Above all else, there’s one thing that matters the most when it comes to event planning – safety. Stadium is a security solutions company based out of Coventry, United Kingdom that values just that. Stadium services every aspect of safety at an event including event security, crowd management and traffic management.
OnePlan has partnered with Stadium to enhance our existing traffic management functionality and implement new tools. We spoke with National Operations Manager, Sam Wilson and he gave us his perspective on creating the custom version and how they recently used OnePlan for one of their biggest events – Coventry Moves.
The old ways of event and traffic management
Before OnePlan, Stadium used the traditional methods of event planning for security management.
“I’ve worked with CAD before,” said Wilson. “While it’s a good system, it was clunky. You needed a lot of training prior to using it, and it’s not designed for traffic management. When I joined Stadium, we used Powerpoint since you can overlay road signs. But to do so, I had to create the sign in Powerpoint, which took around 5-10 minutes per sign.
“In OnePlan, it’s just a case of click, drag, drop and it automatically brings the sign over. You’re cutting down from 5 minutes per sign to under a minute. The click and drop feature cuts down on so much time. Since May, we’ve already done 18-20 traffic management plans in OnePlan.”
Event planning methods of the past have been complex and difficult to onboard or teach teams. For Wilson, learning OnePlan was easy and it was simple to get his team using it.
“Minimal training was needed with OnePlan, which helped a lot. For me, I had a quick chat with Henry, our customer success manager, who showed me all the features and immediately my team was able to pick up on it.”
"Previously, planning our events would take over 200 hours. With OnePlan we cut that down to 75.”
Sam Wilson
National Operations Manager, Stadium
Planning Coventry Moves in OnePlan
After working in OnePlan for a while, they started planning one of their biggest events of the year, Coventry Moves. A day-long event and celebration where music, processions, and other forms of art were performed all throughout the city of Coventry. Dancers would perform in residential areas and then walked in routes into the city, finishing in Coventry Square.
“Coventry Moves was a huge event taking place from 8 AM to 9 PM with over 12 hours of traffic closures, which affected buses, taxis and local traffic. One of the biggest challenges is managing the seven processions throughout the day and overlaying them into one that could work. For the event, we needed around 8-9 maps built and we’ve put all of that into OnePlan. For any changes, we could easily reroute them in OnePlan and the changes happened instantly and everyone could see the updates right at that moment. ”
“It was unique because we had probably 400 individual closures, on 7 procession routes, and over 100 staff. We then needed to put that into a plan that was digestible to 110 stakeholders and it was apparent it was crucial to do it on OnePlan. Previously, planning our events would take over 200 hours, and with OnePlan we cut that down to 75.”
A custom traffic management solution
OnePlan worked together with Stadium to create a better version of OnePlan’s traffic management system tailored to the needs of security management companies and traffic management firms like Stadium. Optimizing and improving a solution can be a lengthy process but Wilson spoke of how he felt OnePlan really listened to what they wanted and created exactly what they were looking for in an event management platform.
“It really started by asking us what we wanted out of the label and how we could better suit functionality for our needs, and OnePlan delivered. It’s been nine months since we started and the solution really works for us. The process has been great. Henry, our Customer Success Manager, listens and understands. Any updates we ask for are completed in 3-4 days.”
“If we compare it to CAD, the whitelabel works much better for our needs. In CAD, you had to do quite a lot of work to get a cone line, and in OnePlan, it’s quite literally point and point and it gives you the number of cones needed – something specific to the Stadium whitelabel.”
Stadium uses OnePlan mainly for traffic management, so the items used the most are direction of traffic symbols and pedestrian routes, as well as, signage, the people areas, and car park areas. They show processions by creating routes and easily showing the direction it’s going in. For areas that are closed, OnePlan can block out an area with a color so it’s easy to see.
Using OnePlan saw benefits immediately
We’ve mentioned how Stadium saved time using OnePlan, but it was also a huge cost-saving measure.
“It would take me about a day to do eight maps in CAD. In OnePlan, it’s about 2 hours, meaning I have more time to make changes. What usually happens is I send a client their plan in the afternoon and a couple of hours later, I get changes back, OnePlan gives me the time to finish that plan that day or if I’m unavailable, I’m able to ask a colleague to make the changes knowing it’s an easy platform to use”.
“We’ve also used OnePlan for bids for prospective clients, to show them what we can do in terms of event management and the live option is really useful. It allows us to be able to flick into the data mode and show operations.”
We’re excited about the partnership Stadium has built with OnePlan and look forward to keep updating and revolutionizing their whitelabel. Our goal is always to create better traffic and event management solutions to keep people safe at big events.
