How to stay safe and healthy in large crowds and venues

The advice here is not to avoid crowds. Rather, follow to these tips that just might keep you and your loved ones safe and healthy while you're out living life to the fullest.

You're seated in a venue with a thousand other people. Which do you feel more threatened by: a fire or a stranger sneezing on you?

The first is unlikely, the second poses a relatively minor health risk. But they pose risks nonetheless. And with a little forethought, you'll be able to protect yourself in the rare event that something goes wrong.

Use it after portable toilet visits, before eating and any time you feel contaminated by the microbes of the masses.

If an event gets too loud, or you get stuck standing next to the speakers, use the earplugs.

Peanut butter and jam sandwiches and apples keep for the whole day and discourage your children's pleas for junk food at the venue.

• If you can't avoid it, check out the vendor. Does the stall look clean? Is the vendor wearing gloves? Does he or she handle money, then touch the food?
• It's hard to tell just by looking at it if food will make you ill, but avoid pink meat and food that should be served hot but isn't.
• The last thing you need when you're in a place that has only portaloos is food poisoning.

Now you have toilet paper if you have to use the portable toilets.

You'll save money on overpriced bottled water at the event and, as the ice melts, you'll have nice cold water on hand to stay hydrated.

Germs get on hands, hands touch face, germs enter body, you are infected. Where there are crowds, there are germs — millions of them — on every surface.

• Don't touch them and they won't make you sick.
• Note emergency-exit signs as you enter a large venueIt takes only seconds — and those seconds could turn out to be the most worthwhile ever.
• One study found that more than half of fatalities at concerts occurred when people were trying to get out of the building or concert setting.

Actually, you should choose two places — one inside and one outside — where you will meet your family or friends in case you get separated.

Try to move sideways to the crowd until you get to a wall. Then press yourself against it until the crowd dissipates, or you find a better exit.

• It doesn't happen often, but people do get trampled to death.
• If you've memorized the emergency exits, you'll have a better chance of getting to one that the rest of the crowd may not have noticed.

If you've dressed in layers, you can shed one of them if you get too hot. If you're wearing only one layer to start with, you might just get arrested! Of course, layering your clothing works the other way, too. If the temperature drops when the game goes into overtime, you'll be prepared.

Let the crowd go first. You'll get out of the parking lot more easily and avoid ruining your great time out with a bout of blood pressure-raising stress.