A Guide to Planning Safe Events
With the Jacksonville shooting taking place this past week, we thought it would be a good time to address how you can make your event safer, and build trust with your attendees.
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Risk Assessment Plan
Your risk assessment plan is your main document for making your event as safe as possible to your guests. The document itself has three main parts.
Hazard Identification
This is a list of every potential thing that can cause a hazard at your event, who’s involved in setup, operation, takedown, etc. Basically a big database of information of everything that can possibly go wrong.
Risk Assessment
Using a risk assessment matrix can help you identify which hazards need the most preparation beforehand.
Risk Control
This portion talks about how you’re going to handle these hazards. Bring in more protective/safety gear? More police presence?
Staffing
While you should, of course, have your own staff present during events, you also need to make the investment for a real security team. They are specifically trained to deal with issues that may arise at shows like yours, and are a safe resource to have.
It is important that the majority, probably 65–75% of your security staff is present while at the show. Not only will this allow you to ward off anyone looking to cause trouble, but it will build trust and put your attendees at ease. You can also use them as additional staff members for giving directions and whatnot.
It is important that at least two people are trained in first aid and CPR. These should be referred to as the “Med Crew”, and should be generally available to respond to medical-related calls.
Cyber & Social Media
Threats over the internet should be treated just as seriously as live threats over the phone or in the mail.
Using tools like Social Sentinel will allow you to get alerts when your event is mentioned in conjunction with a threat. You can then act on that thread by sharing it with your security staff, police, or whoever needs to know.
It’s important that your Wifi has encryption on it when you’re using it for your ECC (Event Command Center). Otherwise, people may be able to take your confidential data shared in those channels.
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