Live Event Emergency Planning and Readiness Training

Author: Bruno

  • Event Risk Assessment Made Easy Part 4

    Event Risk Assessment Made Easy Part 4

    In part one we talked about what risk assessments are and how they can make your life easier by keeping your event safe and you out of jail. 

    In part 2 we looked at how risk is reduced using the TOP (Technical, Organisational, Protective) method. 

    And part 3 explained the importance of the risk matrix. 

    Now in this last part we’ll put it all together. 

    Event risk assessment in 5 easy steps

    Like I said there is no single „right“ way of doing a risk assessment and in my opinion, the simpler you make the process for yourself, the more you will use it and will be of value to you.

    I like to do risk assessments in an excel spreadsheet, just because of the functionality you get in a spreadsheet. You can do it in a normal text based document. What’s important is that it’s easy for you.

    Here are the 5 steps:

    1. Identify the hazard (what can happen)
    2. Who can be effected.
    3. Estimate the probability (how likely is it to happen) and the severity (how bad can someone get hurt) and multiply to get your risk level.
    4. Describe control measures (what you’ll do to reduce the amount of risk)
    5. Reevaluate your risk level to see if you’ve reduced risk to an acceptable level.

    Step 1

    Let’s say we don’t know if the room capacity of a breakout room will be sufficient. More people might show up for a particular session that you or your client anticipated. You have identified the risk of having too many people in the room at the same time. 

    Step 2

    Now you need to define who or which group of people can be effected. This is important so we know who to inform or train and who to watch out for. In our case it’s the visitors and event staff.

    Step 3

    Next you ask yourself, how likely (probable) is it to happen?

    You give the probability a number from 1 to 5. 1 being highly unlikely and 5 being most likely. In our case I’d say a probability of 2. 

    You then give the severity a number from 1 to 5. 1 being a small bruise or cut and 5 being fatal or death. I would say the visitors could get badly hurt but no one will die. Say a severity level of 4.

    For instance, there can be an emergency situation where the room has to be evacuated. This can be a fire, a bomb scare or an incident happening in the room itself. 

    The severity would be injuries by people being trampled on, shoved against objects or any other minor to major injuries. So we said 4.

    The probability would be low, and we said 2. 

    Now you can just multiply both numbers with each other and, wallah! You have your level of risk. In our case it’s 8. 

    This is where the risk matrix comes in. You’ll find your risk level in it and know if it’s an acceptable risk or not. Our level of 8 is unacceptable as it’s in the orange range. We have to reduce it to at least yellow. 

    Step 4

    There’s an acronym you might have heard of called ALARP. This means As Low As Reasonably Possible. This means you don’t have to go overboard. All that is asked of you is to be reasonable.

    So, we ask ourselves 2 questions:

    Can we reduce the probability? Yes definitely!

    Can we reduce the severity? Most likely not! 

    We know we can never reduce risk to 0 because that would mean not doing whatever was risky in the first place. So we have to get to a green or yellow rating.

    Now you all you need to do is describe the control measures to reduce the risk to that acceptable level. You do this using the TOP method as described here.

    First we try and find a technical solution. In this case there really isn’t one. We can’t automatically keep people safe. 

    So we move on to organisational solutions. And here we find a lot. In our case I would suggest moving to a larger room, setting up screens in another room or just limiting the amount of people entering the room by counting. You see, all of these require human interaction. 

    Is there a personal (PPE) solution? Not really. We can’t put everyone in fire and bomb proof suits can we?

    Step 5

    After you’ve described the control measures, it’s time to reevaluate the risk level. So either you actually see an improvement to yellow or green, or you need to introduce more control measures. 

    When you’re done, your risk levels should not go above yellow.

    It takes some time getting used to but I think if you follow my framework, you’ll easily get your risk assessment done in no time at all.

    To give you a head start, here’s the excel template I use.

  • Event Risk Assessment Made Easy Part 3

    In this part I’ll talk about an important piece of information that must always be included in a risk assessment. The risk matrix.

    Every risk assessment needs to be based on an agreed upon scale of risk. This is the risk matrix. If I get a risk assessment that I need to evaluate, then I need to know what the author of the risk assessment has based his or her risk levels on. Their 3 may be defined differently than my 3, so I need to know.

    The risk matrix gives us a way to know how the risk levels were defined by the person writing the risk assessment and when risk is at an acceptable level. There is no definitive risk matrix format. Worldwide we sort of agree on levels between 1 and 5 for probability and severity. Sometimes you’ll find risk matrixes that go from 1 to 3. In my opinion, that’s not enough detail. Then you’ll have ones that go from 1 to 10. That’s overcomplicating things.

    Whenever you need to evaluate a risk assessment, you always need to see the risk matrix it’s based on. 

    If you missed part 2, just click here. Otherwise, stay tuned for the last part where we tie it all together.

  • Event Risk Assessment Made Easy Part 2

    In Part 1 we talked about what an event risk assessment is and the benefits of doing one.

    And I promised you a framework that will make reducing risks easy for you.

    Once you’ve identified a hazard, you want to think of ways to reduce the risk of someone getting hurt. That’s the whole purpose of doing a risk assessment.

    The first thing you can do is eliminate the hazard altogether by not doing what could be potentially dangerous. The ultimate solution could be, not staging the event because of weather or not having a risky artistic show during the event.

    But we’re here to make things possible, not to stop doing events altogether. And because we know that there are risks we must take, a framework was developed called the Hierarchy of Controls. 

    Hierarchy of controls

    Hierarchy of Controls means the order in which we go about introducing control measures to reduce risk. We want to do the most effective first and foremost and then if that isn’t possible move to the next best control measure. The original hierarchy of controls look like this:

    1. Remove the risk (not possible in our event world).
    2. Replace the risk with something less risky (works sometimes).
    3. Use engineering controls (meaning something that works without human interaction).
    4. Use administrative controls (meaning people have to follow rules or obey signs).
    5. Use personal protective equipment (these only work after an incident).

    This seems quite complicated and I’ve come up with a simpler form that’s easy to remember…read on to find out more.

    Introducing the TOP framework

    I’ve been using this framework for decades and it works! 

    I will go into detail below but the way to use this framework is to first try and find a 

    Technical solution, then an 

    Organizational solution and then a 

    Personal (protective) solution. 

    TOP, easy as 123! (I’m starting to sound like Michael Jackson).

    Now to explain this framework, let’s use the analogy of boarding an airplane for a flight. 

    Think of the last time you boarded an airplane. Most of you felt safe because you know that the airline has undertaken everything possible to reduce the risk of the airplane crashing. Why do they do that? Because flying is inherently risky for people! We’re just not made for flying or we would have grown wings. Another reason is of course accident costs and loss of reputation. 

    It’s the same with events. We humans are not made to withstand high sound levels like at a rock concert or fall from height without getting hurt.

    Technical Solutions

    Technical solutions are automatic. They don’t need human interaction.

    So when you get on a plane the first thing you notice are the sturdy door, emergency lights and further exit doors. Of course you don’t see all the safety systems in place that keep the plane flying. These are all technical solutions to reduce the risk of you getting hurt. 

    Analog to the plane we have the venue that has all the necessary fire fighting equipment, safety exits and emergency lighting necessary to reduce the risk of people in the building getting hurt. In reality, there’s a lot more that you don’t see like smoke extraction, but that’s another story. In a licensed event venue, you can be pretty sure the operator is doing their job of maintaining this high level of safety for events. 

    The important thing to remember is, these technical solutions don’t need anybody to do anything. They work automatically.

    Organizational Solutions

    Organizational Solutions are not automatic. They need humans to do something.

    You sit down in your seat and before take off, the stewardess does her thing showing you how to put on your seat belt, your life vest and where the exits are. Did you know the main reason for even having stewardesses is to guarantee your safety? Their side job is serving drinks and food. This is a good example for an organizational solution to reducing risk. 

    During your event, organizational solutions can be something like doing a site safety induction, explaining where fire extinguishers or emergency exits are before the event build takes place. Or restricting access to areas not intended for your participants. Or putting up signs that show people where the exit is. 

    Organizational solutions require a person to do something, like follow instructions on a sign or keep out of restricted areas.

    Personal (Protective) Solutions

    Personal protective solutions only work after something happened.

    Seat belts, oxygen masks and life vests are the last resort, when all else fails to keeping you safe should a plane crash. This is your Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). Everyone on the plane has it for their own personal use in case of an emergency. 

    During an event build, PPE can be the hard hats or steel toed work shoes or the harnesses worn by riggers that protect them from falling out of the roof.

    The important thing to remember here is that Personal Protective Equipment doesn’t stop the accident from happening. It only reduces the severity should something happen. That’s why it’s the last resort.

    In many risk assessment, you’ll see PPE named as the first resort. That shows me the person writing the risk assessment hasn’t thought enough about actually preventing the accident from happening.

    So that’s the TOP framework I use for coming up with solutions for a potential risk. I hope it gives you an idea on how to approach reducing risk at your next event. 

    In my next post, I’ll show you practical examples of typical risks during events and how to reduce them.

  • Event Risk Assessment Made Easy Part 1

    Event Risk Assessment Made Easy Part 1

    Writing a risk assessment is hard

    How many of you have to do an event risk assessment but the thought just leaves you cringing because you don’t know how? Or you think it’s totally useless and you just take an old risk assessment, change the date and you’re done? What about the risk assessment fetishists out there that want at least a 30 to 200 page risk assessment from you?

    It doesn’t have to be that way for you and that’s what this post is all about. 

    First, let’s look at why we need risk assessments and how they actually benefit us, when done the right way.

    What are risk assessments?

    Risk assessments originated in the construction business because of all the accidents that happened on a construction site. They have greatly reduced the amount of accidents on construction sites over the years and so are a proven way to reducing the amount and severity of accidents. An event build is not much different than a construction site, so it makes sense to use the same procedure.

    Events always pose a risk to the people involved, whether they are your employees, contractors or your visitors. Even a small event with 100 visitors has its risks just because we are allowing people to meet in a larger group. In case of an emergency, it’s more difficult to get 100 people out of a building than 10.  

    Risk assessments are lists of dangerous situations that can happen during your event and how you plan to either stop them from happening or reduce the severity of whatever happens. Whether it’s during the setup, operation or tear down phase of your event, a lot of bad things can happen and it’s your responsibility to look at the event, think about these „potential“ risks and find ways to reduce them before anything happens. That’s all. Nothing more. 

    Risk assessment templates

    You will find a lot of risk assessment templates out there that are more or less complicated. What’s important to know is, there is no official „right way“ of doing a risk assessment. The worldwide agreed standard of preparing a risk assessment is to name the hazard, who could be effected and quantify the severity and the probability of an accident happening. Then you come up with measures to reduce the severity and probability to an acceptable level. So in it’s simplest form, a risk assessment can be done in 5 steps.

    1. Identify the hazard (what can happen).
    2. Who can be effected.
    3. Estimate the severity (how bad can someone get hurt) and the probability (how likely is it to happen).
    4. Describe control measures (what you’ll do to reduce the amount of risk).
    5. Reevaluate your risk level (to see if you’ve reduced risk to an acceptable level).

    Thats it. You need not do more. Beware of risk assessment templates that make the process more complicated and daunting. 

    You don’t have to do it by yourself

    You’re not the only one completing risk assessments.

    • Your contractors and suppliers have to do their own risk assessments for the services and products they are bringing to the event.
    • Venue operators have to do their risk assessments concerning the venue. For instance how the risk of fire is reduced or how potential protestors or even terrorists are kept from entering the building.

    From a legal point of view, the party that introduces the risk is also the one that does the risk assessment.

    So it all comes down to being aware of the things that can happen and reducing the possibility of them happening. Then, documenting these thoughts in a way that can be understood by everyone involved.

    Bonus

    There’s an added bonus for doing your risk assessment. It keeps you out of jail. If you can prove, in writing, that you have thought about potential risks beforehand, then no one can convict you of being negligent. I know from my decades of experience being responsible for health and safety during events, that documenting my thoughts in a risk assessment has given me many nights of peaceful sleep knowing I’ve done my best to reduce the risks to an absolute minimum.

    My next post will be on how you go about reducing the amount of risk once you’ve identified it. I’ll show you a simple framework you can use for every situation you may encounter.

  • How Many Paramedics Do I Need?

    How Many Paramedics Do I Need?

    This Is How You Determine How Many First Aid Personnel You Need For Your Event

    One of the most important questions I have to answer when I’m on site is “How many paramedics/ambulances etc. do we need?”

    Then I answer with the typical „it depends…“

    Depends on what?

    First we have to separate the build and derig phases from the actual live event phase. These phases each have their own medical requirements. Let’s look at the build and derig phase first.

    Build And Derig Phases

    During these phases, your site is more a construction zone than a live event site. The exact amount should be determined by a risk assessment that takes into consideration what type of work is being done and how many people are on site at any given time. For instance if you have structures being built then you’ll need more and better qualified first aiders. 

    Depending on the country you’re in there can be different rules to follow but here’s a good estimate:

    Number of staff present on sitePart-time first-aider (can do other jobs at the same time)Full-time first-aider
    up to 5010
    50-25011
    250-50022

    You are required to have trained first aid personnel on site. A first aid trained staff member must have at least a basic first aid training that isn’t older than one year. After one year the training must be refreshed. The first aider must have a certificate that proves they are properly trained. Let them show it to you so you are sure.

    Money Saving Tip

    Suppliers and contractors working on your site should provide their own first aid trained personnel and first aid kit. You should stipulate this in writing before the contract is signed and then verify that the person and kit is actually on site. When every supplier/contractor has their own trained personnel and kit, you can reduce the amount of personnel and kit coming out of your budget. Just make sure that they actually are on site.

    I’ve already talked about what you need to know about first aid kit here.

    Live Event Phase

    Now, let’s look at the live event phase. This is a completely different kettle of fish. Here again you should determine by risk assessment if you have any hazards on site that require more or better trained first aid personnel. 

    As an example, I once did an extreme sporting event where participants had to do really risky stuff like climbing high walls and throwing heavy objects around. Possible injuries included spinal injuries, heart attacks and other major injuries. This type of event warrants highly trained paramedics, ambulances (yes more than one) on site etc. We even had a helicopter landing pad and a fully equipped hospital on site. 

    In general the higher the risk, the more qualified personnel and better equipment you’ll need. Risk generally rises with the amount of people present and their demographics (elderly, children, disabled), the types of activities you have, the weather, sales of alcohol, any special risks such as terror incidents and the length of your event.

    There are some general tables used to determine the amount and kind of personnel you’ll need but it always remains an individual risk assessment. Here’s a table that’s based on UK’s Purple Guide. It can help you decide on what you need.

    You see that it all comes down to you thinking about what can potentially happen at your event and doing a written risk assessment to determine what you need. Not doing this risk assessment puts you in a very vulnerable position, should an accident happen. A judge will definitely base judgement on what you did to prevent that accident from happening and if you can show written proof, then they’ll definitely be on your side.

  • Planning First Aid Cover For Your Event

    One of the most important questions I have to answer when I’m on site is “How many paramedics/ambulances etc. do we need?”

    Then I answer with the typical „it depends…“ Depends on what?

    Firs,t we have to separate the build and derig phases from the actual live event phase. Every phase has it’s own medical requirements. Let’s look at the build and derig phase first, then we’ll look at the live phase.

    Build And Derig Phases

    During these phases, your site is more a construction zone than a live event site. The exact amount should be determined by a risk assessment that takes into consideration what type of work is being done and how many people are on site at any given time. For instance if you have structures being built then you’ll need more and better qualified first aiders.

    Depending on the country you’re in there are different rules to follow but here’s a good estimate:

    Number of staff present on sitePart-time first-aider (can do other jobs at the same time)Full-time first-aider
    up to 5010
    50-25011
    250-50022

    You are required to have trained first aid personnel on site. A first aid trained staff member must have at least a basic first aid training that isn’t older than one year. After one year the training must be refreshed. The first aider must have a certificate that proves they are properly trained. Let them show it to you so you are sure.

    Money saving tip

    Suppliers and contractors working on your site should provide their own first aid trained personnel and first aid kit. You should stipulate this in writing before the contract is signed and then verify that the person and kit is actually on site. When every supplier/contractor has their own trained personnel and kit, you can reduce the amount of personnel and kit coming out of your budget. Just make sure that they actually are on site.

    I’ve already talked about what you need to know about first aid kit here.

    Live Event Phase

    Now, let’s look at the live event phase. This is a completely different kettle of fish. Here again you should determine by risk assessment if you have any hazards on site that require more or better trained first aid personnel.

    As an example, I once did an extreme sporting event where participants had to do really hazardous stuff like climbing high walls and throwing heavy objects around. Possible injuries included spinal injuries, heart attacks and other major injuries. This type of event warrants highly trained paramedics, ambulances (yes more than on) on site etc. We even had a helicopter landing pad and a fully equipped hospital on site.

    In general the higher the risk, the more qualified personnel and better equipment you’ll need. Risk generally rises with the amount of people present and their demographics (elderly, children, disabled), the types of activities you have, sale of alcohol, any special risks such as terror incidents and the length of your event.

    There are some general tables used to determine the amount and kind of personnel you’ll need but it always remains an individual risk assessment. Here’s a table that’s based on UK’s Purple Guide. It can help you decide on what you need.

    You see that it all comes down to you thinking about what can potentially happen at your event and doing a written risk assessment to determine what you need. Not doing this risk assessment puts you in a very vulnerable position, should an accident happen. The judge and jury will definitely base their judgement on what you did to prevent that accident from happening and if you can give them written proof, then they’ll definitely be on your side.