fans managed to push through into the stadium. The second happened during the match, when a pitch invader disrupted the proceedings. Wayfinding can’t prevent these occurrences from happening, but it can ease crowd control, thus aiding security in doing so. Without effective wayfinding to guide them, a crowd can become increasingly messy, making it difficult to stop bad actors who might take advantage of the circumstances.
Fundamentally, wayfinding is integral to keeping an event efficient and enjoyable to its attendants. Without it, events can easily become confusing, frustrating and messy. If you need help creating effective and obvious wayfinding then get in touch!