The Crowds Were Back For Showsec At The UEFA Euro 2020 Festival

The 11th of July saw the UEFA Euro 2020 final between England and Italy played to a 60,000 strong crowd at Wembley. Across central London, Showsec was securing the two UEFA Festival sites as they had since the start of the tournament.

Showsec delivered crowd management and event security services for Jack Morton Worldwide on behalf of the Greater London Authority. Comprising of two sites; the Fan Zone in Trafalgar Square and Football Village in Potters Fields Park, the UEFA Festival had a schedule packed with exciting football events and music, starting on the opening weekend of the tournament and running right through to the final.

The project started for Showsec over two years ago in preparation for its original dates back in summer 2020, but as with all live events in 2020, this was not to be. It has been a long journey, but the many months of preparation came to fruition with the rescheduled event taking place between the 11th of June and 11th of July 2021.

The crowd management and event security services Showsec provided included event stewarding and site security and traffic management all with compliance to COVID regulations, which understandably resulted in differences to the original plans to account for government restrictions.

Paul Legge, Showsec’s Regional Manager for London and the South East led the project, “The planning process for this event has probably been the longest we’ve experienced, so it was great to finally be working alongside all the stakeholders on site. It was an outstanding collaborative team effort.

“It has been a nice introduction back into the world of live events and fantastic to be part of these wonderful events to oversee the safety of thousands of people watching the games in these iconic locations.”

Paul was supported by a fantastic management team, including Simon Howard, Michael Asimonye, Laura Alexander, Jonathon Etienne, Joe Milner and Martin Lewis along with a number of operations managers from across the country and hundreds of staff from across London on a daily basis.

The Trafalgar Square Fan Zone was central to the Euro 2020 celebrations. An iconic location with giant screens to show England matches from the 3rd July against Ukraine, the semi-finals and final. Tickets for access to the site were free and were available by public ballot and saw over 10,000 customers through the gates during the tournament.

The incredible site was carpeted with AstroTurf (which is being donated to charitable causes post-tournament) and complied with all government guidance on restrictions including social distancing, table service for food and drink, mask-wearing and NHS Test and Trace check-in.

The Potters Field Football Village situated alongside Tower Bridge and the River Thames was an un-ticketed free entry family-oriented site with a diverse range of cultural entertainment, sports and community activities, live music, comedy nights, plus food and drink stalls and big screens for up to 450 customers to enjoy selected matches and highlights.

See more photos from this project on our Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/showsec.uk/