Delhi gears up for big-ticket live events

In line with promoting the city as the ‘creative capital’ of India, a series of big-ticket events – Comic Con event, rapper AP Dhillon’s concert, and Argentine footballer Lionel Messi’s Delhi tour – will be held this month, and the organisers are expecting a footfall of over 10,000 people.

The organisers said security arrangements are in place to ensure a smooth conduct of the events.

“We follow global safety standards to calculate the number of people a venue can safely accommodate. We check safe crowd movement from entry to exit. Everything from gate widths to the number of emergency exits is designed to keep the flow of crowd smooth,” said Naman Pugalia, Chief Business Officer, BookMyShow.

Rahul Ganjoo, Chief Executive Officer, Zomato, said a central command will monitor all crowd movement and safety operations through a network of CCTV cameras.

The security aspect assumes greater significance, particularly as the event comes close on the heels of the bomb blast near the Red Fort last month that killed at least 15 people. Four days after the November 10 explosion, the city hosted the India International Trade Fair, which was attended by thousands of people. A fortnight later, an event to observe Guru Tegh Bahadur’s 350th martyrdom was held at the Red Fort, and was attended by over 20,000 people, drawing appreciation from Union Minister Amit Shah for the successful conduct of the event.

The blast has failed to dampen the spirits of concertgoers. “Delhi Police and NIA (National Investigation Agency) have been doing their job, and I have faith in them. At high footfall events, crowd management has always been a challenge, but it has improved over the years,” said Rachit Malhotra, a resident of Vasant Kunj.

Jaswant Singh Mehra, who lives in Gurugram, said security teams are working tirelessly to ensure law and order in the city. “I think we should trust them and go on with our lives,” he said. D. Jana, a Kolkata resident and a doctor by profession, said that concerns about security would not stop him from attending events in Delhi.

Event promotion

An MoU was signed in October between the Tourism Department and online ticketing platform BookMyShow for hosting multiple events. Delhi Tourism Minister Kapil Mishra had announced a 50% reduction in venue tariffs for major stadiums hosting events.