AFL Finals 2016- Extract from Safety & Security Review

In September and October 2016, the Melbourne Cricket Ground hosted four AFL Finals including the Grand Final. The matches were as follows:

Background:

1. Friday, 9th September 2016, 7.50pm- Hawthorn v Geelong, Crowd: 87,553 2. Friday, 16th

3. Friday, 23 September 2016, 7.50pm- Hawthorn v Western Bulldogs, Crowd: 87,823

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4. Saturday, 2 September 2016, 7.50pm- Geelong v Sydney Swans, Crowd: 71,772 nd

Also in the MCG/Yarra Park precinct during the finals period was the AFL Foxtel Footy Festival that includes the conclusion to the Grand Final Parade (approximately 60,000) and the MCG Open Day (approximately 30,000). Two weeks after the Grand Final was the Melbourne Marathon where approximately 10,000 spectators witnessed the conclusion to the marathon on the MCG.

October 2016, 2.30pm- Sydney Swans v Western Bulldogs, Crowd: 99,981

For the 2016 AFL season, the MCG operated with 100% bag searching as well as random and continuous wanding for all patron arrivals into the venue. The goal being to achieve 100% wanding as much as possible. The ability to achieve 100% wanding is somewhat limited by the arrival space that is possible outside the venue particularly on the side of the Great Southern Stand. A further objective was to achieve the wanding goal without creating an extraordinary wait time (ten minutes or more) and not having a safety issue linked to crowd congestion.

Safety & Security:

During week 1 of the AFL Finals, our ability to hold to the 100% wanding was at risk by the smaller area to queue outside MCG Gates 7, 6, 5 and 4. The ability for the queue to build and become a crowd congestion issue was noticed and we had to relax the wanding for a small amount of time at a select number of gates on the Great Southern Stand. A significant amount of communications was undertaken during the period of the AFL Finals with the goal of promoting patrons to arrive earlier than their usual habit. By week 2 of the finals this was noticeable and the queuing was more manageable and the need to relax the measures was eliminated.

Arrival Pattern:

Unless an AFL Final is completely one-sided it is highly likely that the majority of the crowd will stay and watch the entire match. This was seen for three out of the four finals. As a consequence, the majority of the crowd are leaving at the end of the match and moving to public transport (Richmond Station, Jolimont Station or Yarra Trams (Rod Laver, Hisense or Wellington Parade tram stops)). This results in enormous congestion and these locations take on the characteristics of places of mass gathering.

Departure Pattern:

The Melbourne Cricket Club was very happy with the security and safety outcomes that were applied for the AFL Finals. The balance of customer service (queue times), crowd safety (congestion management) and security was achieved to its satisfaction. The AFL Finals have shown that the places of mass gathering that do not receive the same level of scrutiny, management or focus are the train stations and tram stops and the pathways to these destinations. With this in mind, the MCC believes this gives further weight to the need to advance the Sports Link project which had safety and security at the core of why it is important and why the study was undertaken.

Key Learnings:

The following photos demonstrate the arrival and departure patterns.

Image 1: Metro Trains Cameras- note congestion outside Richmond Station- Brunton Ave side after the Hawthorn v Geelong match (bottom centre screen)

Images 2 and 3- Fans coming for the Geelong v Sydney Preliminary Final, exiting Richmond Station onto Brunton Ave prior to road closure and Police deployment (2 hours before game time). Note- Vic Roads permit a 1.5 hour road closure due to Brunton Ave being required to assist departure from city.

Image 4- Milling and meeting point outside MCG Gate 3. Note the ample room for queues and meeting friends.

Image 5- Milling and meeting point outside MCG Gate 6. Note the limited room for queues and meeting friends since 100% wanding was introduced.

Image 6- Milling and meeting point outside MCG Gate 7. Note the limited concourse room for queues and meeting friends. The concourse was expanded in 2009 but it pre-dates 100% wanding. It is a bigger issue on departure where we encourage patrons to stay inside the venue for those travelling from gate 6 to gate 1 if heading back towards the Rod Laver Bridge.

Image 7- Shared access by pedestrians and vehicles in the north-west corner of Yarra Park. Traffic entering from Yarra Park Gate 3 meets head-on with pedestrians exiting Jolimont station and heading to the MCG.