Planning for the 2023 Events Season
Easter always heralds the start of the outdoor events season and yet for event organisers the planning for these events starts the day after the previous year’s event, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that you should just replicate what was done last time round. Close events season is a time to reflect on what went well and what didn’t, a time to check on whether new legislation or regulations might and a time to check on whether locations might have changed that could alter the dynamics of the event. We are also entering a time when the promised Martyn’s law will be published and whilst it has a long journey to it reaching the statute book that is not to say some of the principles should be embedded in event planning now because in all intents and purposes these are common sense things that we should all be doing to protect the public.
So here are our Top 5 tips for preparing for your event.
1 Sign up to the Purple Guide
https://www.thepurpleguide.co.uk/ - At £25 a year, the subscription to this online guide is essential. The regular email updates are a valuable way of keeping on track with any changes to legislation, regulations and general best practice. This will save considerable time in preparing plans and Safety Advisory Group meetings.
2 Debriefing after an event and documenting what went well and not so well is a good practice to get into. Events are very tiring and everyone wants to put their feet up afterwards but spending a few hours bringing together key players straight after an event to reflect pays dividends in the following year’s planning. Sometimes they might be one-off incidents that you can’t plan for but often they are operational things that can be factored into new plans.
3 Planning for emergencies and putting that plan into practice is one of the key lessons that has come out of the Manchester Arena Bombing Inquiry. We all have security plans for our events, but have we ever tested them. That doesn’t necessarily impact on you and your event but the wider area because an incident in one part of the town will inevitably ripple across the rest of the town.
4 Make sure everyone who is involved in your event are briefed and up to speed with techniques that are designed to keep people safe. From Counter Terrorism Training to Contextual Safeguarding your staff are your eyes and ears at an event.
5 For outdoor events, it is worthwhile visiting the location to see what might have changed. Whilst you use this location maybe once a year, others are charged with the day-to-day management of that location and things from utilities layouts to landscaping might have changed that could impact on your layout and crowd dynamics. Evolving Martyn’s Law legislation is stressing the need for vulnerability assessments for events over 800 capacity with a defined boundary; that in all likelihood will involve most pay to enter events.
The key message in all these tips is about planning, documentation, actions and reflection and creating this as the normal, routine way to organise an event. We all hope that we won’t have to ever account for what we have done at an event, but the knowledge that the information is there should we ever need it is hugely important.