Safety and its purpose

Health and safety can often be seen as a hindrance to an event. Often at music festivals or large special events it can be the last thing on a spectators mind however, I believe the key to good health and safety is for it to appear seamless within the event and to not detract from the event itself. A large part of this comes down to the processes and procedure put in place from the beginning.

By using industry standard procedures it is possible to minimise the likelihood of any potential incidents happening and yet this should not allow any event management staff to become complacent. Through documents like a clear cut risk assessment, the main dangers can be highlighted and addressed but a clear set path of operation on the day is still required to ensure that these measures are carried out. It is often said that no plan survives contact with the enemy (in this case visitors to an event) and so vigilance by staff members and volunteers must be a high priority. When working within cultural buildings, I have often found that procedures are in place only in the most likely circumstances. In this case, using my main place of work within a theatre as example, there are often times when visitors to a building are given access to potentially dangerous areas such as plant rooms or high voltage lighting rigs without understanding the exact building evacuation policy. Though safe in practice through the use of signage placed around the building and clearly marked exit points, with unique cases such as theaters I believe there should always be a degree of training given to any visitors to the building. This can be done through senior staff responsible for front of house spaces such as Duty Managers and technical staff going through a basic set of procedures with any visiting members of the public and ensuring that members of staff are present for larger unique events like workshops.

When working through the Health and Safety of the Emerge Festival, there were many considerations. As it was largely a young people's event, safeguarding was a main concern. During the planning process all commissioned artists were given training by NSPCC to ensure that any issues raised by the children went through the proper channels and we were given a set of things that we were able to discuss and many that were only to be raised to a specific member of a safeguarding team. As we were working in more dangerous areas with outside risks, it was important to keep control of where the young people worked, and during breaks, to make sure they followed a specific set of rules. This also followed into the event itself as a large part of the issues on the day. As previously mentioned, I had limited access to the venue beforehand which caused much of the logistical planning of holding and changing the young people to be done on the day. Despite planning for potential cases we found it significantly hard to keep the young people and the public separated, causing us to have volunteers in the form of teachers and community workers to implement their constant policies with their own groups. This did cause issues due to one group being able to leave the venue to grab lunch, whilst the other needed to have a provided packed lunch.

In terms of larger risks such as the set up of staging and electricals for the event, this was mostly taken care of before the audience or young people arrived. Thanks to being able to attend the area early in the morning we had the major facilities up and running and the relevant safety equipment in place. In the festival we also had the inclusion of a climbing wall. Thankfully, this was provided by the council and came with its own health and safety team. The lesson i learned from that event was the importance of having skilled and trained staff provide the necessary safety themselves in order to reduce stress and any potential issues being placed on myself as the event manager. Due to our systems, if any specific issues arose, there was a member of staff specifically trained in that area on hand to help mitigate the issue. Going forwards I am aware that some of my use of risk assessments and general knowledge of the risks should be informed by industry standards like The Purple Guide created by the UK Events Industry Forum, and documents created by the British Association of Theatre Technicians.