The Art of Mass Gatherings

“People who are throwing festivals are taking care of 5,000, 10,000 people at a time,” said Matthew Kowal, a Denver-based emergency preparedness consultant. Kowal works with Performing Arts Readiness, founded the consulting firm Majestic Collaborations and was largely responsible for the symposium. He said skills like crowd management, as well as experience with waste, water and power systems, can be a huge help to a city hit by a disaster. “If we're looking at large scale issues, FEMA is not going to have enough resources to go everywhere,” Kowal said. “So Denver, and cities like this, will need to think about their own preparedness.” - excerpt from Colorado Public Radio June 17, 2019