Sydney Olympic Park introduces new technology to deal with large crowds for Taylor Swift concerts

With more than 300,000 fans set to descend on Sydney's Accor Stadium for four consecutive shows from Taylor Swift as of tomorrow, artificial intelligence (AI) technology is to be used to ensure crowds are safe, calm and moving smoothly for the events.

Staff at Sydney Olympic Park and Transport for NSW will be working hard behind the scenes on each of the four nights - from Friday 23rd to Monday 27th February - supporting crowd control at the Accor Stadium’s coordination centre.

The AI program combines features such as de-identified CCTV footage, weather data and social media to accurately predict crowd movements and mood around the stadium.

This allows teams to prevent problems before they occur and implement a range of measures like opening more exits, redirecting people, giving live updates, deploying more staff or playing music to keep the mood up.

This will be the biggest test yet for the trial, as well as the new Venues NSW management team at the venue, which kicked off in 2023 as part of the NSW Government's $45 million Smart Places Acceleration Program.

The technology has been successfully used for other events including the recent Laneway Festival and Big Bash League cricket.

Signs with QR codes have been placed around the Stadium for people keen to learn more about the technology and provide feedback.

The trial has been rigorously assessed under the NSW Government’s AI Assurance Framework to ensure the use of the new technology is ethical and real benefits are delivered to the community without compromising privacy or data security.

Commenting on the arrangements, NSW Minister for Planning and Public Spaces, Paul Scully stated “this new technology provides real-time insights, to help make every experience at Sydney Olympic Park a great one.

“With large events drawing crowds of more than 10 million visitors to the precinct each year, it’s important we use state-of-the-art tools to inform operations, keep people comfortable and avoid serious incidents.

“The software gives precinct staff an idea of crowd movements and capacities. It cannot be used for surveillance, tracking, or facial recognition, meaning individuals are never identifiable.”

The NSW Government is emphasising the public transport as the most efficient way to get to the event with more than 1200 extra public transport services to run across the four nights.

This includes ‘Tay Tay Express Train Services’ will running from Sydney’s Central Station to Olympic Park every eight minutes until 10:30pm then every five minutes until 1am and Central concourse is decorated and clock tower lit in a lavender haze for the occasion.

The Eras Tour will continue onboard, with tracks from the artist to be played on the Swift Express runs.

Images: Taylor Swift on stage at the MCG last weekend (top, credit: MCG) and on stage at Accor Stadium in 2018 (below, credit: VenuesLive).