EVENT SAFETY

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Safety first

A national review of SAGs, COVID-19, staff shortages, infrastructure issues and a greater focus on staff welfare. Event safety experts discuss the summer and the challenges faced

When you embark on a project, working together towards one goal, it’s good to know if you’re all on the same page. Most events professionals are happy to play the game if everyone is playing. Yet, people can be left deflated and frustrated if someone comes in at the end and says they want their ball back.

Take, for example, last summer when BOATS 2020 was pulled at the last minute. British Marine, organiser of BOATS 2020, had been assured by Southampton City Council that the event was in complete compliance with UK Government guidelines. However, despite this, Southampton City Council made a last-minute decision and issued a directive after taking advice from its director of public health, who said that the event must be cancelled under Health Protection Regulations 2020. With just hours to go, BOATS 2020 was pulled. The council’s move was met with disbelief. It sent ripples through the sector and compounded the feelings of alreadynervous promoters and organisers.

Twelve months on and those nerves have not waned. The Government has decided to extend the regulations, until March 24, 2022, giving local authorities in England the power to cancel non COVIDsecure events.

PART OF OUR LANGUAGE

According to event safety experts, many local authorities are entirely focused on public health and the concern is that if professionals only focus on COVID-19 and nothing else, accidents will happen.

Sadly, Stand Out has heard of two accidents on event sites this summer, which probably would not have occurred if event teams were not overstretched. Safety professionals have commented that events become inherently dangerous when planning and event delivery is rushed and so it is imperative that the event industry finds a way to work with COVID and the challenges it brings, especially as most believe that coronavirus will be around for some time.

“COVID will be a part of our language, like Construction (Design and Management) Regulations (CDM), and our suite of controls for years to come,” explained Jim Davey, managing director of Redwood Event Solutions. “But we will get significantly better at how we manage and understand the risks.”

REVIEW OF SAGS

The events industry has been severely impacted by COVID-19. Supply chain and staffing issues have been the biggest challenges. Brexit has resulted in a lack of skilled crew and labour, suppliers have sold inventory to keep their heads above water, skilled events professionals have moved on to other sectors, and vital infrastructure is “sat sterile being underused in car parks” across the country in vaccination and COVID testing centres. The knock-on effect has been immense, and it has left people feeling stretched and stressed out.

INDUSTRY MUST LEARN TO LIVE WITH COVID

“Every show is short of kit, and everyone is working harder than normal,” said Eric Stuart, director of Gentian Events. “People are no longer making one call to replace kit. They are having to make 20 calls to find 50 toilets. Most people are over-booking security by 20 per cent in the hope that they get the numbers they need.”

Stuart’s observation is not solitary. Neil Marcus, director of Redman Events, has this summer seen the consequences of a massively over-subscribed supply chain with “sub-standard kit”.

“Certain people are over-committing and putting events at risk,” he commented. “Other companies are busting a gut to make things happen. There are people who work in this industry that have learned that it is possible to produce COVID-safe events.”

Davey concurred: “There are risks; I’m not little belittling COVID but we need to find a way to live with it.

“I’m lucky in that I have got to a sensible place with all the local authorities I have worked with over these last few months.”

Redwood Event Solutions provided Brand Events’ Pub in the Park with health and safety services. This year, eight Pub in the Parks took place in eight different local authorities.

Davey continued: “For Pub in the Park, we had eight different interpretations of the guidance. Some local authorities have been phenomenal and others, we’ve had to find their sweet spot. Then you find that you have eight to ten different iterations of one COVID document for one event. The sheer amount of churn has been never ending.”

Four Pub in the Park events took place under Step 3 regulations and four took place with none. “It meant that by the time we got to Step 4, our measures were relatively tried and tested, and practical, but they were not easily arrived at,” Davey added.

According to Davey, some local authorities threatened legal action if ticketholders danced at the event, others were happy with the preparations and procedures that Brand Events and Davey had finalised. Such as pre-scripted messaging and slides on main stage screens.

What’s clear is that there is disparity and local authorities need to adopt one approach. However, Stand Out is led to believe that there could soon be a national review of safety advisory groups (SAGs) if terms of reference can be agreed. Furthermore, it will be open to consultation and multiple agencies and organisations are expected to submit their changes, opinions, and suggestions.

MENTAL HEALTH AND WELFARE

Marcus argued that the events industry is still driven by its passion and that it’s important that the sector makes its comeback greater than the setback. On a positive note, the event and festival industry is taking employee welfare more seriously.

“Stress and anxiety would never have been talked about like they are now,” Marcus added. “Now, it’s more common place to talk about mental health and welfare and that’s a huge positive.”

Marcus also raised another important point. With an influx of new events professionals, inexperienced staff, and people that have not worked on an event site for some time, more time needs to be taken to educate employees on the site risks.

“This is where your toolbox check comes into play,” said Marcus. “People need to be aware, make sure they know what they are doing and take their time.”

SAFETY WILL BE KEY

Health and safety professionals have an important role to play, setting the pace and tempo of the entire event site and its attitude to risk. Creating a positive event safety culture is key.

Rob Haworth, director of Event Safety Plan and GL events UK’s event safety lead on Birmingham 2022, agreed. He and his colleague, Garin Wilby, are working with GL events UK, as it gears up for Birmingham 2022, having been recently confirmed as temporary overlay provider.

GL events UK will soon be on site at locations such as Smithfield and Alexander Stadium for almost 11 months. Hence, it is important to ensure that employees and crew are well looked after, and local residents, and businesses have access to one port of call that they can voice opinions to.

“Managing the health and safety on this project is a huge job,” said Haworth. “There are so many people involved in the project, dozens of sites and lots of logistics. It is such a big project that health and safety needs to be engrained within it.”

Haworth is supporting GL events UK on all technical elements of the contract, including CDM. Wilby is focusing on project management and delivery, including staff welfare.

Birmingham 2022 has contracted many experienced event health and safety professionals in key roles so there is a sense that the task at hand will get done. However, Haworth also argues that there will be a need to bring newer and less experienced event teams up to speed. Therefore, safety will be key.

NO SMALL TASK

“It’s been a challenging year,” Davey continued. “There was a two-week period in August where it seems that every event in the world was happening. We had one weekend where we had three events on. It was hard to get there without diluting our service. I think we’ll need to look at the calendar next year. This year’s events calendar was shaped by HM Government but next year we need to spread out the workload and share the love.”

Davey concluded: “Our industry should be immensely proud of what it has achieved this year. We were the first to go down and the last to get back up but if there is one industry that is good at dealing with risk, it’s ours. We’ve made thousands of people happy and that’s no small task and we’ll shape it and make it better next year.”

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