March 2022 EP was successfully appointed as the Car Parking and PUDO (pick up & drop off) management company for Liam Gallagher at Knebworth. The return of this iconic artist to one of music’s most recognised venues was highly anticipated by fans and presented new challenges to the event management team in preparing for the safe arrival and departure of over 200,000 fans over both nights.
Despite these delays, several initiative designed in the event traffic plan and implemented by EP were a great success, including the direct access to the A1 northbound from car parks, avoiding pedestrian crossing and thoroughfare traffic delays. Lessons from the first night were learned, with the PUDO for the 2nd night tripled in size to accommodate the clear intentions for more fans to avoid parking delays. This required dynamic assessments throughout the day of the anticipated demand for both and creating the space to implement new plans that could accommodate over 6,000 cars to pick up after the event.
The EP operation was complemented fo the quality of its planning, ground preparation, management flexibility and vigilance when implementing the event traffic plans and willingness to adapt as necessary to make the event a success.
With a mixture of generations attending the festival and limited public transport (trains) to support the transport plan for the event, it was anticipated that a significant proportion would arrive by car, either to park or PUDO. Located adjacent to the A1 with limited road space before reaching the event site, EP worked intensively with the event management team and their traffic management consultants to develop the ingress and egress plans to mitigate planned traffic congestion as a result of the road network limitations.
EP spent 7 days preparing over 20 individual onsite and offsite parking areas with a capacity for over 25,000 vehicles each night, with a contingency park and ride site evaluated, planned and prepared within 24 hours of the event start at the request of the event management team. There were numerous operational challenges on both nights during egress, with fans flooding egress routes to leave the site on foot, significantly delaying a safe time to begin to exit vehicles from the area.
STATISTICS
- Over 30,000 cars parked across the 2 nights
- Over 20,000 cars using evolving PUDO
LOCATIONS
- 9 day operation including 3 days of 24 hour cover utilising over 200 staff
- Over 50 miles of grass cutting / ground