Dear UEFA Champions League Final Planning Committee,
After experiencing, first hand, your ‘fan experience’ in Istanbul, I would like to offer you my services free of charge, for the next final. I would coordinate everything for you, based on my observations and experience in Istanbul.
Shuttle bus transport to the Manchester City Fan Zone at the Ataturk Stadium;
- I would suggest that you have clear signage identifying where people go to enter the fan zone and where people should wait in line for a shuttle bus.
- If possible, as much of the line should be provided with shade as temperatures will get high and the wait/line will become long in the afternoon.
- The wait line for the shuttle buses should be segregated from those people wanting to enter the fan zone. This will avoid people walking to the front of the line because they didn’t know what the line was for (see above point regarding signage). Also, this would stop those fans deciding a line was not for them and simply walking straight to the front of the line.
- Establish UEFA representatives to provide guidance, instruction and where necessary enforcement of acceptable rules in regard the line for the shuttle buses.
- At no time should anyone waiting in line, or entering a bus, be forced to give up their water. Hydration is an essential component of good health and the wait in line, in the sun, and the journey to the stadium may total more than 4 hours.
- Bottles of water should be made available to those inline, free of charge. This should only be made available to pass holders and the 20cent cost of the water should be absorbed within the cost of the match ticket, just as the transport cost is.
- Establish a disability assistance tent. Pre-registered guests should announce themselves at the tent where they can wait until they can be assisted on to a bus that is departing. There should be no requirement for those with a valid disability to wait in line.
- Establish a loading area that does not require fans to move and be aware of busses turning. There is sufficient space at Yenikapi for all bus maneuvering to be done away from the fans, and a single stream of buses travels in a single direction, only stopping to pickup fans.
- Place a UEFA representative at the end of the controlled line of fans. Provide them with a clicker counter. The representative will only let the specific number of people through that can be accommodated comfortably and safely on the bus provided. When the bus is loaded, it moves away, the next bus takes it place, comes to a safe stop and the next load of fans are allowed through and to board that bus.
- Where possible major roads should be closed to normal traffic and diverted avoiding the route taken by the buses to the ground. You will be moving as many as 15,000 fans on buses carrying +/- 50 fans each. This will require approx.. 300 buses that should be provided priority over local traffic to ensure the journey time is not unreasonable.
- When dropping fans at fan zone near the ground, please prepare and distribute a simple flyer that contains instructions in regard what the process will be for boarding busses on the return journey. Also have large oversized display boards easily visible, with the same instructions, for those who are not provided with the flyer.
- The drop off area should be staffed with English speakers to assist fans with questions and also those with disabilities requiring assistance. Please note : in order to safely and efficiently assist those with disabilities please ensure there is level solid service from the bus drop off area to the gate entrance to the stadium.
Whilst I could provide a further set of suggestions for the fan zone experience, I will withhold these until you accept my offer of help.
I will provide you with some bullet points for hosting ‘regular’ (non-hospitality) fans once they are admitted inside the stadium. These are obvious issues that don’t really require any great insight on my behalf. Not ensuring these minimums would surely fall into the dereliction of duty category;
- Provide sufficient vending locations that the average wait time is not greater than 30 minutes.
- Provide sufficient bathroom facilities that the average wait time is not greater than 15 minutes.
- Ensure there is easily available, reasonably priced water, without waiting in line for greater than 30 minutes. Water should be available via any/all payment methods. As mentioned above, good hydration is essential and should not be at risk because a contact less card is failing to process.
Shuttle bus transport back to the city and to the airports; Perhaps this area is the one with the biggest potential for failure if nobody takes responsibility for putting in place an effective plan. However, the basics of the plan are very simple, and most fall into a category I refer to as ‘common sense’.
- As soon as fans leave the stadium, start to segregate (with barriers that have been put in place during the game) fans for a) the city, b) IST airport & c) SAW airport. There is a long distance from exiting the stadium gate until the busses, so there is plenty of time for people to get in their correct lane.
- The narrowest point in the journey to the buses is at the rear of the fan zone, this should be used as the control point for letting a ‘reasonable’ amount of people through who have a bus immediately available to board.
- At the bus park, no private vehicles or taxis are allowed. Those are handled at a separate area. There is plenty of space around the ground to accomplish this.
- As with the departure procedure, all buses should already be lined up, in one of three lines. There should be no jostling for positions, no merging of traffic, just load up, move off, repeat !
- At the exit of the bus park, the road must be closed to all other traffic up to the point where the bus joins the highway/motorway to its destination. Also, all 3 bus lines must exit directly to the road, bus lanes should not be required to merge. If this is implemented correctly, there will be no delays caused by congestion in the bus park area. When a bus is loaded it can be on the road in less than a few minutes. Roads will be quiet at that time of night so journey time will be short, our challenge is to get the bus started on that journey as quickly and as efficiently as possible.
This is just a short sample of the planning I can help you execute. I hope my ‘short’ list of suggestions will show you that I am the ideal consultant for your next CL Final Planning committee.
If you did have anyone who was supposed to have taken care of this, I suggest you get your sponsor Heineken to employ them, as they obviously couldn’t arrange a piss up in a brewery !
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