Guiding a million visitors: technology for mass gatherings

A signboard cannot answer, and it cannot change

A printed sign at a mass gathering answers one question, in a handful of languages, until the route it points to closes. It cannot tell a visitor that a gate is congested right now, it cannot say where the nearest lost-and-found station is from where the visitor is standing, and it cannot respond when someone asks it something in a language the designers did not anticipate.

Our 2024 proposals for holy-site operators started from the aim of “comprehensive, integrated and sustainable solutions covering all aspects of the pilgrim's journey, from registration to performing the rituals”. That framing matters. The visitor's experience begins at home, weeks before travel, and ends after the last ritual; the technology has to cover the whole arc, not just the crowded middle.

We organised the ideas into three groups — field services on the ground, enrichment services that add understanding and reassurance, and digital services that reach people before and between visits — and we insisted on one constraint: every idea must run on a product we already deploy. A mass gathering is the last place to debut a new platform. The use-case page presents the programme; here we walk through how each piece works and why.

Lost-and-found, smart signs and bookings that remove queues

Integrated lost-and-found. Screens distributed across the site show detailed information on lost-and-found station locations, managed centrally through the signage platform. Each screen carries a QR code that opens an AR map: the visitor points their phone camera at the surroundings, the app pins their position, and the screen or phone shows the nearest station with a clear route. When a station moves or a route closes, the update goes to every screen from one dashboard.

Smart guidance signboards. Physical signs stay, but an AR layer sits over them. Point a smartphone at the sign and it shows additional information in the visitor's language — the next step of a ritual, the distance to a gate, the current status of the area.

Booking for wheelchairs and consultations. Visitors with special needs pre-book a wheelchair and receive a notification with a place and time; visitors who need a religious consultation book a slot instead of queuing. The point is to move waiting off the site and onto the phone.

Children's activities in protected areas. A 3D multiplayer experience, designed for children and available in several languages, lets them live the journey — sites, rituals and historical places — in a safe zone, away from crowding, while adults perform rituals. It is a use of our metaverse platform work for a purpose most people would not expect.

An avatar that answers, a hologram that translates, a scholar who is live

The second layer is about understanding, and it rests on the AI avatar.

A multilingual AI avatar kiosk — on a phone, a kiosk or a hologram box — answers questions about rituals, helps find lost items or children and gives schedule updates. The scenario we wrote is ordinary and important: a lost visitor talks to the avatar, which guides them step by step to their destination; if a child or item is reported missing, the avatar alerts security. The avatar's knowledge comes from an information bank controlled by the operator, so answers are consistent and authorised.

The interactive hologram box takes the same avatar to life size. It offers instant translation for visitors speaking different languages, explanations and lectures in several languages, and interaction through a microphone and high-resolution camera. The languages we specified as a minimum were Arabic, English and French, with more added as needed.

Live Q&A on hologram screens. In central areas, hologram screens show live sessions with scholars; visitors ask questions and receive answers by live broadcast, so they can perform rituals with confidence rather than searching for other sources or waiting for a person.

Immersive landmarks. VR and AR let visitors explore the architectural and civilisational details of historic sites as if living in those eras — a heritage experience that adds meaning to the visit without adding to the crowd at the monument.

Crowd alerts on digital signage — the one feature that pays for the rest

If an operator implemented only one idea, we would choose this one. Broadcasting messages, updates and alerts on dedicated screens gives real-time information on current crowd levels, available services and reminders about specific rituals. At peak times, visitors also receive phone notifications about alternative routes or timings so they can avoid congestion before they reach it.

The mechanism is our cloud signage platform. Every screen on site is a player managed from one dashboard: content is scheduled, offline copies are held on each device in case connectivity drops, and unscheduled content — an alert — can be pushed instantly to one zone or all of them. Live monitoring shows which screens are on. We run the same platform across 32 branches of a hypermarket chain in Jordan; the difference at a mass gathering is not the software but the discipline of who is allowed to push what.

Crowd alerts on digital signage work because they reach people who have not downloaded anything, in the place where the decision is made. A phone notification is the second channel, not the first.

Two design rules from our signage deployments carry over. Keep alert templates pre-approved and short, in every language, so an operator selects and sends rather than writes under pressure. And separate the alert channel from the scheduled channel in the dashboard, so a congestion message interrupts the ritual reminder and is cleared, without anyone rebuilding the day's playlist afterwards.

The same screens carry the lost-and-found map, the ritual reminders and the multilingual welcome, which is why we say this feature pays for the rest: the hardware is shared, and each new service is content rather than infrastructure.

Before the season, and how to pilot

The third layer reaches people away from the site. Awareness workshops before the season distribute educational and visual content on performing rituals correctly through interactive platforms and apps, accessible from anywhere — so the first-time visitor arrives knowing the sequence. Health advice through the AI avatar, based on the visitor's own vital signs, helps prevent illness and manage conditions in heat and crowds. And everything in multiple languages: boxes, avatars and screens configured so that a visitor who does not speak Arabic gets explanations in their own language at every touchpoint.

How would an operator start? We would pick one zone with existing screens or power for new ones, connect them to the platform, load the lost-and-found map, ritual reminders and alert templates, and place one AI avatar kiosk with the three-language knowledge bank. Run it for one season. Count questions answered, alerts pushed, bookings made and, above all, the reduction in people asking staff the same question.

Nothing in this list is specific to a holy site. Stadiums, festivals, airports and expos have the same needs at a smaller scale, and the same three building blocks apply. The proposals can be refined through a detailed study of each site's challenges; the products are ready now.