Abstract: In order to study the evacuation rules of gymnasiums, a university gymnasium was taken as the research object. Two evacuation simulation softwares, Pathfinder and STEPS, were used for simulation. Based on the reasonable hypothesis and parameter setting, the evacuation of full audience situation in the gymnasium was simulated, and the influence of the number of spectators on the evacuation time was studied. The simulation results of the two softwares are similar. The results showed that: people tend to be congested in the stand area, evacuation stairs and exits during the evacuation; the utilization ratio of the exit is quite different; the evacuation time and the number of visitors show a significant linear relationship when the number exceeds a certain amount. Finally, by comparing the simulation results with the calculation results of empirical formula, it is concluded that if the details need to be considered and the evacuation process needs to be further studied, the computer simulation method
should be preferred, otherwise the empirical formula method is more convenient and efficient.

Key words: gymnasium, evacuation simulation, Pathfinder, STEPS