IBIT Conference 2023

The 9th IBIT Conference on Crowdmanagement & Event Safety Management took place in Cologne in November. Related to the slogan “Knowledge, Network, Responsibility”, current challenges, basic knowledge, best practices and research activities were reported and discussed over two days.

Sabine Funk and her IBIT team put together a comprehensive program that included the following topics, among others:

• Cooperation and communication during events
• Inclusion of people with disabilities
• Technical support for event safety (e.g. simulations, AI and drones)
• Last mile / Zone Ex from different perspectives (legal, operational, …)
• Best practice examples for e.g. specific safety concepts and managing threat situations

Most contributions and discussions were in German - although the English track is growing. On the 2nd day of the conference there was an international track presented by the YES Group, in which, among other things, the lessons learned from the Loveparade were discussed.

In addition to presentation and discussion panels, the exhibition area offered the opportunity to get in touch with various companies, institutes and organizations active in the field of event safety and to discuss crowd management strategies using this vivid model as an example:

As a part of the side program, the topic “Knowledge transfer from research to practice and vice versa” was highlighted in an open discussion round. Barriers to transfer were collected, such as the lack of a common vocabulary, lack of detailed understanding of each other’s activities and different time scales of research/practice. While the list of challenges grew longer as the discussion progressed, there were only a few proposed solutions - such as the preparation of scientific publications for specific target groups from practice. The discussion showed that there is still a lot of work to be done in terms of transfer. However, the conference with its established research track is already an effective platform for advancing the exchange between research and practice.

The IBIT conference will take place again next year. The exact date and location have not yet been set but will be announced here.

By: Jette Schumann