Jayne McFahn, Director of VenueSafety.uk, talks us through the main considerations event professionals need to know to ensure their delegate’s safety.
Event safety is paramount for any successful event, requiring meticulous planning and execution. VenueSafety.uk, a leading company in the field, offers extensive expertise and services to ensure that every aspect of event safety is thoroughly covered. So just what do organisers need to consider pre-event, during the event, and post-event?
Pre-event
The foundation of a safe event lies in thorough risk assessment and meticulous planning. Venue Safety UK emphasises the importance of identifying potential hazards and assessing the likelihood and impact of each risk. This involves analysing the venue, the type of event, the expected audience, and any special activities planned.
Jayne says: “Everyone knows that failing to prepare is preparing to fail. We work in partnership with our clients to ensure they are aware of their Health & Safety (H&S) duties. We provide guidance and support to event providers at all levels, removing the jargon and ensuring compliance so that clients can concentrate on the details. Assigning competent designers and contractors is paramount to ensuring the safety of your event, and knowing how to assess this is where H&S specialists come in. We find that most of our clients already have a good understanding of how to put things together safely but really value having someone to ask them the hard questions in advance to help them develop resilient plans which are easy to implement – good safety planning is the same as good operational planning.”
During the event
Clear communication systems are essential for coordinating staff and informing delegates, especially if an incident were to occur. The pre-event planning will have made plans for crowd management, fire safety, electrics and first aid, all of which are critical areas to get right.
“Where employed, the event safety advisory team are an often-overlooked asset. By applying the Principles of Prevention and Hierarchy of Controls in a methodical way the best solutions can be found. Resourcing and planning are of course important, but there’s usually no bigger risk than allowing the guests in!”
Post-event
While everyone loves to look back on a great event, it’s clear that straight afterwards is the best time for review. Take a pragmatic look at what did work, what didn’t work and what might have been smoother. Be sure to get your suppliers in on this too – all too often their schedules are defined or delayed by others, and by taking note, efficiencies can be found.
In the worst cases, don’t be afraid to perform a proper “root cause analysis” and really get to the bottom of problems (Hint: it’s usually management and planning failures).
Naturally, managing all of the health and safety aspects of an event can feel like a bit of a tangled web. That’s why enlisting the help of health and safety experts can save you a headache and allow you to focus on all of the other aspects of the event that needs your attention: “The advantage of going to specialist is that you can rely on someone with extensive knowledge and experience to pull it all together, and take those safety worries away from the planner, to allow them to concentrate on the content and attendees. We will always provide a post-event report that would highlight any issues that came up,” Jayne explains.
“A post event report, or audit, is a great way to assess how successful your event was, in terms of content and also in terms of safety. Did all contractors on-site operate in the manner in which they planned, if there were any incidents, were they handled swiftly and effectively for example.”
To find out more, drop Jayne a line at Jayne@venuesafety.uk