How to Plan Event Safety for Professional Events

Traditionally, event safety meant safe rigging and set-up practices, but today it includes public health and technology to help mitigate event risks. Variables such as the venue, guests, and weather conditions will greatly influence the obstacles you may face.

Event safety will feature throughout the event lifecycle, and an event organizer should ensure measures are in place to protect your teams and guests who are at the venue.

Event organizers are building event apps on all-in-one platforms like Superevent to accompany their professional events, where all safety information is held, including what to do in an emergency.

Keep reading to learn how event safety planning makes your event better and how to incorporate it.

What is Event Safety?

Event safety ensures the overall safety at an event is maintained so that, as far as reasonably possible, your events team, attendees, and the people working for you are not exposed to health and safety risks.

Some of the duties involved in event safety when organizing and managing events of any size include:

• Ensuring cooperation and the correct coordination of work activities
• Ensuring staff can completely undertake their roles safely
• Monitoring health and safety compliance
• Providing event staff and others with the necessary information on health and safety risks

An event app is the most effective way to deliver health and safety information to your attendees. Attendees can access the details at any time, anywhere, and be notified of changes immediately. Use the Superevent platform to build a customized and intuitive event app in a few clicks without techie know-how.

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Why is Event Safety Important?

It’s a Legal Requirement

Event health and safety is a legal requirement. As the event organizer, you are responsible under the Health and Safety At Work Act 1974. You can be fined or prosecuted for failing to hold an event in a safe environment. And legal complaints from people who suffered because of a below parr safety standard. Which is not a good look for your company’s rep.

To Make Your Guests Feel Safe

Event security at the entry, exit, and various points around the venue can help your guests feel safe. Knowing that the venue is being monitored and that unwelcome guests can’t gate-crash offers your guests peace of mind, and you can also relax and focus on other aspects of the day.

It Adds a Professional Touch

Additionally, visible safety measures like event guards and detailed event safety information on your event app show that you value your attendees and want them to enjoy your event safely. Plus, expert speakers will be more likely to accept proposals for events that show proper consideration for the safety of their events.

How to plan event safety

Assess the Venue’s Suitability

Check your venues carefully during event planning stages, especially for large-scale events. Ensure the venue can handle all capacity requirements and has proper emergency and evacuation procedures in place for the rare times that something goes wrong. This can all be done during a visit to the venue itself and speaking to a site manager to evaluate whether everything is in order. Pay special attention to: 

• Venue capacity: Make sure you have an estimate for the number of attendees appearing at your event, and choose a venue that can comfortably accommodate your guests. Overcrowding doesn’t just affect the experience of your guests; it can also be dangerous, especially during actual emergencies. Speaking of which…
• Emergency measures: On the rare occasions that they can happen, you’ll want to ensure venues have the proper measures in place during emergencies. Fire extinguisher systems, comprehensive evacuation procedures, and multiple exits are all things you should be looking out for.
• Accessibility: Ensure that the venue is easily found and accessible for your guests and that sufficient parking spaces are available. Additionally, venues should have accessibility options for persons with disabilities, including ramps, elevators, and disabled restrooms.
• Existing structure: Confirm whether existing structures and features could cause a hazard risk—for example, overhead electric power lines or restricted height access for vehicles.
• Local facilities: How close are the nearest emergency services? What are the transport links like? These details may impact the type and scale of additional provisions you might need to offer. For example, have a private bus service transport guests from the nearest subway to the venue for those arriving by public transport.

Once you’re happy with the venue’s suitability for your professional event, put together or request a site plan from the venue management for all event staff to get familiar with the venue layout.

For Outdoor Events Ensure Setup is Resistant to the Elements

Mother nature can disrupt the most solid plans, and if you’re planning an outdoor event, lightning and strong winds are the most common weather conditions that may cause danger. Poorly secured outdoor structures and AV equipment rigging can become a threat to life in extreme weather.

To avoid substantial financial and safety implications, ensure you’re satisfied that the vendor will deliver high-quality equipment and a safe and reliable setup. Smooth communication on the day is key. Agree on how communication will flow if there are weather concerns on the day.

Factor in Food and Alcohol Consumption

Snacks and drinks can be a great refresher for attendees, giving them the perfect opportunity to network and discuss ideas.  And for longer events, refreshments are almost expected and can turn a run-of-the-mill event into an amazing event. With that in mind, you’ll need to keep your ducks in order in regard to food and drink. Let’s examine a few things to look out for: 

• Ensure all food served has allergy warnings if they include ingredients like nuts, shellfish, dairy, etc. 
• All vegetarian and vegan options should be labeled clearly, and prepared on clean surfaces free from any meat contamination.
• Make sure the food preparation area is clean and proper food storage measures are in place (i.e., no raw meat next to cooked meat). 
• If you’re planning to allow alcohol at your event, ensure the venue is licensed to serve alcohol and has a valid liquor insurance policy. 

Devise an Evacuation Plan

You must include an emergency response plan in the event everyone needs to leave the building quickly. Emergency exits and routes should be clearly marked around the venue. Attendees should know what to do and how to identify exit routes.

Traditionally, evacuation information was explained at the start of an event or written and hung up around the venue. The only problem is that guests often don’t pay attention or forget halfway through an event. That’s why you need to ensure that guests have access to proper health and safety measures at all times.

That’s where an event app can come in handy. By making sure all health and safety regulations and evacuation procedures are included in the app, you can ensure that your guests will have the necessary information at their fingertips if there is an emergency. Though, you’ll still want to put up notices and markers around the event for added clarity.

Share Safety and Security Protocols with Exhibitors and Attendees

One of the easiest ways to build trust and credibility with your attendees and exhibitors is to keep them in the loop on general event information and event safety and security protocols. So, consider adding all safety information to a dedicated event app.

Having evacuation and event safety details that can be referred to at any time is a major benefit of an event app. You can detail the evacuation procedure and highlight the venue’s exit points, so they’ll know exactly what to do and where to go. A Superevent event app can be accessed using a desktop, mobile, and tablet so guests can access your up-to-date event-related information from anywhere.

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All staff should be clear on identifying risks and early warning signs of a potential emergency, handling an emergency, and implementing policy.

Evacuation plan pointers

Here are a few pointers to consider when developing the evacuation plan:

• How will an emergency be communicated without causing panic? Will you need security staff to help guide and manage the guests?
• How will the event be stopped and restarted?
• How will you liaise with and assist emergency services?

Remember: Emergency Situation Prevention is Better than the Cure

Ensure your staff is constantly kept in the loop regarding safety protocol changes and that they are fully trained on managing hazardous situations that could occur.

On the day, you and your teams should monitor risks throughout the event. Draw up an event checklist that is checked at several intervals. A recorded checklist proves that hazards are officially mitigated, and potential risks are actively managed.

Additionally, an emergency simulation to test the effectiveness of your evacuation plan should be run through. All details can be held centrally on the event app.

Ensure Medical Assistance is Available

Accidents and injuries are possible at any event, and the likelihood increases slightly if physical participation is required or if alcohol is served. Ensure you have plans in place to deal with accidents. First-aiders, medical supplies, and knowing how far away the local hospital is.  Make this information available to all staff, so incidents can be immediately resolved without panic.

Avoid Emergency Panic with a Superevent Event App

Event safety covers how safe the environment is, and ensures everyone is aware of how to act in an accident or an emergency. Managing event safety throughout your event’s life cycle is vital to hosting a first-class professional event.

All-in-one event platform Superevent allows you to create your own, custom event app. If, in case of emergency, you need to change your event to accommodate a virtual or hybrid format, you can.

Create your event on Superevent today and add an accompanying app to hold all your safety information centrally, keeping everyone in the loop and feeling at ease.