🚀 Get ready for the biggest conversation in global crowd management! 🌍✨

The GCMA Global Crowd Management Congress 2026 brings together world-leading experts to tackle the most pressing challenges in our industry. Brought to you in partnership with Pink Bows Foundation, the Congress delivers three days of insightful discussions, practical strategies, and game-changing ideas. Exclusive to GCMA members, this is an event you won’t want to miss!

📅 February 3rd, 4th & 5th
⏰ 1900 GMT (1400 EST, 1100 PST, 2000 CET)
🔗 Via Zoom

Registration is open to all current GCMA members. Follow the link below to register.

Program Agenda (Subject to Change)

📅 Day One – February 3rd

Crowd Safety on a Budget: Designing for Risk, Reality & Resilience
19:00 GMT
Panelists: Becca Wilusz (US), Cathy Knowsley (NZ), Simon Hunt (CA), Becky Stevens (UK), Benjamin Rolens (US)

Operating with limited resources does not remove responsibility. It changes how decisions must be made and requires sharper thinking.

In this session, we'll examine how event professionals can approach crowd safety when time, budget, and capacity are constrained. The discussion will focus on understanding genuine risk exposure, prioritising interventions that have the greatest impact, and designing safety arrangements that are realistic, proportionate, and defensible.

Rather than seeking perfect solutions, the session will explore how incremental, intentional improvements can strengthen resilience over time, even in challenging operational environments.

AI, Accountability & the Human in the Loop: Decision-Making & Liability in Crowd Safety
20:30 GMT
Panelists: Eoghan Gill (IE), Andy Hollinson (UK), James Russell (UK), Lloyd Major (UK)

Artificial intelligence is moving rapidly from decision support to decision influence in crowd management and event safety, yet responsibility has not shifted alongside it.

In this session, we'll will explore how AI-enabled systems shape human judgement in safety-critical environments. The discussion will consider where risk can emerge through acts of commission and omission, and how those risks are shaped by the interaction between technology, people, and existing regulatory frameworks.

The session will focus on accountability rather than technology alone, asking a central question: who ultimately carries liability when technology, people, and regulatory frameworks collide?

📅 Day Two – February 4th

From Forecast to Frontline: Weather Intelligence & Crowd Safety Decision-making
19:00 GMT
Panelists: Renny Vandewege (US), Jacob Worek (US)

For outdoor events, weather is one of the most influential and often underestimated drivers of crowd safety risk.

In this session, we'll discuss how weather forecasting, real-time monitoring, and clear decision thresholds can inform crowd safety decision-making. The conversation will explore how weather intelligence is used to support decisions around crowd movement, sheltering, evacuation, and event modification.

The session will examine how timely, well-interpreted weather information strengthens situational awareness and helps teams act decisively before conditions deteriorate.

From Policy to Practice: The Saint-Denis Convention & Multi-Agency Safety at Sporting Events
20:00 GMT
Panelists: Thyr Rodrigues (CH), Rodrigo Cavaleiro (PT)

What does the Saint-Denis Convention mean in practice for those planning and delivering sporting events?

In this session, Thyr Rodrigues and Rodrigo Cavaleiro explore the Council of Europe’s Saint-Denis Convention, the only binding international framework promoting an integrated, multi-agency approach to safety, security, and service at sporting events. The session will outline the purpose of the Convention, its core principles, and the role of the S4 Committee in overseeing its implementation and supporting cooperation between public and private stakeholders.

The discussion will examine how the Convention’s principles are translated into operational practice, highlighting practical considerations, approaches, and available tools that may be relevant to GCMA members seeking to strengthen collaborative planning and crowd safety within their own contexts.

📅 Day Three – February 5th

Fire Prevention Without Borders: Toward a Global Standard for Public Venues
19:00 GMT
Panelists: Mike Kill (UK), Anne Marie Chebib (UK)

The recent Le Constellation nightclub fire in Switzerland once again underscored the urgent need for harmonised global fire prevention standards and their consistent enforcement across nightlife and hospitality venues worldwide. Repeated incidents over the years have shown that deficiencies such as inadequate emergency exits, flammable materials, overcrowding, and non-compliance with licensing and safety regulations can have catastrophic consequences. This session explores the newly developed International Fire Prevention Guide: a practical framework designed to reduce regulatory ambiguity and provide effective tools to prevent fires and strengthen emergency preparedness in public venues worldwide.

Sweating the Small Stuff: Overlooked, Minimised & Ignored Issues That Impact Safety at Small Venues
20:30 GMT
Panelists: Iain Fourie (SA), Angie Chamberland (US), Chris Kerr (CA), Bryan Huneycutt (US)

Smaller venues can assume that certain rules, standards, or hazards apply only to larger events. In reality, many of the same risks are present at smaller scale and are more likely to be overlooked, minimised, or managed informally. Sometimes, those challenges are not recognised as risks at all.

In this session, we'll examine issues that are commonly misunderstood or under-examined in small-venue settings, and how these factors can influence safety outcomes. Drawing on real-world examples, the discussion will explore how gaps in awareness can become liabilities and why this matters.

Crowd management is a multidisciplinary field that combines an understanding of human psychology and physics with an ability to bring order from relative chaos. For professionals who manage crowds at mass gatherings, the Global Crowd Management Alliance® is hosting the second Global Crowd Management Congress, taking place virtually February 20 - 22, 2024 from 19:00 - 22:00 GMT each day (2:00 PM - 5:00 PM Eastern).

The Global Crowd Management Congress will bring together crowd managers and those who rely on them for three days of learning and conversation. Discussions regarding crowd behavior and crowd management techniques will be led by experienced practitioners and experts from around the world.

Registration is open to all current GCMA members. Follow the link below to register.

Program Agenda

Tuesday, 20 February

In Conversation: The “Magic” of Crowd Safety
Simon James & Tim Roberts, Director, The Event Safety Shop
19:00 GMT

Crowd safety isn't magic - there are many complex decisions and lots of hard work to make it appear that way. Simon James and Tim Roberts of The Event Safety Shop will pick up their wands, reach into their top hats, and conjure a variety of topics sure to inform, surprise, and delight.

Measuring Leadership through the Lens of Inclusivity
James Pogue, President and CEO of JP Enterprises
20:30 GMT

“If it doesn’t get measured it doesn’t get done.”  We have heard this phrase used on multiple occasions across a variety of areas, well it applies to Inclusion too. For too long we have been told that Leaders should be Inclusive, that teams should be Inclusive and yes, so should departments and organizations. But in most organizations, there is no way to cleanly measure whether that Leader or Team actually are, that is until now. Attendees of this presentation will be introduced to the Inclusive Leadership Assessment™, a way to measure where a person is on their inclusion journey. Using live polling and a dedicated Q and A section this presentation will involve attendees in both the listening and the learning, leaving them with a deeper sense of where they are in their own journey and decisions to make in relation to which path towards inclusion they may want to walk. 

Wednesday, 21 February

An integrated approach to safe events with DIM-ICE
Syan Schaap, Director, Event Safety Institute
19:00 GMT

Event Safety Institute, based in The Netherlands and holding office in Australia, is known for its expertise in planning, preparing, and coordinating freely accessible public events in city centers. Throughout its nearly 10-year existence, ESI has been involved in many events like cultural exhibitions, sporting events, national celebrations, and even protests. ESI’s approach is characterized by making profound analysis, using Crowd Science models like the RAMP-analysis and the DIM-ICE risk model. In this presentation, ESI’s director Syan Schaap will show how the DIM-ICE model, that makes a clear distinction between three phases of an event and separately focuses on Design, Information, and Management components, helps to guide all stakeholders, public and private, in an integrated approach towards running a safe event. He will illustrate this with different examples, like a crowd of 150,000 cheering football fans turning up to honor their team as the national champions, and the vast crowds turning up for King’s Day and carnival celebrations in many Dutch cities.

Training the Next Generation of Event Professionals: What Works and What Doesn’t
Ira L. Rosen MA, CFEE President – Ira L Rosen LLC Festival and Event Consulting
20:30 GMT

As seasoned professionals in the event industry grow older, what are we doing to train people to take their roles?  This is especially critical in the world of event risk management and crowd management which have traditionally been under-discussed at the university level.  Ira Rosen has decades of experience in the event production industry and spent 15 years teaching event management at the university level, and he will suggest some practical strategies for ensuring a consistent stream of trained professionals

Thursday, 22 February

Crowd Management… Artist Protection… Tour Security… what’s it all about ?
Richard Douglas, Director – Events, SES Group
19:00 GMT

 It’s often the case that music artists or their managers will hire a protective security team. This team may vary in size, roles, and responsibilities. Is there an argument that in this era an understanding of crowd management is necessary when providing protective services to music artists? What involvement should the artist's protective security team have around the crowd management of an event? Join me as I discuss my 30 years in the events industry providing protective security for artists, celebrities, and VIP’s & crowd management planning and operational management at events around the world and how the two have combined to enable me to operate at the highest level.

Smoke From a Distant Fire: Planning for Wildfire, Heat, and Other Climate Challenges
Dr. Kevin Kloesel, University Meteorologist, OU Department of Campus Safety
20:30 GMT

"Unusual"... "extreme"... "unprecedented". The weather of today is pulling the rug right out of using past conditions as a means to prepare future expectations. What does tomorrow hold, and how will it impact our crowds and staff? Let's take what we should've seen a long time ago, lets stack up, slack up, and give reality a roll. Our events are under siege from weather like very few times before, and I'd just like to know.