Notting Hill Carnival Strategic Review - Intelligent Space

2.110 The Notting Hill Carnival is one of the biggest urban festivals in the world. It not only has
global significance culturally but also generates some unusual and complex problems for the
Stakeholders to resolve, particularly relating to the scale of the crowd. In crowding terms,
some useful comparisons can be made, not so much with music concerts but rather with other
world events that can attract over a million visitors, such as the Berlin Love Parade and the Rio
Carnival. The planning of Carnival could gain from an exchange of best practice expertise with
Stakeholders from other world events of a similar scale. There would be a mutual benefit for
all event Stakeholders of sharing their hard-won experience on tackling events of this unusual
scale, both in terms of safety but also for broader issues such as logistics and funding
mechanisms. One way to begin sharing more information would be for the Mayor to organise
a conference on managing world events and to invite Stakeholders from comparable events to
make presentations about their work. In the longer term, it may be possible for this
international exchange of experience about best practice to be codified in a guidance
document. In this way, the Design Guidance used by the Carnival Stakeholders could be the
start of a much broader Design Guidance for Urban World Events, bringing in the expertise of
many other international experts. The Guidance could help all the Stakeholders to manage
the safe enjoyment by so many visitors of great cultural achievements like the Notting Hill
Carnival.
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