Event Safety Course

Today, events play an ever-increasing and important part of our everyday lives. As a nation, we love our events! They can encompass anything from festivals and parades to food and craft fairs to parties and celebrations to exhibitions and experiential events. This event safety course helps organisers understand and deliver on their absolute legal ‘duty of care’ to protect the health, safety and welfare of staff, volunteers, attendees and service providers attending or working at your events.

The aim of this in-house event safety course ( covering public, business, sports, charity and experiential events ) is to give delegates the skills and confidence to design, plan and deliver exciting but ‘safe’ public and business events. The courses will help you understand all the key elements of event health and safety management: event management plans and risk assessments.

Each course will be tailored to suit the types of events you run.

Interested? Would like to know more about our Event Safety Course? Enquire about this course

These ‘Event Safety Management courses are hands on, high content sessions designed to give you all the tools you need to run successful and safe public events. You will get clear, logical, easy to follow advice that you can implement straight away. You will also get reference material, templates, top tips and planning aids all backed up by your tutors 20+ years of practical event management experience.

Event Managers responsibilities are many, but one of the key roles they must undertake is to make sure they have done everything they reasonably can to ensure they deliver a safe event.

Course format: We will be covering the 'how to' of:

What are your event health and safety responsibilities
What the current legislation and approved codes of practice that relate to events
How to organise your event planning work with safety in mind
What to expect at multi-agency event planning meetings (Safety Advisory Groups)
What the content of an Event Safety Management Plan needs to be
What is the recommended practice relating to for example, Gas, Electrical, Structural, Water and Special Effects
What is for example good crowd, first aid and accident reporting procedures
How to write an event and fire risk assessment for a large public event
How to implement the Construction Design and Management Regulations
What to consider when planning your emergency evacuation procedures
How to plan your site with safety in mind
What records you should have on site e.g. accidents, near missed, missing person
How to actively monitor your event during the build up, event day and break down stages

…..how to deliver a successful and safe event

Event Safety Course programme

Welcome and course objectives:
The event planning process and event safety: Planning for safety: competence, control, cooperation, communication, safety coordinator, compensation and control
Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, Event legislation and Approved codes of practice and Guidance
Competent event planners – expectation v reality?
Event Health and Safety
Event Management (Safety) Plans
Venue evaluation: Location, suitability, available services, occupant capacity
Crowd / Audience management plan: Profile, size, management of, stewarding, safety briefings, influence of programme content
The performers, speakers: Nature, security of, access / egress
Accessible facilities: Access on / around site, facilities on site, signing
Event communications: How will you talk to each other, how will you talk to the audience, the venue, communicating procedure
Structures: Appropriate design, installation, signed of safe, g. marquees, stages etc.
Barriers / fencing: Appropriate for audience and what you want to achieve
Electrical systems: Source of power, installation, protected, wiring, certificated
Fire Safety: Means of escape, firefighting equipment, access, procedure, Gas safety
Toilets: Number, location, servicing of
Waste disposal: Bins, policy, clearance, disposal
Traffic Plan: Assessment, car parking, public transport, event signing
Medical and first aid provision: nature and size of event, procedure
Simulators and Rides: safety certificates, guidance and safe operating procedures
Visitor participation and adventurous activities: competently operated
Event control, Information and welfare points: Event and site information, meeting point, lost property, event control
Food, refreshments and drinking water: Food providers: you hire or venue contract: fit for purpose, competent (paper work), access to drinking water (water safety), due diligence procedure
Special Effects, Fireworks, Lasers
Severe weather management plan
Emergency and major incident: Evacuation plan, agreed procedure, types of emergency, your / venue plan
Lost Children / Missing persons procedure: Your event – your responsibility
Event Management Plan appendices (Records / forms) e.g. Event Programme, Accident Form staff briefing notes, Staff briefing pack, Event operations plan, sign in form etc.
Other necessary safety factors e.g. Handover Certificates, log book
Construction Design and Management Regulations
The Licensing Act 2003
Event Risk and Fire Assessments
Event production, Operational planning and managing your on-site contractors
Crisis Communication
Hosting events – helping event planners get it right – sample ‘how to’ templates, setting up event applicants to succeed: pre SAG meeting preparation, events on council land, procedure
Summary and Questions and answers

Duration: 7 hours.

Business Events: A more business event (indoors events / experiential / exhibitions) safety course is also available as well as 2 day masterclass. Please do ask for details of this course.

Who should attend?

Anybody – with some event management experience, involved in organising, advising or sanctioning outdoor events, festivals and experiential events for example Local Authority Events, Arts, Sports and Parks Officers, Venue Managers, Clubs and Associations, Events Agencies, Town and Parish Councils, Attractions, Sports Centres, companies running public events and educational establishments.

Examples of clients who have been on this course include:

Homebase / Morphe / Beyond Luxury
Iris Worldwide / TBT Marketing
University of Brighton
Welsh Historic Environment Service CADW
Rapha
Action Against Hunger / Phyllis Tuckwell Hospice Care
Chris Rees Leisure. Please see Rees Leisure case study
Kings Lynn and West Norfolk Council / Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council
High Peak and Staffordshire Moorlands District Council
Royal Victoria Country Park
Winchester BID
NEST Corporation
Milestones Museum
OC Sport
Artemis Sailing Academy

“Thank you so much for running the event health and safety course Chris . Everyone said it was incredibly useful and interesting. I think it’s opened their eyes to a lot of things so well done on putting together something so relevant”. Rapha Ltd.

“On behalf of me and my team at CADW I just wanted to say that today’s event health and safety training was superb and really useful for planning future events”. CADW

“It was a really good day – practical, thoughtful, detailed when it needed to be, appropriate to our event, interesting and more than worth the money. I would highly recommend it to anyone who is planning an event or, like me, has been involved in an event which has evolved over the years and needs to make sure what is in the heads of the organisers needs to be documented”. Southern Garden Shows

Your event management tutor

Chris Powell, the Director of The Event Expert team, has been designing, planning and delivering events for the past 20 years. He has been a local authority events manager and events director of a range of events and festivals, as well as helping a variety of organisations to deliver their events – as a freelance events manager and coach. His team specialise in providing their clients with a complete service, from event conception to event completion (and everything in between). Chris passionately believes in the value, importance and tremendous impact that great events can have in our business and private lives and as such has always been happy to help organisations and individuals deliver events they can be proud of.

As an event management trainer and coach, Chris is also employed by a range of organisations and associations to deliver a variety training courses to first time event organisers, right through to experienced event professional.

With some 500 events successfully completed and over 4000 events managers trained, Chris knows a thing or two about how to deliver successful events. His event management experience covers arts and cultural events, music events, community and major festivals, sports events, Millennium, Exhibitions, Experiential, Jubilee and 2012 events and as well as being event manager for the Basingstoke leg of The Tour De France in 1994. He is author of ‘How to organise successful events – a practical step by step guide to planning successful public events’. In short, he knows about events!