What Kolkata’s Messi Event Teaches Us About Crowd Behaviour

For days, Kolkata had been gearing up for one of the most anticipated sporting moments of the year: Lionel Messi’s appearance during the G.O.A.T India Tour 2025. Fans arrived hours early, clutching flags, jerseys and hopes of witnessing a rare moment up close. But the excitement, the build-up, and the emotional investment took an unexpected turn when Messi left the stadium within minutes.

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The mood shifted almost instantly. The same energy that fuelled cheers now fuelled frustration. Some fans vandalised seats; others rushed onto the pitch. While there was no crowd crush or stampede, the emotional swing itself left people shocked — how did a celebration tip so quickly into chaos?

To understand this, we need to understand how human emotions behave in large gatherings, especially when expectations collide with reality.

Why does excitement flip into anger so quickly in a crowd?

Think of the feeling when you stand in a long queue to buy food at a concert, only to be told the stall has run out just as your turn arrives. It’s not rage — it’s disappointment mixed with a sense of unfairness.

Now magnify that feeling across 60,000 people.

Crowds come in with a shared emotional investment:
“We waited together, we paid together, we believed together.”

When that expectation collapses in an instant — a cancelled act, a celebrity leaving early, a show ending abruptly — the emotional letdown doesn’t stay personal. It spreads. Research calls this collective frustration.

This doesn’t excuse the damage done — but it explains why the emotional temperature changes so sharply when a shared dream suddenly feels undone.

Why do some people cross boundaries when a crowd feels unstructured?

In any large gathering, people don’t just watch the event; they also watch the people running it. Psychologists call this situational norming: we take behavioural cues from the environment to understand what is acceptable.

According to social psychologist Prof. John Drury, who studies crowd behaviour at the University of Sussex, crowds are not inherently chaotic; they become chaotic when the signals that normally guide behaviour weaken. People look for structure — and when they don’t find it, ambiguity fills the space.

Inside a stadium, structure usually comes from:

• visible and confident staff,
  

• calm, consistent security behaviour,
  

• clear physical boundaries,
  

• and predictable crowd flow.
  

But when these cues weaken. For example, when security appears overwhelmed, or when it becomes clear that the event is not going as planned, people experience what behavioural scientists call a loss of normative clarity.

In simple terms:

When it feels like “no one is in charge,” some people behave as if the rules no longer fully apply.

That’s when you see:

• people climbing barricades to get a better view,
  

• people rushing onto the pitch in excitement or frustration,
  

• people breaking seats, barriers, or signage,
  

• people trying to create their own route through the crowd.
  

Importantly, research shows this does not happen because an entire crowd “turns violent.”
It usually starts with:

• a few impulsive individuals reacting emotionally,
  

• influenced by the high energy and shared frustration around them.
  

Another well-documented phenomenon — behavioural contagion — explains what happens next. When others see those first few people crossing boundaries without immediate consequences, they interpret it as a new, temporary norm. Not out of malice, but out of:

• confusion,
  

• heightened emotion,
  

• and a sense that the structure has loosened.
  

As Prof G Keith Still notes in crowd-science literature, “Crowds are not irrational — they are responding to the perceived conditions of the environment.” If the environment suggests disorder, behaviour adjusts accordingly.

This explanation still does not excuse or justify the damage done at Salt Lake Stadium.
But it does show how environmental signals and emotional energy interact, leading some individuals to cross lines they would never cross on their own in a calmer, more structured setting.

In other words:
People don’t lose their values, they lose the cues that help them follow them.

How does being tightly packed change how people feel and act?

Anyone who has been in a packed metro at rush hour knows this feeling:
You’re not really walking anymore, the crowd is moving you.

Crowd researchers say that this isn’t your imagination. It’s physics and psychology at work.

According to Dr John J. Fruin, a pioneer in crowd dynamics, once density reaches around 4–5 people per square metre, individuals begin to lose control over their own movement. You don’t push because you want to; you push because the people behind you are pushing you without meaning to.

Similarly, Professor G. Keith Still, one of the world’s leading crowd-science experts, notes that dense crowds behave like a “single mass,” where force transfers from person to person, much like ripples in water. A shove at one point often travels through the crowd, causing movement that looks intentional but isn’t.

Even physicist Prof. Dirk Helbing, known for modelling how crowds move, found that at high density, people show behaviours driven by instinct rather than decision-making — their bodies respond to pressure long before their brains can process what’s happening.

That’s why at high densities:

• You can’t lift your arms easily.
  

• You breathe more shallowly without noticing.
  

• You feel pressure from all directions.
  

• You can’t step back, even if you want to.
  

In these moments, people don’t “misbehave.”
They react instinctively, trying to create space, protect their balance, or simply breathe.

A shove isn’t always a sign of aggression; it’s often the unavoidable ripple effect of someone else being pushed somewhere in the mass.

This kind of physical constraint can make even calm, reasonable people feel anxious, irritable or desperate, not because they intend harm, but because their freedom of movement is restricted. The body reads that as discomfort or threat.

How can people personally navigate stressful crowd moments like this?

Large events are emotional and sometimes unpredictable. Here are calm, realistic ways individuals can protect themselves and manage their reactions:

1. Step back mentally when expectations aren’t met

If an event suddenly changes or ends abruptly, pause and remind yourself:
“This is disappointing, but reacting emotionally won’t get me what I wanted.”

A small emotional reset prevents escalation.

2. Don’t interpret movement as danger

If a group suddenly moves, take a breath and look around.
Most crowd movement is driven by assumption, not emergency.

3. Create a small “space bubble” if possible

Even in crowded areas, shifting slightly sideways or at an angle gives you breathing room and reduces agitation.

4. Focus on your exit options early

Knowing where you can step out — even slowly — reduces anxiety during sudden changes.

5. Avoid following the loudest or fastest-moving group

Instead, follow the clearest instructions or move slowly toward open space.

6. Keep emotions in check

You can feel upset without acting on it.
Recognising your own rising frustration is one of the best safety tools.

Why does understanding this matter?

The Kolkata incident did not involve a stampede or crush — but it did reveal how quickly human emotions can turn in large gatherings when expectations break, communication falters, and structure blurs.

Understanding crowd psychology doesn’t defend the actions of those who vandalised property.

It simply helps us make sense of a very human moment:
Thousands of people experiencing the same disappointment, confusion, and discomfort at the same time.

When we understand these emotional patterns, we can:

• prepare better,
  

• react more calmly,
  

• protect ourselves,
  

• and help others stay grounded too.
  

Large events will always be emotional. But with awareness, they don’t have to become overwhelming.

Sources

‘Simulating Dynamical Features of Escape Panic’: by Dirk Helbing, Illés Farkas, and Tamás Vicsek, Published in 2000

‘Crowd Dynamics’: by G. Keith Still, Published in 2014

‘The Social Psychology of Crowd Behaviour’: by Stephen Reicher and John Drury, Published in 2005

‘Crowds and Social Influence: The Role of Shared Identity’: by John Drury et al., Published in 2009

‘Human Behaviour in Emergency Evacuations: Research and Applications’: by Enrico Ronchi and Daniel Nilsson, Published in 2013

‘The Role of Emotions in Crowd Behaviour’: by Clifford Stott and Stephen Reicher, Published in 1998

‘Collective Emotion and Decision Making in Crowds’: by Christian von Scheve and Mikko Salmela, Published in 2014

‘Emergent Norm Theory Revisited’: by Ralph H. Turner and Lewis Killian, Published in 1987

‘Policing, Crowd Dynamics, and Public Disorder’: by Clifford Stott and Owen West, Published in 2017

‘Maintaining Order in Spontaneous Crowds: The Impact of Perceived Legitimacy’: by Jonathan Jackson and Ben Bradford, Published in 2019

‘Stress and Emotion in Crowd Behaviour’: by Daniel Jolley and John Drury, Published in 2012

‘The Impact of Bottlenecks and Physical Layout on Crowd Movement’: by Dirk Helbing and Anders Johansson, Published in 2011