NFL Tailgate Party Comes To The UK With Mojo Barriers

06 November 2009 15.13 BST

American football fever took over the iconic Wembley Stadium when the NFL came to town, bringing with it the NFL Tailgate Party. Visitors enjoyed an all American experience before the big game with Mojo Barriers installing the crowd control solutions across the site.

As a warm up for the only NFL game of the series to visit the UK, the New England Patriots versus the Tampa Bay Buccaneers game, the Tailgate Party celebrated all things NFL. For the third year running, the free of charge, outdoor event attracted 23,000 people to the Palace of Industry, outside Wembley Stadium.

For the third year running, Mojo Barriers worked closely with Tailgate International Series’ site manager Dave Walton to devise and install the crowd control and barrier system for the event. The site has developed with each event, this year introducing new elements such as the Hall of Fame and a 3D cinema to run alongside the live performances on stage.

Dave Walton explained: “The site this year has changed format due to the increase in the number of visitors and the increasing popularity of the NFL in the UK. The infrastructure incorporated twice as many structures this year with the new areas within the same site space.”

Mojo Barriers brought in 1,100m of perimeter fencing marking out the event site, with 800m of crowd control barrier across the site. As part of the system, Line Up Gates were used to control the ingress and egress of the crowds, Dave continued: “Seeing the effectiveness of the Line Up Gates on last year’s event, we used them on the exit as well as the entrance to count the number of exiting people and calculate visitors on site.”

Utilising almost every product in the Mojo Barriers portfolio, Mojo Barriers provided 40m of stage barrier for stage security, 50 cable ramps for wiring and powering the event, and 80m of plastic bar barrier for the bars and merchandise stands.

The Mojo Barriers team headed by Mojo Supervisor Chris Kordek started work on the site Tuesday before the event building the perimeter fencing, before installing the complete barrier system across the week.

Kevin Thorborn UK manager concluded: “With the developments to the site we supplied a more complex set up and using the Line Up Gates on the exit really worked well to preventing everyone leaving ‘on mass’ once the game was about to start.”