Occupancy limits for venues and public spaces
Occupancy limits for venues and public spaces are the posted occupant loads that a hall, a lobby, a gym floor or an event room may not exceed, and this use case is the record of how many people the cameras counted in each of them at each time. The number on the sign by the door comes from the fire code and the fire marshal. Camzify gives the duty manager a live count per room from the cameras already there, keeps it as a trend, and adds the doors and the exits to the round at the busy hours.
- Live count per room from the cameras already installed
- The count kept as a record against the posted load
- Doors and exits checked on the round at the peak
The sign says 350. Nobody knows what the room holds now.
Every assembly room has a posted occupant load and a person responsible for it. What that person has at 11 p.m. on a Saturday is a clicker at one of three doors, a wristband count from the box office and an impression from the balcony. When the fire marshal asks how many people were in the room at 11:14, the honest answer is a guess.
The same room has cameras on the floor, the entrances and the exits, installed for security and recording to a box. They have been counting the whole time; nobody asked them.
- Completed
- Flagged
- Overdue
A count per room, and a round at the peak
Occupancy and peak hour trends aggregates confirmed counts from multi-object tracking per camera or zone into a live figure and a history.
- The zone is the room: the hall, the lobby, the gym floor, the event space, each with its own count.
- The history shows when each room runs closest to its posted load, by hour and by day, which is when the door needs the most staff.
- The trend exports from analytics and reporting, so the count at 23:14 on Saturday is a record and not a recollection.
- A person is counted once, not once per frame, because the count is built on tracks; in a very dense crowd it is a reliable trend rather than an exact headcount.
Heatmap anomalies and the round cover what a number does not.
- Heatmap anomalies learns the usual pattern per zone and flags the unusual one, a crowd forming at one exit or a corridor full when it should be empty, with a notification window so a known busy hour does not notify.
- A round at the peak asks whether the exits are clear, whether the queue is inside its barriers and whether the door team is at the door, and records each answer with the frame.
- On an automated round the AI raises a critical notification for a risk it sees, a blocked exit on a full floor for instance, whether or not the checklist asked.
Occupancy and peak hour trends
A live count per room from confirmed tracks, and the history of it by hour and by day.
DetectionHeatmap anomalies
A departure from the usual pattern in a zone, a crowd where none forms, flagged with a notification window.
DetectionMulti-object tracking
The tracks the count is built on. A person is counted once, whichever door they came through.
DetectionRisk detection on the round
A blocked exit or a crowded aisle the AI sees at a stop, raised as a critical notification.
- Exit doors clear and unobstructedCompliant
- Queue inside its barriersCompliant
- Aisles to the exits clearNot compliant
- Door team at the entranceCompliant
A failed item is resolved as Fixed or Pending before the round can close.
What a peak-hour round checks
A venue sequence is the cameras on the entrances, the floor and the exits of each assembly room, and the checklist at each stop is what a fire inspector at the door would want to see.
- The exit doors are clear and unobstructed.
- The aisles to the exits are open.
- The queue is inside its barriers.
- The door team is at the door.
Run it at the known peaks, and each report is the record of the room as it was when it was fullest, with frames and the count beside them. The staffing and planning side of the same count is covered under occupancy monitoring, and retrieving the clips after an event under incident investigation.
A check found Not Compliant captures a snapshot and messages the guard designated for that camera; on a manual round the operator chooses to send it, on an automated round it goes on its own. The item stays Pending until it is marked Fixed, which captures the after frame, and the report shows both.
Where the limit comes from
The occupant load rules as published by a state fire marshal and a city fire department, and the NIST investigation of the nightclub fire that reshaped them.
- 7 sq ft per person
- is the NFPA 101 occupant load factor for concentrated assembly use without fixed seating, such as a nightclub or a dance floor, and 15 sq ft per person for less concentrated use such as dining at tables (NFPA 101, 2015 edition, Table 7.3.1.2, as adopted in Illinois).
- Source: Office of the Illinois State Fire Marshal, Calculating Occupant Loads in Assembly Occupancies (March 2022)
- No more occupants
- are permitted in an assembly once the density reaches 5 sq ft per person in a space of less than 10,000 sq ft, or 7 sq ft per person in a larger one, whatever the ticket count says.
- Source: Office of the Illinois State Fire Marshal, Calculating Occupant Loads in Assembly Occupancies (March 2022)
- $433
- is the Seattle Fire Department citation for a first violation, and $866 for each subsequent one within 12 months. The approved occupant load of each assembly area must be posted near its main entrance, crowds are not allowed to exceed it, and every exit door must stay unlocked and unblocked during hours of operation.
- Source: Seattle Fire Department, Client Assistance Memo 5032 (January 2025)
- 100 deaths
- in The Station nightclub fire in West Warwick, Rhode Island, on February 20, 2003. NIST's technical investigation found smoke visible in the exit doorways in a little more than one minute.
- Source: NIST, NCSTAR 2, Report of the Technical Investigation of The Station Nightclub Fire (2005)
What it will not do
A count is a record, not a door.
- It will not stop admission, hold a door or fire an alert at a number; the live count and the trend are what the duty manager reads, and the decision at the door is theirs.
- It will not give an exact headcount in a very dense crowd; at that density it is a reliable trend, and the door count remains the number of record for the license.
- It will not set the occupant load; that number comes from the fire code and the authority having jurisdiction, and the sign by the door is theirs.
- It will not identify anyone; it counts tracks.
We do not publish count accuracy figures, because they depend on your cameras and your room. The trust page sets out why.
Industries where this applies
Frequently asked questions
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