Safety in the built environment is made of objective safety and subjective safety (perceived safety) (Sorensen and Mosslemi, 2009). In an organisational context, objective safety is measured as the actual number or risk of incidents or injuries occurred in an organisation. While subjective safety is intangible, and it refers to the feeling or perception of being safe or unsafe within a specified period. Numerous studies have been undertaken on objective safety in the built environment (Sagun et al., 2013; Wieringa et al., 2016; Sagun et al., 2008; Alkhadim et al., 2018). However, there has been a lack of research on the subjective safety (perceived safety) particularly in large space buildings where large numbers of users attend at the same time for an event or congregation. Research has concluded that safety is the inverse of risk- the lower risk the higher is the safety (Moller et al., 2006). It means safety can be achieved through mitigating risk to a tolerable level by using risk management approaches. Dickie (1995) confirmed that poor risk management in large space buildings during an event has led to many crowd disasters across the world. Booty (2009) stated that each large space building used by a large number of people (crowd) is normally surrounded by diverse types and levels of risk requiring effective management. Leopkey and Parent (2009) defined risk management as a proactive approach to eliminate threats to an organisation through anticipating, identifying, assessing and mitigating the possible risks. The British Institute of Facilities Management (BIFM, 2014) have classified Risk Management (RM) as one of the 24 key components of Facilities Management (FM). FM covers all aspects of planning, managing space, designing, environmental control, health and safety and support services (Alexander, 1996). It significantly contributes to the delivery of strategic and operational objectives on a day-to-day basis (Nazali et al., 2009). When events are held in large space buildings, Ali et al. (2011) highlighted that facilities managers must be involved before, during and after the event to reduce risk and enhance safety. Chotipanich (2004) mentioned that organisations that own large space assets for public use often make the strategy to reduce risks as a top priority to enable them to gain an advantage over their competitors. It is therefore conclusive that FM of large space buildings used by a large number of people (crowd) must involve effective risk management as a key component. In current practice, the emphasis is placed on addressing objective safety. Fruin (1993) has studied this issue and established some of the key factors that influence objective crowd safety that he referred to as crowd disaster. As mentioned earlier, there is a lack of understanding of the same issue as it relates to subjective safety. This study, therefore, has adopted the factors used by Fruin to investigate whether they affect subjective safety in large space buildings. The factors are referred to by the acronym FIST: Force, Information, Space, and Time. The paper argued that there is a strong relationship between FIST and perceived safety in crowded large space buildings by studying the extent to which perceived Force, perceived poor Information, perceived insufficient Space, and perceived poor Time management influence perceived safety. For the research to investigate this hypothesis, the Holy Mosque in Makkah, Saudi Arabia has been chosen as a sample large space building for the research project.