Just 10
April – June 2008
Just 10 was a series of 10 evangelical events held each week throughout April, May and early June 2010.
Tuesday nights were held at Gateshead Nurseries utilising a 8000 seater marquee with the same event held on the Wednesday in Preston Park, Stockton using a 6000 seater marque. Both sites had very limited access for the volume of people expected to attend and the task was to provide suitable transport to each event.
The task was to provide transport to fill this 6000 seater marque – watch the water!
The Gateshead site had a large area suitable for coaches and large areas for car parks, but with a single access point. The site was very close to the A1 and any delay in accessing the site could lead to traffic queues forming back onto the A1. The solution at Gateshead 1. A number of coach companies were approached to provide coaches for the event and their number displayed on the Just 10 web-site to encourage people to attend by coach. In the end approximately 50 coaches attended each night. Some of the coaches attending the Gateshead event.
The coach park had it’s own traffic management plan implemented by stewards in high viz vests and in radio contact. 2. A comprehensive site plan, utilizing a one way system was developed that could take cars from the highway and provide buffer storage whilst they were parked systematically in the large areas available. Several hundred cars were parked in a very short space of time. Some of the hundreds of cars that attended the event each night. 3. The local highway was signed to segregate cars and buses into their separate parking areas and using completely different approaches to the site to prevent any conflict at the adjacent entrances. This information was sent to the organisers and contained on the web-site. 4. A shuttle service linking the local Metro Station to the site every few minutes. This was greatly helped with co-operation from Stagecoach.
One of the four shuttle shuttle buses provided by Stagecoach linking Gateshead Metro to the event
Safety Advisory Group
The above solutions were a key part to the event receiving it’s safety licence. The plan was put before several meetings of the local Safety Advisory Group, which required attendance at each meeting to ensure all issues were properly addressed. Access and egress from the site was a key concern of the local council in issuing the licence, particularly to avoid parking in the local streets adjacent to the site.
The Stockton site was much larger and access to and from the site was much easier with the plan being to utilize two entrances some distance apart, one for cars and one for coaches. There were also going to be fewer people attending this event as the marquee was smaller. The main issue was the water logged fields as shown from the pictures taken at the initial site visit in February. The car park for 6000 people! The entrance to the car park in February – don’t worry it’ll dry out! The proposed car park in February The solution at Stockton 1. A number of coach companies were approached to provide coaches for the event and their number displayed on the Just 10 web-site to encourage people to attend by coach. In the end only 15 coaches attended each night. 2. The remaining organization was to provide car parking, which was organized and staffed by Preston Park.
Other issues
A site visit some two weeks prior to the event showed that the fields to be used for the car parks were simply not useable and an alternative had to be quickly re-planned. This meant that the number of entrances were reduced to just one.
The result was that another field was found and mesh placed over the whole surface to ensure the cars didn’t sink in. The field containing the marquee had similar issues and the marquee was floored for the same reason.
The same car park entrance with 10 days to go! – so it didn’t dry out.
The access to the marquee was no better!
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